AFAM 162 African American History: From Emancipation to the Present 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. Johnathan Holloway, African American History: From Emancipation to the Present (Yale University: Open Yale Courses), http://oyc.yale.edu (Accessed May 30, 2019). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

AFAM 162 African American History: From Emancipation to the Present In this lecture, Professor Holloway continues discussing African American political possibilities in the second half of the 1930s by examining the new mentality at work in black America. He focuses on the National Negro Congress, the Marian Anderson Easter Sunday Concert, and the March on Washington movement. These examples reveal the diverse strategies and organizing methods employed during this era, as the federal government learned that it could not afford to ignore black leaders the way it had since the founding of the Republic. Professor Holloway also examines the radical possibilities of this decade, as black Communists and Socialists advanced democratic visions for the country. For a brief moment, these ideas appeared to have traction. Yet as the Cold War marched on, charges of communism would decimate some African American civil rights groups. Warning: This lecture contains graphic content and/or adult language that some users may find disturbing. Johnathan Holloway, African American History: From Emancipation to the Present (Yale University: Open Yale Courses), http://oyc.yale.edu (Accessed May 30, 2019). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

AFAM 162 African American History: From Emancipation to the Present With Martin Luther King’s assassination, the collapse of SNCC, and the self-destruction of the Black Panthers, one would think that all promise had faded in regards to the possibility of black political and social advancement. But in this lecture, Professor Holloway examines moments of hope for black political organization, including Carl Stokes’s 1967 mayoral victory in Cleveland, the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969, and the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana. Yet for all of the coalition building taking place, deeper problems revolved around gender. In this lecture, Professor Holloway focuses specifically on the difficulties that black women encountered as they confronted a racist and sexist political system, exemplified by Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s concern over women-headed households in black America. When Shirley Chisholm declared her candidacy for the presidency, and when women on the ground, like Johnnie Tillman, fought for welfare rights or tried to join the modern feminist movement, they faced their “double jeopardy,” that is a second-class status rooted in both racial and gender oppression. Although the early 1970s certainly was not the first time black women began to speak up about their oppression, Professor Holloway reveals that they finally began to be heard, and they formed groups, like the National Black Feminist Organization and the Combahee River Collective, to try to change the national conversation. Warning: This lecture contains graphic content and/or adult language that some users may find disturbing. Johnathan Holloway, African American History: From Emancipation to the Present (Yale University: Open Yale Courses), http://oyc.yale.edu (Accessed May 30, 2019). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

AFAM 162 African American History: From Emancipation to the Present As the movement moved out of the South and away from a largely Christian orientation, it became clear that people were prepared to enlarge the struggle so that it became linked to international issues including the war in Vietnam, the spread of capitalism, and the exploitation of developing countries. Yet for every moment of great promise, there was a moment of great confusion and despair. In this lecture, Professor Holloway traces the competing lines of activism, change, struggle, frustration, and political brinksmanship that occurred in the late sixties. He focuses on SNCC’s trajectory, Martin Luther King’s poverty campaign in Chicago, his views on Vietnam, the riots that followed his 1968 assassination, and the Poor People’s Campaign. The remainder of the lecture focuses on the national and international events of 1968 that contributed to this feeling of unrest sweeping the country. As the movement grew beyond its traditional boundaries, the moral and psychological hold it had on America began to lose its strength. As Professor Holloway explains, by the end of the 1960s, it seemed that Americans cared little for the larger and more complicated truths pointed to by black radicals’ political, social, economic, and cultural critique. Warning: This lecture contains graphic content and/or adult language that some users may find disturbing. Johnathan Holloway, African American History: From Emancipation to the Present (Yale University: Open Yale Courses), http://oyc.yale.edu (Accessed May 30, 2019). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA