AFAM 162: African American History: From Emancipation to the Present with Prof. Jonathan Holloway

Lecture 5 - Uplift, Accommodation, and Assimilation [January 25, 2010]

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Overview:

In the closing decades of the 1800s, African Americans witnessed the end of Reconstruction, the Redemption of the white South, and increased threats to their political, economic, physical, and psychological well-being. Historians often refer to this era as the "nadir," the lowest point, in the post-Emancipation black experience. But, as Professor Holloway explains in this lecture, the oppressive realities of black life did not silence the most dedicated black activists. During this time, a new generation of black political and intellectual leaders, including Alexander Crummell, Anna Julia Cooper, and W. E. B. Du Bois, dedicated themselves to "uplifting" blacks politically, economically, and morally. As Professor Holloway reveals, uplift meant different things to different people, acting as both a subversive and conservative ideology.

Warning: This lecture contains graphic content and/or adult language that some users may find disturbing.

Reading assignment:

Film: Ethnic Notions

Marable, Let Nobody Turn Us Around, pp. 150-216

Brown, “Womanist Consciousness”