Description
America’s struggles with race remain a central element of today’s political and cultural polarization. This class explores the origins and history of racism in the United States and how its many forms have shaped the present. Topics include the racial attitudes of several presidents and other political leaders, the creation and expansion of slavery in a nation that functioned as a slave society and economy for 250 years, and the undermining of Reconstruction that enabled a century of Jim Crow supported by Northern opinion, courts, and business interests. The course concludes with an examination of how persistent white supremacy produced the nation’s deep segregation and the roles local, state, and federal governments played in creating and sustaining it.
