“The Making of African Americans in a White America”

1. “The Making of African Americans in a White America” Stephanie Grant; Vanessa Broughton

2. Overview of Chapter 7:pp174-193 • Chattel slavery • Africans and their descendants, as property • Institutional and individual racism has its origin in the institution of slavery • Racial formation: • “…equating Black Africans with slavery served to reinforce blackness as an inferior race” (pp.178) • Institution of slavery protected by the U.S. Constitution • Governed by slave codes

3. Slavery’s Aftermath: Segregation • “The institutionalizaton of segregation gave White supremacy its ultimate authority” (pp 180) • Plessy v. Ferguson: • “state laws requiring separate but equal accommodations for Blacks were a reasonable use of state government power” (pp 181) • Jim crow; White primary • Restrictive covenant-property cannot be rented or sold to certain minority groups; deemed unconstitutional in 1948 by the Supreme Court (Smith v. Allwright) (pp 184)

4. Talented tenth vs. Politics of Accommodation

5. Civil Rights Movement • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas • Supreme Court ruled “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” (pp 186) • Bus boycott • Civil disobedience-right to disobey the law under certain circumstances • Rosa Parks • M.L. King-series of marches demanding fair employment, desegregated schools, release of 3,000 people arrested for participating in the marches (pp 187)

6. Black Power • Black power, as Schaefer notes is a reaction to White violence against Blacks. (pp 190). • Stokley Carmichael-reject the goal of assimilation into White middle-class society (pp 190). • M.L.K.-saw Black Power as a “cry of disappointment” but acknowledged its positive meaning. • Malcolm X (3 min. video): • http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=izy6BiCV3Nw