Image: Building More Stately Mansions. By Jacob Lawrence. 1944. Oil on Canvas, Fisk University Libraries, Nashville TN.
Announcements
Our first quiz will be on Monday October 3 at the beginning of class. It will cover sections of chapters 2-3. Topics will be: Cheikh Anta Diop’s significance and argument for Kemet (ch.2); Kemet’s importance in Africana Studies (ch. 3); decline/conquest of African societies (ch. 3); major contributions of later west African civilizations (ch. 3); difficulties/challenges of studying early/ancient African civilizations (ch. 3);
Format: 10 questions total; 15-20 minutes. Combination of multiple choice/short answer based on above topics
Need to miss class? You can join in via Zoom if you can access wifi! Send me an email at least an hour before class starts to let me know and then join via my personal link
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The 13th annual Black Panther Party Film Festival is at Harlem’s Maysles Cinema the next 2 weekends. There are usually appearances by several former BPP and Young Lords members. Details here.
Lehman’s Office of Prestigious Awards is hosting an event with a tour of enslaved Africans’ quarters @ Van Cortlandt Park and spoken word presentation on Friday September 30. Reserve your spot/details here
Quick highlights from week 5 classes
- Reviewed Chapter 3 from Introduction to Black Studies
- See the Lecture Notes page for a PDF of the slide deck presented in class
- Musical selection: Pharaoh Sanders’s “Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt.”
What to do for Week 6–Monday October 3:
- Read: the first half of Chapter 4 (Africans in America) in Maulana Karenga’s Introduction to Black Studies (Sections 4.1-4.9 only; pages 105-147: up to “Black Science and Invention”–approx 42 pages)
- Pay special attention to the subsections on The Holocaust of Enslavement, System of Enslavement, Reconstruction, Booker T. Washington, WEB DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells
- Pay special attention to Critical Thinking questions 1 and 3 on p. 185, especially the comparisons between the people named above
- Review the sections of chapters 2-3 for the quiz (see specific topics in the announcement above)
- Watch the embedded video on the beginning of Reconstruction in the Civil War (approx. 8 minutes)
ATTEND class on Monday
General reading strategies:
- Underline/highlight key points in the text
- Use the reading questions at the back of chapters to focus you: read those first
- Try to understand the definitions of the key concepts listed at the back of the chapter
- Make a note to ask the instructor to clarify anything you don’t understand
- Note key issues, approaches, and dilemmas/challenges Dr. Karenga outlines
Key points to understand
- How does Dr. Karenga think we should approach the study/understanding of history?
- How does the defeat of Reconstruction shape the lives of Black people in the US?
- What forms of resistance do Black people in the US engage in?
- What organizations do Black people form for advancement and resistance?
- What differences and similarities do you see between DuBois, Washington, Garvey, and Wells-Barnett?
What’s Next?
Chapter 4, second half in Introduction to Black Studies: “Black History: Africans in America”
Introduction to Africana Studies 