This course analyzes writing from 1845 to the present, surveying
African-American history and literature beginning with the writings of
Frederick Douglass and the Harlem Renaissance writers that originate from
Washington, DC’s Howard University (Zora Hurston and Alain Locke). From
this historical foundation, the course will move to examine issues of race
and caste from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ memoire Between the World and Me, a text
that focuses on the death of Coates’ Howard classmate at the hands of
police. In addition to the selected texts, the course will use the location
of Washington, DC as a resource, visiting sites related to course content,
including the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Howard University,
the National Museum of African-American Culture and History and the Martin
Luther King Memorial Site.