African American Studies 101 is a multidisciplinary course that embodies the empirical study of history, politics, culture, religion and other areas within the social sciences. The essential focus is on the life experiences of peoples of African descent in the United States and globally. The course integrates the works of scholars of ancient African civilization, New World enslavement of African Americans, economics, literature, arts, race, women studies, government and sport studies. Furthermore, through the interdisciplinary lifeline of African American Studies, this course will give special attention to black athleticism.

This unit introduces instructional moves for how teachers can use their classroom libraries for deep critical thinking on issues of race, racism, and inequality. This unit uses a middle school level novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Taylor, 1976), but the content objectives, teaching strategies, and activities are applicable to any novel study. Building upon how classroom libraries function as resources for thought provoking literature and discussions from the 2019 Yale Teachers Institute Seminar Teaching about Race and Racism Across the Disciplines, this unit primarily explores the historical context of the novel primarily using the language of music to analyze characters. Students will develop interpretations about how these conditions influenced characters’ traits, roles, or conflicts and construct a central thesis on a character of their choice. It incorporates pedagogical tools and resources expanding curricular strategies and provides a framework for student discussion beyond the text on issues about race, racism, and forms of inequality.

Teaching multicultural literature is happily a big part of the modern conversation about English classes. However, a question that is less often asked is, what is the root of the need for it? Many Americans shuffle about their lives oblivious to the structural racism that permeates much of our society and culture. Those who choose “not to see color” or race are proliferating opportunities for a dominant culture to continue and even expand, thereby limiting opportunities for others. Through utilization of two important concepts – Critical Race Theory and Colorblind Racial Ideology – we can improve humanities instruction by scrutinizing the much bigger, and often ignored, picture of modern racism. Combining this with instruction on the art of Afrofuturism – specifically the work of Octavia Bulter, Sun Ra, and Jean Michel Basquiat among others – we can also fill a similar gap in the modern American imagination.

This is an upper level college survey course with the purpose to provide an introductory overview of the black experience in Africa and its global Diaspora, using a comparative perspective. The course proceeds chronologically from the ancient Nile River Valley civilizations to the present, and is divided into four units of study: (a) Ancient Africa: From Antiquity to the Medieval Period; (b) The Era of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery in the Americas; (c) Emancipation and Abolition in the Nineteenth Century; and (d) The Age of Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: Colonialism/Anti-Colonialism; Imperialism/Anti-Imperialism; Pan-Africanism and Independence; Black Power and Civil Rights. Topics to be examined include ancient state building; slavery; resistance movements; the role of women, religion and other cultural formations in the modern African Diaspora; and a comparison of the development of modern, organized political movements and intellectual currents in black communities worldwide with some emphasis on the historical context for contemporary issues such as globalization and reparations.

The project asks students to explore the connection between racial discrimination and racial disparities in U.S. prison populations using credible sources of information including qualitative and statistical methods. The resource was developed by a faculty member and librarian in order to promote using library resources in the classroom. It was designed to encourage information literacy among students.  

Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience (Second Edition) gives instructors, students, and general readers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of African Americans’ cultural and political history, economic development, artistic expressiveness, and religious and philosophical worldviews in a critical framework. It offers sound interdisciplinary analysis of selected historical and contemporary issues surrounding the origins and manifestations of White supremacy in the United States. By placing race at the center of the work, the book offers significant lessons for understanding the institutional marginalization of Blacks in contemporary America and their historical resistance and perseverance.

Expand students’ understanding of U.S. History with culturally inclusive resources that bring the major people, events, and trends in history alive, while integrating often untold stories into the curriculum. Curated clips of trusted PBS programs and a diverse array of other media and interactive resources develop students’ historical thinking skills while broadening their appreciation of history’s multiple perspectives and complexity.