The Black Power Movement
The Black Power Movement was a distinct period in Black history from the late 1960s and early 1970s that emphasized the creation of black political and cultural institutions, self-reliance, group unity, and racial pride. As conceived, the idea and expression of Black Power included the desire to create an all-Black nation-state, the importance of Black economic power, and a demand for Black political power. This course will examine key leaders in the movements, major organizations, and the ideologies of the Black Power Movement.
The Black Athlete in America intends to use sport as a critical lens for understanding African American culture and politics from the era of slavery to the present. The course’s major premise is that sport and sport culture have played a defining role in African Americans’ quest for achievement, creative expression, civil rights, and respect. While the course’s topical and thematic content will vary, it will emphasize the history of the African American athlete, their unique struggles, as well as their contributions to sport and American society.
Students will gain an understanding of the Black Athlete in America from a historical and current perspective. Students will be able to interpret basic data tables and/or charts and connect the results to real world outcomes. Students will be asked to critically assess and offer solutions to the challenges faced by Black Athletes in America.
In many parts of the world, race, ethnicity, language, religion and gender are explicitly linked to politics. In the United States, we tend to link these identities to politics through political parties. In this seminar, we will explore the concepts of race, ethnicity, language, religion, and gender in a comparative context in order to gain a better understanding of their application in the United States. From there we will consider the relationship between race, ethnicity, language, religion, gender and politics, from the perspective of citizens, candidates, policies, and institutions. We will use scholarly texts as the foundation for the course, but we will couple those with newspaper articles and narratives to gain a first-hand perspective as needed. This course does not have a final exam, but you will be asked to work on a group project and make a presentation to the class.
The global world is increasingly an urban world: about half of humanity lives in cities and this trend is expected to continue apace. In the United States, over 80 percent of people live in metropolitan regions. Urban areas present enormously complex opportunities and challenges, from the perceived failure of urban public schools, to seemingly intractable racial inequalities, to the integration of a new wave of immigrants, to affordable housing, to efficient public transportation. On the other hand, cities have long been heralded as places of opportunity, spaces of economic development, entrepreneurship, and multiculturalism. Under what conditions are urban spaces socially just, diverse, and prosperous? Under what conditions do they become spaces contested by different interest groups? Cities are the canvas upon which many of the most pressing social issues of our day are being constructed.
This course will give students an interdisciplinary understanding and analysis of these urban social problems, by bridging the literatures on urban politics with that on urban geography. The complexity of urban issues calls for diverse perspectives in order to imagine creative responses. Approaching the urban experience from qualitative and quantitative perspectives will help students address structural as well as individual solutions to the problems urban residents face.
Depending on location, the class also aims to take advantage of our proximity the nearing urban center.
Assignments
Group Assignments
Spring 2022 Group Project. The Black Power Magazine can be found here (PDF) and here (link). This is for educational purposes only.
Spring 2021 Group Project. I let them select their own creative output and it turned out great!
Spring 2020 Podcast Assignment. This was intended to be a group assignment, but then things changed.
Spring 2021: Voter Guide for the OKC City Council Race!
Other Assignments
Fall 2020 Op-Ed Assignment (with Peer review component).
Additional Resources
I was featured on the APSA Educate website here!