WESTERNKENTUCKYUNIVERSITY

PHIL/RELS 202, Racial JusticeDr.Anderson

Spring 2007CH 319A, 745-3136

SYLLABUS

COURSE DESCRIPTION

An examination of (1) the major perspectives that came together to form the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s; (2) the accomplishments and failures of that movement; and (3) the issues of racial justice that remain today.

GENERAL EDUCATION GOALS MET BY COURSE

1.An appreciation for the complexity and diversity of the world’s cultures;

2. A historical perspective and an understanding of the connections between past and

present;

3.The capacity for objectivity and an appreciation for values which govern moral and

ethical choice; and

4.The capacity for critical thought, the ability to acquire and organize large amounts of

knowledge, and proficiency in reading, writing, and thinking.

NOTE FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

In compliance with university policy, students with disabilities who require accommodations (academic adjustments and/or auxiliary aids or services) for this course must contact the Office for Student Disability Services in DUC A-200 of the StudentSuccessCenter in DowningUniversityCenter.

Please DO NOT request accommodations directly from the professor or instructor without a letter of accommodation from the Office for Student Disability Services.

ORGANIZATION AND OBJECTIVES

This course is organized into three sections that correspond to the three forms of the color line (slavery, Jim Crow, and the metropolitan color line today) that have determined the specific forms of actual racial injustice and potential racial justice in different periods of American history. A fourth section examines one proposal to change the rules that govern the development of our metropolitan areas and might thereby increase racial justice. In each case, we will be concerned to understand and to think critically and constructively about a specific form of racial injustice and the religious and moral principles that were or are required to move toward racial justice. While the emphasis is on racial justice between African-Americans and whites, other ethnic groups will be examined in that context.

REQUIRED READINGS

Charles Johnson, Patricia Smith, and the WGBH Series Research Team, Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998.

Clayborne Carson et al, The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954-1990. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1993.

David Rusk, Inside Game, Outside Game: Winning Strategies for Saving Urban America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999.

OTHER RESOURCES

Alan B. Anderson and George W. Pickering, Confronting the Color Line: The Broken Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.

Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery. Boston: WGBH, 1998. Video.

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. Berkeley, CA: Quest Productions, 2002. Video.

Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years. Boston: Blackside Productions, 1995. Video.

“Why Can’t We Live Together?” NBC Dateline, 6/27/97. Video.

Race: The Power of Illusion, California Newsreel, 2003. Video.

Crash, a Lions Gate film directed by Paul Haggis.

THE COLOR LINE

Both now and in the past it appears that the institution of the color line has

been both the cause and the outcome of the following set of dynamic dimensions:

1. Beginning or continuing or increasing separation of the races;

2. Beginning or continuing or increasing subordination of black people in

their access to

a. basic life needs,

b. high-quality public institutions, and

c. structures of political freedom and power;

3. Beginning or continuing or increasing denial of ordinary status to

nonwhites within the social order and within the culture;

4. Beginning or continuing or increasing abasement and fear of

nonwhite life by the dominant white society;

5. Beginning or continuing or increasing legitimacy for, expectation of,

and recourse to violence in the making and keeping of the color line

and as a consequence of it; and

6. Beginning or continuing or increasing rationalization of these

dimensions, their consequences, and their claim to a future.

OPPOSING THE COLOR LINE

1. Efforts to oppose this color line have always involved undertaking particular

courses of action, called strategies.

. 2. These strategies opposing the color line pursue and/or embody one or

more fairly general goals, called principles.

(Adapted from Alan B. Anderson and George W. Pickering, CONFRONTING THE COLOR LINE: THE BROKEN PROMISE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN CHICAGO [Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1986], p. 368.)

ASSIGNMENTS

  1. Readings, as assigned in the course schedule.
  1. Analyses of the color line, as assigned in the course schedule. These are not standard discursive papers in paragraph format with an introduction and conclusion. Instead, each analysis should have eight sections, six corresponding to the six dimensions of the color line and one each on the strategies and principles which were or are required to move toward racial justice in terms of the form of the color line then under examination in the course--slavery, Jim Crow, or metropolitan. Each section should consist of a number of bullets drawn from your reading and the videos. You should have at least onebullet under each heading for your short analysis and at least threebullets under each heading for long analyses—in both cases, counting the subtopics under “subordination” as headings with one or three bullets each. Each bullet should best illustrate that one dimension of the color line (or a strategy or principle used in opposition to the color line) during that period. Be sure to explain the connection of your illustration to the dimension if that is not self-evident.

2A.One shortanalysis of the color line, as indicated by parentheses( )in the course schedule. It will receive up to ten points depending on its quality: + = 10 points, P = 8 points, -- = 6 points, F = 4 points.

2B. Fourlong analysesof the color line as indicated by bold type in the course schedule. Four

long analyses(including your Rusk paper which has a slightly different format) are assigned.

Each will receive up to 24 points.

  1. Feedback papers,as indicated by brackets[ ]in the course schedule. Whereas the analyses are objective examinations of our readings, the feedback papers are your opportunity to express your own point of view about the texts, discussions, and topics of this course. Three feedback papers are assigned. Each should be at least one typewritten page. In order to maximize your freedom of expression, each paper meeting the requirements of length and timeliness will receive an automatic ten points indicated by a grade of “C”.

4.For the purpose of submitting both your one short analysis and three feedbacks in this course, you will be assigned to one of four groups, 1-4. On the day on which your number is indicated in parentheses, at the beginning of class you will submit a short analysis of the color line as found in the readings assigned for that day; on the days ion which your number is in brackets, submit a feedback. Due dates for your long analyses are indicated in the course schedule in bold type.

5.Final examination as scheduled in the Schedule Bulletin. This is a comprehensive final examination, the questions for which are posted on my home page.

GRADES

There is a total of 160 points in this course, as follows:

The short analysis counts up to 10 points.

Each of the three feedback papers counts an automatic 10 points, a total of 30 points.

Each of the four long analyses and the comprehensive final count 24 points, a total of 120

points.

Experience suggests that normally a student who scores ninety percent or better of the above points will receive an A; eighty percent, a B; etc.

Late papers will receive half credit if they are received during the section of the course following

the section for which they were originally due. They will receive no credit after that. The last day to submit any paper is May 4.

Browsings. If you wish to examine current events related to the color line, a number of newspaper reports are organized by topic under this course title at

Some of the materials posted here are articles from the New York Times. In order to access these materials, you will be asked to subscribe to the online edition of the New York Times. Current materials are available there at no charge. Earlier materials are available for a modest fee.

You can find information about the contemporary color line in Bowling Green/Warren County at

the papers produced for my research course,PHIL/RELS 401, Social Ethics Research, for which this course prepares you and which you are all encouraged to take.

ASSISTANCE

I will be in my office for a few minutes before and after our class meetings and much of the time on MWF. Please call on me for any help I can provide. If just before or after class is not convenient for you, please email me atto ask a question or make an appointment.

1