Crash Course Black American History
By Crash Course
Crash Course Black American HistoryNov 16, 2021
Black Lives Matter: Crash Course Black American History #51
In the final episode of Crash Course Black American History, Clint Smith teaches you about the Black Lives Matter movement. We'll discuss some of the major events that contributed to the rise of BLM, including the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and George Floyd, and the way that social media was utilized by Black organizers to garner support for the movement.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES:
- Barbara Ransby, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century (Berkeley, C.A.: University of California Press 2018).
- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016).
Barack Obama: Crash Course Black American History #50
Barack Obama was the first Black man elected President of the United States in 2008. In this episode, Clint Smith will explore the early life, political career, presidential campaign, and legislative milestones of Barack Obama.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
VIDEO SOURCES
- https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-obama-university-years/fact-check-obamas-university-years-have-been-documented-idUSKBN26J2L0
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/barack-obama/
- https://www-washingtonpost-com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/powerpost/you-lie-moment-interrupting-a-presidential-speech-reflects-the-slide-to-disunity/2019/02/04/post/you-lie-moment-interrupting-a-presidential-speech-reflects-the-slide-to-disunity/2019/02/04/5732cdca-28bb-11e9-984d-9b8fba003e81_story.html
- https://www.theroot.com/racist-michelle-obama-cartoon-is-just-another-example-o-1790855333
- https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/16/17980820/trump-obama-2016-race-racism-class-economy-2018-midterm
- Julian Zelizer, The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2018).
- Michael Eric Dyson, The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America (Boston: Mariner Books, 2016).
- Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (New York: Broadway Books, 2004).
Hurricane Katrina: Crash Course Black American History #49
In which Clint Smith details his experience as a teenager in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005. The widespread devastation of Hurricane Katrina was a result of faulty levees and a fumbled response by FEMA, and it hit Black residents the hardest. Today, we'll take a closer look at the structural racism that made this disaster so catastrophic.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES
Modern Racism and Modern Discrimination: The Effects of Race, Racial Attitudes, and Context on Simulated Hiring Decisions - John B. McConahay
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/levee/
https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/why-hurricane-katrina-was-not-a-natural-disaster
https://neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/288
Jed Horne, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City (New York: Random House, 2006).
D’Ann R. Penner and Keith C. Ferdinand, Overcoming Katrina: African American Voices from the Crescent City and Beyond (London, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Jeremy Levitt and Matthew Whitaker, Hurricane Katrina: America's Unnatural Disaster (Lincoln, N.E.: University of Nebraska Press, 2009).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54237/
Toni Morrison: Crash Course Black American History #48
Today, Clint Smith will teach you about the legendary writer Toni Morrison. Morrison is best known for her novels which chronicle the experiences of Black Americans throughout history. She was the first Black American Woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: New Press, 2010).
Nellie Y. McKay, ed. Critical Essays on Toni Morrison (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1988).
Philip Page, Dangerous Freedom: Fusion and Fragmentation in Toni Morrison’s Novels (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995).
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. Directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. June 21, 2019.
https://www.archives.gov/news/articles/toni-morrison-death-2019
Rap and Hip Hop: Crash Course Black American History #47
Music is an integral part of Black American culture. Today, Clint Smith will teach you about rap & hip hop, and the cultural significance of artists including Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan, Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, N.W.A., Queen Latifah, and Missy Elliot. And he just might break dance while doing it.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES:
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna19680493
Janell Hobson and R. Dianne Bartlow eds., Representin’: Women, Hip-Hop, and Popular Music (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008).
Brittney Cooper, Susana M. Morris, and Robin M. Boylorn eds., The Crunk Feminist Collection (New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2017).
Robin D. G. Kelley, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York: Free Press, 1994).
James Haskins, One Nation Under a Groove: Rap Music and its Roots (New York: Hyperion Books, 2000).
Adam Woog, From Ragtime to Hip-Hop: A Century of Black American Music (Detroit: Lucent Books, 2007).
Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas: Crash Course Black American History #46
Today, Clint will teach you about the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas. During the screening process, Anita Hill came forward alleging that Thomas had sexually harassed her when the two of them worked together at the Department of Education. The public response to Hill's allegations was tense and split the Black American community along gendered lines. Thomas' nomination was ultimately confirmed by a margin of 52-48, and he became the second Black American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
Sources:
Harris, Duchess. Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Trump. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
Harris-Perry, Melissa V. Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.
https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1040911313/anita-hill-belonging-sexual-harassment-conversation
https://www.history.com/news/anita-hill-confirmation-hearings-impact
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/23/650138049/a-timeline-of-clarence-thomas-anita-hill-controversy-as-kavanaugh-to-face-accuse
LA Uprisings: Crash Course Black American History #45
In this episode of Black American History, Clint Smith teaches you about the complicated history of racial tension in South Central Los Angeles. You'll learn about the Watts Rebellion of 1965, a 6-day uprising in response to police brutality that shaped the landscape of racial tension in southern California for years to come. This tension culminated in two major events -- the murder of Latasha Harlins and the beating of Rodney King in 1991 -- which incited the L.A. Uprisings of 1992.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
Sources:
Oxford Language Dictionary
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/261/204/
Lynn M. Itagaki, Civil Racism: The 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion and the Crisis of Racial Burnout (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016).
Robert Gooding-Williams, ed., Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising (New York & London: Routledge, 1993).
Brenda Stevenson, The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, and the Origins of the LA Riots (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
Jesse Jackson: Crash Course Black American History #44
Today, Clint Smith is teaching you about the Civil Rights activist and Icon, Reverend Jesse Jackson. Jackson began his career working with Martin Luther King in the 1960s, and in the 1970s he founded PUSH, an organization to advance the cause of urban, poor, and predominantly Black communities. Jackson ran for president of the United States in 1984 and 1988 and founded another organization, the Rainbow Coalition. Jackson has worked for decades for the cause of Civil Rights and his long career has served as a bridge from the work of the 1960s to the movement for Black lives today.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
Sources:
Marshall Frady, Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson (New York: Random House, 1996).
Ernest R. House, Jesse Jackson and the Politics of Charisma: The Rise and Fall of the PUSH/Excel Program (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988). "
Shirley Chisolm: Crash Course Black American History #43
In 1972, Shirley Chisholm ran for president of the United States of America as a Democrat. She didn't win, but this was not the beginning or the end of her career in politics. She held a congressional seat in the New York delegation for decades, and Shirley was a pioneer on many fronts. Today we'll learn about her life, her career, and her legacy.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES
Shirley Chisholm, Unbought and Unbossed (Boston: Houghton Mifflin.,1970).
Marcy Kaptur, Women of Congress: A Twentiethcentury Odyssey (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1996).
Jill S. Pollack, Shirley Chisholm (New York: F. Watts, 1994).
Barbara Winslow, Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change ( UK: Routledge, 2013).
War on Drugs: Crash Course Black American History #42
The War on Drugs is a decades-long United States policy intended to curb illegal drug use and trafficking. Long story short: it has not worked to reduce drug use or trade, and the policy has had devastating effects, especially on communities of color. Today we'll talk about the history of the War on Drugs, what it was trying to accomplish, and how it contributed to the US as a carceral state and the nation that imprisons more of its population than any country in the world.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: New Press, 2010).
Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016).
Khalil Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).
Beth Ritchie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation (New York: New York University Press, 2012).
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0309-crw-morhaim-drug-war-20210308-3o7ulj6d3jelfmkxv5ftz6r3uu-story.html
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2018/06/27/452819/ending-war-drugs-numbers/
Carly Hayden Foster, The Welfare Queen: Race, Gender, Class, and Public Opinion, 15 Race, Gender & Class 162–179 (2008).
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-moynihan-report-an-annotated-edition/404632/
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/1994-crime-bill-and-beyond-how-federal-funding-shapes-criminal-justice
Marsha P Johnson and the Stonewall Rebellion: Crash Course Black American History #41
Today we’re learning about Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall rebellion. Serving as a pivotal moment in the modern Gay Rights Movement, Stonewall began on June 28th, 1969, and lasted six days in New York City’s Greenwich Village. And even though the rebellion lasted less than a week, the reverberations lasted for generations. Out of Stonewall emerged the establishment of one of the first gay pride parades, increased activism and organizing on behalf of gay people, and greater attention paid to the rights and needs of LGBTQ+ communities.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
Sources:
David Carter, Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution (New York: St. Martin’s, 2004).
Martin Duberman, Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising that Changed America (New York City: Plume, 2019).
Women and the Black Power Movement: Crash Course Black American History #40
Women have been a powerful (and largely underappreciated) force in the movement for Black equality in the United States. The Black Power Movement is no exception to that trend. Today, we'll learn about how women contributed to several organizations, including the Black Panthers. We'll also explore how the Black Arts Movement served as a way for women to empower Black People through creative output.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
VIDEO SOURCES
Cheryl Clarke, “After Mecca”: Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004).
Ashley D. Farmer, Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2018).
Peniel E. Joseph ed., The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era (New York: Routledge, 2006).
Robyn C. Spencer, The Revolution has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016).
https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/03/26/8-black-panther-party-programs-that-were-more-empowering-than-federal-government-programs/
https://spartacus-educational.com/USACnewtonF.htm
The Black Panther Party: Crash Course Black American History #39
Many organizations have made it their mission to expand the rights of Black Americans. The NAACP and the Urban League are examples of influential organizations with long histories. But a long history or extensive membership isn't always necessary to have an impact. Today, we'll learn about the Black Panthers. They were a relatively small, relatively short-lived political party that had an outsized impact on US history.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
Sources:
Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006).
Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, With the assistance of Alex Haley (New York: Ballantine, 1992).
Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (New York: Viking Press, 2011).
Ilyasah Shabazz, Growing up X: A Memoir by the Mother of Malcolm X (Penguin, 2003).
Robyn Spencer, The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland (Duke University Press, 2016).
