AAAS 390J Foundations of Black Intellectual History

A Companion to African-American Studies is an exciting and comprehensive re-appraisal of the history and future of African American studies. Contains original essays by expert contributors in the field of African-American Studies.

A Companion to the Harlem Renaissance presents a comprehensive collection of original essays that address the literature and culture of the Harlem Renaissance from the end of World War I to the middle of the 1930s.

Explores the history of African American intellectualism and reveals the efforts of black intellectuals in the ongoing struggle against racism, showing how they have responded to Jim Crow segregation, violence against black Americans, and the more subtle racism of the postintegration age. Banner-Haley asserts that African American intellectuals-including academicians, social critics, activists, and writers-serve to generate debate, policy, and change, acting as a moral force to persuade Americans to acknowledge their history of slavery and racism, become more inclusive and accepting of humanity, and take responsibility for social justice. (Summon, 2017)

On the Corner revisits the volatile moment when African American intellectuals were thrust into the spotlight as indigenous interpreters of black urban life to white America, and examines how three figures--Kenneth B. Clark, Amiri Baraka, and Romare Bearden--wrestled with the opportunities and dilemmas their heightened public statures entailed. Daniel Matlin locates in the 1960s a new dynamic that has continued to shape African American intellectual practice to the present day, as black urban communities became the chief objects of black intellectuals' perceived social obligations (Syndetics, 2017)

A study of the Black Power narratives of Angela Davis, Assata Shakur (a.k.a. JoAnne Chesimard), and Elaine Brown as instruments for radical social change.

Pauli Murray (1910-1985) was a poet, lawyer, activist, and priest, as well as a significant figure in the civil rights and women's movements. Throughout her careers and activism, Murray espoused faith in an American democracy that is partially present and yet to come. In the 1940s Murray was in the vanguard of black activists to use nonviolent direct action. A decade before the Montgomery bus boycott, Murray organized sit-ins of segregated restaurants in Washington DC and was arrested for sitting in the front section of a bus in Virginia. Murray pioneered the category Jane Crow to describe discrimination she experienced as a result of racism and sexism. She used Jane Crow in the 1960s to expand equal protection provisions for African American women. A co-founder of the National Organization of Women, Murray insisted on the interrelation of all human rights. (Syndetics, 2017)

In the last three decades, a brand of black conservatism espoused by a controversial group of African American intellectuals has become a fixture in the nation's political landscape, its proponents having shaped policy debates over some of the most pressing matters that confront contemporary American society. (Syndetics, 2017)