Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow (The New Pres 2010) has drawn attention to the ways that American institutions and social systems continue to produce racial inequalities. This course critically examines Black life in Jim Crow America, from the halls of
federal power, to the every-day practices of racial subjugation and resistance. It examines crosscutting themes: how racial segregation structured the legal, social, economic, and political sectors of
American life; the role of national, state, and local policy mandating racial segregation; African American modes of resistance; vigilante and state racial violence. This course will also endeavor to make connections between the consequences of anti-Black racism and the social life of other American minoritized populations. Throughout the course, as an exercise in historical Interpretation and periodization, students will consider the question: Is this current moment “Jim Crow 2.0.?”