Malcolm X and the Black Power Movement: Crash Course Black American History #38
In the late 1950s and the early to mid-1960s, a Muslim minister named Malcolm X rose to prominence in the United States during the struggle for Civil Rights. Malcolm X was a member of and spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, and he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment. His views differed significantly from a lot of the well-known Civil Rights activists of the day, and his views evolved during his ministry. Today, we’ll learn about Malcolm X’s origins, his work with the Nation of Islam, his break from that organization, and his eventual assassination.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES
Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting ’ Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006).
Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, With the assistance of Alex Haley (New York: Ballantine, 1992).
Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (New York: Viking Press, 2011).
Ilyasah Shabazz, Growing up X: A Memoir by the Mother of Malcolm X (Penguin, 2003).
Student Civil Rights Activism: Crash Course Black American History #37
A wide range of Americans contributed to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Students and young people were prominent groups of activists within the movement. Today, we'll learn about the Little Rock Nine, the Greensboro Four, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Freedom Riders. These groups undertook protests and worked to integrate schools and public accommodations by riding segregated buses, demanding service at lunch counters, and even simply attending school.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES
Jon N. Hale, The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).
Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981).
Howard Zinn, SNCC: The New Abolitionists (Cambridge: South End Press, 2002).
Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
Karen Anderson, Little Rock: Race and Resistance at Central High School (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2013).
https://www.history.com/news/freedom-riders-route-civil-rights-map
Martin Luther King, Jr: Crash Course Black American History #36
Today we're going to learn about perhaps the best-known leader in the Civil Rights Era, Martin Luther King, Jr. From his rise to notoriety during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, his leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the March on Washington in 1963, his work toward the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-1960s, and his assassination in 1968, Dr. King is very broadly known. But maybe he isn't that well understood. Like many extremely famous people, Martin Luther King can sometimes be drawn as a bit of a flat character, and his ideas can be reduced to platitudes. Today we'll try to give you a fuller picture of the man and leader he was.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES:
Rustin, “Montgomery Diary,” Liberation (April 1956): 7–10.
D’Emilio, Lost Prophet, 2003.
King to Edward P. Gotlieb, 18 March 1960, in Papers 5:390–391.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Crash Course Black American History #35
For 381 days in 1955 and 1956, the Black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama boycotted the city bus system. Black riders had been mistreated on public transit all over the country for decades, and the national coverage of the Montgomery Bus Boycott intensified the public conversation about Civil Rights. By the time the Supreme Court decided that discrimination on buses was a violation of the 14th amendment, boycott leaders like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr were household names and the Civil Rights movement was on the national stage.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
Sources:
Jo Ann Robinson, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987).
Jeanne TheoHarris, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. (Beacon Press, 2015)
Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross, A Black Women’s History of the United States (Boston: Beacon Press, 2020).
Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom; the Montgomery Story. New York: Harper & Row, 1958.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/montgomery-bus-boycott.htm
Emmet Till: Crash Course Black American History #34
In 1955, a 14-year-old boy named Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi. The white men who murdered him killed him for being Black. Emmett Till's mother chose to have an open-casket funeral, and show the world what had been done to her son. Despite the killers being acquitted in court, the story of Emmett Till and the jarring images of his funeral shocked the nation and were a vital catalyst in turning the civil rights movement into a nationwide phenomenon.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES
Timothy B. Tyson, The Blood of Emmett Till (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018).
Charles Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (University of California Press, 2007).
Onwuachi-Willig, Angela. “The Trauma of the Routine: Lessons on Cultural Trauma from the Emmett Till Verdict.” Sociological Theory 34, no. 4 (December 2016): 335–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275116679864.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chicago-Defender
https://nmaahc.si.edu/blog-post/emmett-Tills-death-inspired-movement
smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/emmett-Tills-casket-goes-to-the-smithsonian-144696940/#:~:text=Till's%20murder%20became%20a%20rallying,African%20American%20History%20and%20Culture.
https://www.nypl.org/collections/articles-databases/jet-magazine
https://www.jetmag.com/news/jet-65th-anniversary/
https://wamu.org/story/18/10/30/let-the-people-see-it-took-courage-to-keep-emmett-Tills-memory-alive/
School Segregation and Brown v Board: Crash Course Black American History #33
In 1955, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that public schools should be racially integrated, and overturned the separate but equal doctrine established in Plessy v Ferguson decades before. This was made possible by a concerted legal effort spearheaded by the NAACP. Beginning in the 1930s, the NAACP's legal defense fund (led by Thurgood Marshall at the time of the Brown Decision) pursued a strategy of bringing cases to court that would expand the civil rights of Black Americans. This multi-decade effort culminated in the Brown decision, with many other victories along the way.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES
Rachel Devlin, A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools. New York: Basic Books, 2018.
Justin Driver, The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind. New York: Pantheon Books, 2018.
Charles Ogletree, Jr. All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown V. Board of Education. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004.
James T. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thurgood-Marshall
https://www.law.virginia.edu/static/uvalawyer/html/alumni/uvalawyer/f04/klarman.htm
Klarman, Michael J. "How Brown Changed Race Relations: The Backlash Thesis." The Journal of American History 81, no. 1 (1994): 81-118. Accessed July 29, 2021. doi:10.2307/2080994.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/26/597154953/linda-brown-who-was-at-center-of-brown-v-board-of-education-dies
https://www.nps.gov/people/oliver-brown.htm
Randolph, Rustin, and the Origins of the March on Washington: Crash Course Black American History #32
The March on Washington of 1963 is an enduring and widely-known event of the Civil Rights movement. But the March has its roots in an earlier planned March on Washington that didn't happen. In 1941, labor leader A. Philip Randolph began planning a gathering aimed at many of the same goals as the eventual 1963 March. Today we'll learn about Randolph, Bayard Rustin, the march they planned, and the movement it inspired. We'll also talk about how the dream of the 1941 march was ultimately deferred for more than 20 years.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
Sources
Cornelius Bynum, A. Phillip Randolph and the Struggle for Civil Rights (University of Illinois Press, 2010).
John D'Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (Free Press, 2003)"
World War II: Crash Course Black American History #31
Black Americans have long fought in America's wars, very often fighting for a country that doesn't always fight for them. Today we'll learn about the experience of Black Americans in World War II. We'll look at the ways Black men and women served in the armed services during the war, and look at life on the homefront.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
Sources:
Chateauvart, Melinda, Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (1998)
Todd Moye, Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
Sandra M. Bolzenius, Glory in Their Spirit: How Four Black Women Took On the Army During World War II (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2018).
Yvonne Latty, Voices of African American Veterans, from World War II to the War in Iraq (New York: Harper-Collins, 2004) 9-11.
Zora Neale Hurston: Crash Course Black American History #30
The Harlem Renaissance produced many remarkable artists, writers, and thinkers. Today we'll talk about one of the most interesting minds of the time, Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston was an anthropologist by training and spent much of her career studying and documenting the lives of Black people in the southern US. She later went on to write several remarkable novels, including Their Eyes Were Watching God, which we discussed in episode 301 of Crash Course Literature.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now!
SOURCES
Harriet A. Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Penguin Random House, 2008).
Alice Walker ~ Alice Walker Shines Light on Zora Neale Hurston | American Masters | PBS. 2014. American Masters. January 30, 2014. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/alice-walker-film-excerpt-walker-puts-zora-Neale-hurston-back-in-spotlight/2869/.
Burke, Marion C. 2012. Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Sweat’ and the Black Female Voice: The Perspective of the African-American Woman. Inquiries Journal 4 (05). http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/646/zora-Neale-hurstons-sweat-and-the-black-female-voice-the-perspective-of-the-african-american-woman.
Hemenway, Robert E. n.d. UI Press | Robert E. Hemenway | Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography. Accessed June 23, 2021. https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/75wfe2mn9780252008078.html.
John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Zora Neale Hurston. n.d. Accessed June 23, 2021. https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/zora-Neale-hurston/.
Zora Neale Hurston | Biography, Books, Short Stories, & Facts. n.d. Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed June 23, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zora-Neale-Hurston.
Salamone, Frank A. His Eyes Were Watching Her: Papa Franz Boas, Zora Neale Hurston, and Anthropology. Anthropos 109, no. 1 (2014): 217-24. Accessed July 4, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43861696.
https://www.c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/zora_hurston.html
Propaganda and aesthetics: the literary politics of Afro-American magazines in the twentieth century. Johnson, Abby Arthur. / Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1979"
The Tuskegee Experiment: Crash Course Black American History #29
From 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention operated an extremely unethical medical experiment on the effects of outcomes of untreated syphilis. Hundreds of poor Black men from Macon County, Alabama were enrolled in the study, and treatment for syphilis was withheld from them. Even after antibiotics became available that could cure syphilis, these men were left to suffer from the disease and expose their families to syphilis as well. Today we're learning about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, a shameful example of racism in American medicine, and a tragedy that still impacts how many Black Americans think about healthcare today.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/books/how-the-word-is-passed-a-reckoning-with-the-history-of-slavery-across-america/9780316492935
VIDEO SOURCES
- Susan Reverby, Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
- Susan Reverby ed., Tuskegee’s Truth’s: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
- Harriet A. Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Penguin Random House, 2008).
- Nia Johnson. Expanding Accountability: Using the Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress Claim to Compensate Black American Families Who Remained Unheard in Medical Crisis. Hastings Law Journal. (Forthcoming, Summer 2021).
- Brandt, Allan M. 1978. "Racism and research: The case of the Tuskegee Syphilis study." The Hastings Center Report 8(6): 21-29. Tuskegee's Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (edited by Susan M. Reverby)
- https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/23/974059870/stop-blaming-tuskegee-critics-say-its-not-an-excuse-for-current-medical-racism
The Great Depression: Crash Course Black American History #28
During economic crises, marginalized communities are more susceptible to the harms and struggle that come with these downturns. Today we'll talk about the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 until the US entered World War II. This depression profoundly changed the US economy, and we'll focus on how the depression impacted Black Americans.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
VIDEO SOURCES
● Cheryl Lynn Greenberg, To Ask for an Equal Chance: African Americans in the Great Depression (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2009).
● Keisha N. Blain, Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).
● Robin D.G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communist During the Great Depression (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990).
● Erik McDuffie, Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011). Aaron Douglass - http://www.aarondouglasartfair.com/history/
Political Thought in the Harlem Renaissance: Crash Course Black American History #27
When we think about the Harlem Renaissance, the arts come immediately to mind. But new political theories were also blossoming during this time. We'v talked about Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, but today we'll get into some other thinkers with different ideas about civil rights, fair labor practices, and Black nationalism.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Sources
Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998).
Keisha N. Blain, Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). Cheryl Wall, Women of the Harlem Renaissance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).
Adam Ewing, Age of Garvey: How a Jamaican Activist Created a Mass Movement and Changed Global Black Politics (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014).
Deborah Gray White; Mia Bay; Waldo E. Martin Jr, Freedom on My Mind: A history of African Americans, with Documents 3rd Edition (Macmillan, 2021).
Arts and Letters of the Harlem Renaissance: Crash Course Black American History #26
The Harlem Renaissance was one of the richest, most vibrant, and most culturally generative artistic periods in American history and the work that emerged from that period continues to shape the landscape of American arts and letters today. In this episode, we’re going to explore some of the writers, artists, and musicians who turned Harlem into a world-renowned hub of art and culture, and delve into the factors that brought them all together in the first place.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
The Red Summer of 1919: Crash Course Black American History #25
During the Red Summer of 1919 violence against Black people broke out across the United States. Black people and neighborhoods were attacked in Washington DC, Chicago, Tulsa, and many other cities and towns across the country. Post-war tension over jobs and civil rights and populations shifts like the Great Migration led white Americans to lash out.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
The Great Migration: Crash Course Black American History #24
In 1910, 90% of Black Americans lived in the South. By 1940, around 1.5 million Black Americans had left their homes, and 77% lived in the South. By 1970, 52% of Black Americans remained in the South. People moved away for many reasons, including increased opportunity in the more industrial North and West. They sought a relatively safer life away from the lynchings and violence that were concentrated in the South. This Great Migration shaped 20th century America in countless ways, but we're going to try to count some of them in this video.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/georgia-voting-restrictions-bill-03-25-21/index.html
- Davarian Baldwin, Chicago’s New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Urban Black Life (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007).
- Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (New York: Random House, 2010).
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/sharecropping
- The Origins of Southern Sharecropping, Edward Royce, 1993.
The Black Women's Club Movement: Crash Course Black American History #23
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black American Women were struggling with both racism and misogyny as they fought for their rights. Black Women formed clubs and organized to make sure civil and political rights were extended to ALL Black people, not just Black men. These clubs were grass-roots organizations of middle-class women who were often only one generation removed from slavery. Today we'll learn about the origins of these clubs and some of the notable women who drove this movement.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois: Crash Course Black American History #22
As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, Black Americans were searching for ways to think about how and where they would fit into a post-slavery society. There were several competing schools of thought. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois were essential to some of the most prominent ideas in this arena.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901; New York: Signet Classics, 2010).
- W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903; New York: Dover, 1994).
- David Levering Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 (New York: Henry Holt, 1994).
- Henry Louis Gates Jr., “W. E. B. Du Bois and ‘The Talented Tenth,’” in The Future of the Race, eds.
- Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel West (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 115-132.
- W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” in The Negro Problem, ed. Booker T. Washington (New York: James Pott & Company, 1903).
Plessy v Ferguson and Segregation: Crash Course Black American History #21
The United States' Constitution is not a very detailed document. It lays out the basic structure of government, and the details are filled in with legislation, and clarified and reinforced by court decisions. One of the most consequential Supreme Court decisions was the 1896 case of Plessy v Ferguson, which set the precedent that segregating people by race was acceptable. This meant that every public accommodation had the right to refuse to serve Black Americans, and that even public institutions like schools could be segregated. While the decision did stipulate that the segregated accommodations be "separate but equal," the equal part of that equation was often left out.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/obituaries/homer-plessy-overlooked-black-history-month.html
- http://projects.leadr.msu.edu/makingmodernus/exhibits/show/plessy-v--ferguson-1896/louisiana-separate-car-act--18
- Re-Writing Race in Early American New Orleans, Nathalie Dessens - https://journals.openedition.org/miranda/2296
- James C. Cobb, “Segregating the New South: The Origins and Legacy of Plessy v. Ferguson,” 12 Georgia State University Law Review 1017 (2012).
- Keith Medley, We As Freeman: Plessy V. Ferguson. Gretna, La. : Pelican Pub. Co., 2012.
Ida B. Wells: Crash Course Black American History #20
In this video, we'll learn about the life story of journalist, orator, teacher, suffragette, and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Ida B. Wells made her name writing and speaking and working to improve the lives of Black Americans. She wrote for a number of outlets, and covered a wide array of issues.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Mia Bay, To Tell the Truth Freely: the Life of Ida B. Wells. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010.
