Crash Course Black American History (2021)
Over the course of 50 episodes, we're going to learn about Black American History. Clint Smith will to teach you about the experience of Black people in America, from the arrival of the first enslaved Black people who arrived at Jamestown all the way to the Black Lives Matter movement.
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Crash Course Black American History
2021Seasons & Episode
Today we're learning about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which brought millions of captive Africans to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries, with the largest number of people trafficked between 1700 and 1808. We'll look at the ships and crews that brought enslaved people across the ocean via what was known as the Middle Passage and explore the horrific conditions that these captives endured.
In 1688, in Pennsylvania, a group of four men created the Germantown Petition, which made the case that slavery was immoral, and that it was inconsistent with Christian beliefs in general, and Quaker beliefs specifically. While the petition wasn't ultimately adopted by the Quaker hierarchy, examining the document and its authors' goals gives us a better insight into slavery in the colonies and some of the earliest organized attempts at abolition.
The drafting and adoption of the United States Constitution recalled many of the high ideals of liberty and freedom that were espoused during the Revolutionary War. But the compromises that were made to get all of the new states on board to ratify the Constitution undermined those ideals in a lot of ways. Today we'll learn about the 3/5 Clause and the Fugitive Slave clause, which entrenched the institution of slavery in the fundamental law of the new United States.
Slavery was inherently cruel and unjust, and it was cruel and unjust to different people in different ways. Today, Clint Smith teaches you about the experience of enslaved women, and how their experience of slavery was different than men. Women had a unique vantage point to understand slavery, and were particularly vulnerable to some terrible abuses under the institution.
Uprisings of enslaved people in the United States were not uncommon, and they had a big influence on how the institution of slavery evolved. One uprising that gets less attention, historically, is the German Coast Uprising that took place in Louisiana in 1811. A group of enslaved people rebelled, and the after effects would be felt in Louisiana and throughout the nation for decades.
In this video, we'll learn about the US Supreme Court decision in Scott vs Sanford, handed down in 1857. The case ultimately rejected the idea that Black people could be citizens of the United States, and this helped entrench the institution of slavery, denied a host of rights to a huge number of people (both enslaved and free), and increased the tensions between abolitionists and enslavers.
The American Civil War is one of the deadliest in US History, and let's just get this out of the way: it was about slavery. In the more than 150 years since the end of the Civil War, there have been many attempts to litigate the reasons for the war, but the reality is that the root of the division was slavery. As such, Black Americans experience in that war is particularly interesting. Today, we'll learn about how Black people fought and participated in the war, the Emancipation Proclamation, and lots more.
In this video, we'll learn about the life story of journalist, orator, teacher, suffragette, and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Ida B. Wells made her name writing and speaking and working to improve the lives of Black Americans. She wrote for a number of outlets, and covered a wide array of issues.
As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, Black Americans were searching for ways to think about how and where they would fit into a post-slavery society. There were several competing schools of thought. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois were essential to some of the most prominent ideas in this arena.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Black American Women were struggling with both racism and misogyny as they fought for their rights. Black Women formed clubs and organized to make sure civil and political rights were extended to ALL Black people, not just Black men. These clubs were grass-roots organizations of middle-class women who were often only one generation removed from slavery. Today we'll learn about the origins of these clubs and some of the notable women who drove this movement.
During the Red Summer of 1919 violence against Black people broke out across the United States. Black people and neighborhoods were attacked in Washington DC, Chicago, Tulsa, and many other cities and towns across the country. Post-war tension over jobs and civil rights and populations shifts like the Great Migration led white Americans to lash out.
The Harlem Renaissance was one of the richest, most vibrant, and most culturally generative artistic periods in American history and the work that emerged from that period continues to shape the landscape of American arts and letters today. In this episode, we’re going to explore some of the writers, artists, and musicians who turned Harlem into a world-renowned hub of art and culture, and delve into the factors that brought them all together in the first place.
When we think about the Harlem Renaissance, the arts come immediately to mind. But new political theories were also blossoming during this time. We'v talked about Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, but today we'll get into some other thinkers with different ideas about civil rights, fair labor practices, and Black nationalism.
During economic crises, marginalized communities are more susceptible to the harms and struggle that come with these downturns. Today we'll talk about the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 until the US entered World War II. This depression profoundly changed the US economy, and we'll focus on how the depression impacted Black Americans.
Black Americans have long fought in America's wars, very often fighting for a country that doesn't always fight for them. Today we'll learn about the experience of Black Americans in World War II. We'll look at the ways Black men and women served in the armed services during the war, and look at life on the homefront.
The March on Washington of 1963 is an enduring and widely-known event of the Civil Rights movement. But the March has its roots in an earlier planned March on Washington that didn't happen. In 1941, labor leader A. Philip Randolph began planning a gathering aimed at many of the same goals as the eventual 1963 March. Today we'll learn about Randolph, Bayard Rustin, the march they planned, and the movement it inspired. We'll also talk about how the dream of the 1941 march was ultimately deferred for more than 20 years.
Women have been a powerful (and largely underappreciated) force in the movement for Black equality in the United States. The Black Power Movement is no exception to that trend. Today, we'll learn about how women contributed to several organizations, including the Black Panthers. We'll also explore how the Black Arts Movement served as a way for women to empower Black People through creative output.
Today we’re learning about Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall rebellion. Serving as a pivotal moment in the modern Gay Rights Movement, Stonewall began on June 28th, 1969, and lasted six days in New York City’s Greenwich Village. And even though the rebellion lasted less than a week, the reverberations lasted for generations. Out of Stonewall emerged the establishment of one of the first gay pride parades, increased activism and organizing on behalf of gay people, and greater attention paid to the rights and needs of LGBTQ+ communities.
Music is an integral part of Black American culture. Today, Clint Smith will teach you about rap & hip hop, and the cultural significance of artists including Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan, the Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, N.W.A., Queen Latifah, and Missy Elliott. And he just might break dance while doing it.
Today, Clint Smith will teach you about the legendary writer Toni Morrison. Morrison is best known for her novels which chronicle the experiences of Black Americans throughout history. She was the first Black American Woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.
In this episode, Clint Smith details his experience as a teenager in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005. The widespread devastation of Hurricane Katrina was a result of faulty levees and a fumbled response by FEMA, and it hit Black residents the hardest. Today, we'll take a closer look at the structural racism that made this disaster so catastrophic.
Barack Obama was the first Black man elected President in the United States in 2008. In this episode, Clint Smith will explore the early life, political career, presidential campaign, and legislative milestones of Barack Obama.
In the final episode of Crash Course Black American History, Clint Smith teaches you about the Black Lives Matter movement. We'll discuss some of the major events that contributed to the rise of BLM, including the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and George Floyd, and the way that social media was utilized by Black organizers to gain support for the movement.
Over the course of 50 episodes, we're going to learn about Black American History. Clint Smith will to teach you about the experience of Black people in America, from the arrival of the first enslaved Black people who arrived at Jamestown all the way to the Black Lives Matter movement.
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