BLST 256 Race Women: African American Women's Protest Culture

This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of African American women's protest culture. From iconic figures like Sojourner Truth and Ida B. Wells, to trailblazers like Maria Stewart and Shirley Chisholm, to countless anonymous enslaved women and labor activists, to the cofounders of #BlackLivesMatter, women of African descent have been instrumental to campaigns for freedom and justice in the United States. Using speeches, memoirs, interviews, biographies and scholarly monographs, this course will interrogate this legacy. By moving African American women from the margins to the center of our analysis of African American protest culture, we will gain a better understanding of black women's varied roles as agents of change in the United States.