- Paula Giddings, Ida: A Sword Among Lions. New York: Amistad, 2009.
Reconstruction: Crash Course Black American History #19
At the end of the Civil War, the United States was still a very divided place. 700,000 people had died in a bitter fight over slavery. Reconstruction was the political process meant to bring the country back together. It was also the mechanism by which the country would extend the rights of citizenship to Black Americans, particularly those who had been recently emancipated. Today we'll learn about the Reconstruction amendments, the Freedman's Bureau, and the election of 1876, among other things.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 , 3rd. ed.. New York: The Free Press, 1992.
- Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863- 1877. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow . New York: Penguin Books, 2019.
- Hilary Green, Educational Reconstruction: African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865-1890. New York: Fordham University Press, 2016.
- Martha S. Jones, All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
Black Americans in the Civil War: Crash Course Black American History #18
The American Civil War is one of the deadliest in US History, and let's just get this out of the way: it was about slavery. In the more than 150 years since the end of the Civil War, there have been many attempts to litigate the reasons for the war, but the reality is that the root of the division was slavery. As such, Black Americans experience in that war is particularly interesting. Today, we'll learn about how Black people fought and participated in the war, the Emancipation Proclamation, and lots more.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Deborah Gray White, Mia Bay, and Waldo E. Martin, Freedom on My Mind : A History of African Americans, with Documents Second edition. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2017).
- Kevin Levin, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth (UNC Press, 2019).
- Ira Berlin et. al., Slaves No More: Three Essays on Emancipation and the Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
Frederick Douglass: Crash Course Black American History #17
Clint Smith teaches you about one of the most famous writers, orators, and advocates of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born in slavery, escaped to the North, and became one of the most influential people of his time. Douglass wrote about the experience of slavery in a way that captured the attention of people throughout the world, and his work and influence helped directly in the struggle to abolish slavery and achieve emancipation.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- David Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018).
- Christopher James Bonner, Remaking The Republic: Black Politics and the Creation of American Citizenship (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020).
- Kellie Carter Jackson, Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).
The Dred Scott Decision: Crash Course Black American History #16
In this video, we'll learn about the US Supreme Court decision in Scott vs Sanford, handed down in 1857. The case ultimately rejected the idea that Black people could be citizens of the United States, and this helped entrench the institution of slavery, denied a host of rights to a huge number of people (both enslaved and free), and increased the tensions between abolitionists and enslavers.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- https://www.britannica.com/event/Missouri-CompromiseDon E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics (Oxford University Press, 1978). https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/914465793/ice-a-whistleblower-and-forced-sterilization
- https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/immigration-detention-and-coerced-sterilization-history-tragically-repeats-itself/The Historical Construction of Race and Citizenship in the United States
- https://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpAuxPages)/8A0AE7EACD11F278C1256DD6004860EA/$file/Fredrick.pdf
- THIND V. UNITED STATES (1923)
The Underground Railroad: Crash Course Black American History #15
Escape was one of the many ways that enslaved people resisted their captivity in the system of American slavery. The Underground Railroad was not literally a railroad. It was a network of people, routes, and safe houses that helped people escape from slavery in the south to freedom in the north. Today we'll talk about the origins of the Underground Railroad, the systems that helped people escape, and the people who helped along the route.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
Maria Stewart: Crash Course Black American History #14
Clint Smith teaches you about Maria Stewart, a Black woman who lived in the 19th century, and was a pioneering abolitionist, writer, and orator. When studying history, we often focus on the big picture and world-changing events. Today we'll focus on how one woman flouted the social conventions of her time and place and became a notable public speaker, thinker, and writer.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- http://www.davidwalkermemorial.org/david-walker
- https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/
- https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality-more-two-decades-later
- Kimberle Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics 31.
- Maria W. Stewart, America’s First Black Woman Political Writer: Essays and Speeches, edited and introduced by Marilyn Richardson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987)
- Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: HarperCollins, 1984).
- https://www.nps.gov/people/maria-w-stewart.htm
The Rise of Cotton: Crash Course Black American History #13
Cotton is everywhere in our modern world, and it became a hugely important crop in the 19th century United States. Cotton was a huge economic boon to the US, and much of that wealth was built on the backs of enslaved laborers. And cotton didn't only benefit the states where slavery was legal. While cotton was mainly grown in the southern states, much of that cotton was processed in northern textile mills. Today we'll learn about the growth of the cotton industry, who benefitted from it, and who was left out.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. New York: Basic Books, 2014.
- Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Penguin Books, 2014.
- Eugene Dattel, Cotton and Race in the Making of America: The Human Costs of Economic Power. Lanham, MD: Ivan R Dee, 2009.
- Adam Rothman, Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.
