Undergraduate Course: The American Civil Rights Movement (HIST10155)
Course Outline
School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
Summary | The Civil Rights Movement constituted one of the key American social movements of the twentieth century and influenced the development of other social movements both within and outside the United States. Since the 1980s, there has been a stream of research monographs about civil rights, and that trend has accelerated in recent years, with the result that conflicting schools of interpretation have emerged. The course seeks to provide students with a good understanding of the Civil Rights Movement's origins, development, composition, and long-term impact. |
Course description |
The course examines key themes in the history of the Civil Rights Movement and its legacy from its origins until the 1980s. Key issues include the tracing and dating the movement's origins; the question of continuity and discontinuity in the civil rights struggle; the role of the federal government, women, religion, and organised labour; the Cold War and the civil rights movement; the utility of nonviolence and violence in the civil rights movement; the role of Martin Luther King, Jr.; the disintegration of the national civil rights coalition; the civil rights movement in the North and West; the post-Selma southern civil rights movement; and the movement's longevity and long-term impact.
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Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, command of the body of knowledge considered in the course;
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, an ability to read, analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship;
- Demonstrate, by way of class discussion, an ability to understand, evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source material;
- Demonstrate, by way of coursework and examination as required, the ability to develop and sustain scholarly arguments in written form, by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence;
- Demonstrate independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others.
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Reading List
Mark Newman, The Civil Rights Movement (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004).
Raymond D'Angelo (ed.), The American Civil Rights Movement (New York: McGraw-Hill/Duskin, 2001).
Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000 (New York: Penguin Books, 2002)
Robert Cook, Sweet Land of Liberty? The African-American Struggle for Civil Rights in the Twentieth Century (London: Longman, 1998)
Charles W. Eagles, "Toward New Histories of the Civil Rights Era", Journal of Southern History 66 (November 2000): 815-48
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Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
Keywords | American Civil Rights Movement |
Contacts
Course organiser | Dr Mark Newman
Tel: (0131 6)50 3759
Email: m.newman@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Alexandra Adam
Tel: (0131 6)50 3767
Email: alex.adam@ed.ac.uk |
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