- https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/cotton-gin-and-eli-whitney
The Louisiana Rebellion of 1811: Crash Course Black American History #12
Uprisings of enslaved people in the United States were not uncommon, and they had a big influence on how the institution of slavery evolved. One uprising that gets less attention, historically, is the German Coast Uprising that took place in Louisiana in 1811. A group of enslaved people rebelled, and the after effects would be felt in Louisiana and throughout the nation for decades.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/12/haiti-was-first-nation-permanently-ban-slavery/
- Philippe R. Girard, The Slaves Who Defeated Napolean, (Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press, 2011), 343
- Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention,” Causes of the Civil War website, last modified June 8, 2017, accessed October 23, 2020
- Rasmussen, American Uprising
Women's Experience Under Slavery: Crash Course Black American History #11
Slavery was inherently cruel and unjust, and it was cruel and unjust to different people in different ways. Today, Clint Smith teaches you about the experience of enslaved women, and how their experience of slavery was different than men. Women had a unique vantage point to understand slavery, and were particularly vulnerable to some terrible abuses under the institution.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/9780316492935
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Samuel H. Williamson & Louis Cain, "Measuring Slavery in 2016 dollars," MeasuringWorth, 2020.
- "A Prelude to War: The 1850s." African American Lives: The Struggle for Freedom, by Clayborne Carson et al., Pearson Longman, 2005, pp. 221-222.
- Modern History Sourcebook: Sojourner Truth: "Ain't I a Woman?", December 1851 Quoted in Deborah Gray White, Ar' n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South, rev. ed. (New York: Norton, 1999), 102.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793: Crash Course Black American History #10
One of the ways that the US Constitution baked the institution of slavery into the very core of the new United States was through the fugitive slave clause. The clause required that people who escaped slavery be returned to their enslavers. In parts of the US that didn't want slavery, the clause sometimes went unenforced. Today we'll learn about how Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 to enforce that clause, how enslavers throughout the country used that rule, and the long-term effects of this law.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/978031649...
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Somerset v. Stewart, 98 E.R. 499 (K.B. 1772).
- Karen Arnold-Burger, Fugitive Justice: Slavery and the Law in Pre-Civil War America, 46 Ct. Rev. 116 (2009).
- Louise Weinberg, Methodological Interventions and the Slavery Cases; or, Night-Thoughts of a Legal Realist Symposium: The Silver Anniversary of the Second Conflicts Restatement, 56 Md. L. Rev. 1316–1370 (1997).
- H. Robert Baker, The Fugitive Slave Clause and the Antebellum Constitution, 30 Law & Hist. Rev. 1133–1174 (2012).
- Allen Johnson, Constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Acts, 31 Yale L.J. 161 (1921).
- John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Knopf, 1967).
- Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge (New York: Atria Books, 2017)
- https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/habeas_corpus
- https://www.nps.gov/articles/independence-oneyjudge.htm
- https://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/slaves/oneyinterview.php
- https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/ona-judge#_ftn11
The US Constitution, 3/5, and the Slave Trade Clause: Crash Course Black American History #9
The drafting and adoption of the United States Constitution recalled many of the high ideals of liberty and freedom that were espoused during the Revolutionary War. But the compromises that were made to get all of the new states on board to ratify the Constitution undermined those ideals in a lot of ways. Today we'll learn about the 3/5 Clause and the Fugitive Slave clause, which entrenched the institution of slavery in the fundamental law of the new United States.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/978031649...
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- David Waldstreicher, From Revolution to Ratification (New York: Hill & Wang, 2009).
- John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans, 3rd ed. (New York: Knopf, 1967).
- Interpretation: The Slave Trade Clause | The National Constitution Center, , https://constitutioncenter.org/intera... (last visited Nov 13, 2020).
- Article 1 Section 9 Clause 1 | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress, , https://constitution.congress.gov/bro... (last visited Nov 13, 2020).
The American Revolution: Crash Course Black American History #8
When we talk about the American Revolution and Revolutionary War, the discussion often involves lofty ideals like liberty, and freedom, and justice. The Declaration of Independence even opens with the idea that "all men are created equal." But it turns out, the war wasn't being fought on behalf of "all men." The war was mainly about freedom for white colonists, and liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness didn't apply to the Black people living in the British colonies. During the war, Black people took up arms on both sides of the conflict, and today we're going to learn how and why they participated.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/978031649...
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Sylvia R. Frey, Water From the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).
- Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, debtors, slaves, and the making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1998).
- Cassandra Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006).
- Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961).
Phillis Wheatley: Crash Course Black American History #7
Despite all the hardship of being a Black person in Colonial America, some Black people were able to defy the harsh conditions and create art. Today we're learning about a teenager who attained literacy and wrote poems that reached a large slice of the population and helped changed the ways that white Colonists thought about Black people.
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Catherine Adams and Elizabeth H. Pleck, Love of Freedom: Black Women in Colonial and Revolutionary New England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
- Vincent Carretta, Phillis Wheatley: Biography of a Genius in Bondage (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011).
- Woody Holton, Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era: A Brief History with Documents (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009).
- Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1969).
- Jessica M. Parr, Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi Press, 2015).
- THE BAD-ASS LIBRARIANS OF TIMBUKTU, (2017), https://www.simonandschuster.com/book... .
- ORAL EPICS FROM AFRICA :VIBRANT VOICES FROM A VAST CONTINENT /, (c1997), http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.321060....
- Claude Sumner, The Light and the Shadow: Zera Yacob and Walda Heywat: Two Ethiopian Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century 172–182 (2005).
- On the Death of George Whitefield by Phillis Wheatley Analysis & Poem, , POEM OF QUOTES: READ, WRITE, LEARN , https://www.poemofquotes.com/phillisw... .
- Waddill v. Chamberlayne, 1735 Va. LEXIS 3 (Apr. 1, 1735).
The Stono Rebellion: Crash Course Black American History #6
Enslaved people resisted their condition in a range of different ways. Oftentimes those ways were small and personal. There were also times when that resistance took on larger, more dramatic forms, like with slave uprisings and rebellions. Today, we'll learn about the Stono Rebellion, which was an uprising led by enslaved people in South Carolina in 1784. We'll also talk about ways that enslaved people resisted in general and methods like enforced illiteracy used by those who sought to keep people in bondage.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/978031649...
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcours
SOURCES
- Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998.
- Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968, reprinted in 2012)
- Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1974).
The Germantown Petition Against Slavery: Crash Course Black American History #5
In 1688, in Pennsylvania, a group of four men created the Germantown Petition, which made the case that slavery was immoral, and that it was inconsistent with Christian beliefs in general, and Quaker beliefs specifically. While the petition wasn't ultimately adopted by the Quaker hierarchy, examining the document and its authors' goals gives us a better insight into slavery in the colonies and some of the earliest organized attempts at abolition.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed is available now! https://bookshop.org/a/3859/978031649...
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Ira Berlin, “Slavery, Freedom, and Philadelphia’s Struggle for Brotherly Love, 1685 to 1861” in Richard Newman and James Mueller, eds., Antislavery and Abolition Philadelphia: Emancipation and the Long Struggle for Racial Justice in the City of Brotherly Love (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011).
- Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998).
- Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation, and Human Rights (New York and London: Verso Books, 2015).
- Katherine Gerbner, “Antislavery in Print: The Germantown Protest, the ‘Exhortation,’ and the Seventeenth-Century Quaker Debate on Slavery,” Early American Studies, vol. 9, no.3 (Fall 2011): 552-75.
- Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.
- Richard Newman and James Mueller, eds, Antislavery and Abolition Philadelphia: Emancipation and the Long Struggle for Racial Justice in the City of Brotherly Love. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011.
Slave Codes: Crash Course Black American History #4
Slave codes were a method of protecting the investment of white enslavers in the Colonies by restricting the lives of enslaved people in almost every imaginable way. The codes restricted enslaved people’s ability to move around, or engage in commerce that could make them financially independent - they restricted the very opportunities that would allow them to live with even relative freedom. Today, we'll learn about how Colonies put laws in place to restrict the movement and freedoms of both enslaved people and free Black people alike.
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
Check out Clint's book: https://bookshop.org/books/how-the-wo...
SOURCES
- Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).
- John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans (New York: Knopf, 1967).
- Claude M. Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Reprint Edition ed. 2011).
- Black Codes and Slave Codes, Colonial, , Oxford African American Studies Center , http://oxfordaasc.com/view/10.1093/ac....
- Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: W.W. Norton, 1974).
- Jennifer L. Morgan, Partus sequitur ventrem: Law, Race, and Reproduction in Colonial Slavery, 22 Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 1–17 (2018).
Elizabeth Key: Crash Course Black American History #3
The legal system can seem like a complicated tangle of arcane rules and loopholes, and it can sometimes seem like it is designed to confuse. But it is possible, with the right application, for the legal system to rectify injustices. Today we're going to tell you about one instance of this, the story of Elizabeth Key, who in 1665 won her freedom in a court in Virginia.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed: https://bookshop.org/books/how-the-wo...
Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up at http://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
SOURCES
- Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1998).
- TAUNYA LOVELL BANKS, Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key’s Freedom Suit - Subjecthood and Racialized Identity in Seventeenth Century Colonial Virginia (2008), https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=672121 (last visited Aug 20, 2020).
- Leslie Harris, In the Shadow of Slavery of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1629-1863 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
- Jennifer L. Morgan, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
- Anthony Parent Jr., Foul Means: The Formation of a Slave Society in Virginia, 1660-1740 (Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
Slavery in the American Colonies: Crash Course Black American History #2
In the 17th century, as the British colonies in the Americas were getting established in places like Jamestown, VA, the system of chattel slavery was also developing. Today, we'll learn about the role that slavery played in early American economy, how slavery became a legally accepted practice in the first place, and how it contributed to the colony’s early economic success. We'll look at the experiences of Anthony Johnson and John Punch to see how legal precedents that greatly influenced the development of slavery were set.
Clint's book, How the Word is Passed: https://bookshop.org/a/3859/978031649...
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SOURCES
- Sources and References "Africans in Early North America, 1619-1726." African American Lives: the Struggle for Freedom, by Clayborne Carson et al., Pearson Longman, 2005
- Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1975)
- Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998).
- Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross, A Black Women’s History of the United States (Boston: Beacon Press, 2020).
- Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross, Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)
- Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968)