Lecture 5. Uplift, Accommodation, and Assimilation

American History: From Emancipation to the Present (AFAM 162)

In the closing decades of the 1800s, African Americans witnessed the end of Reconstruction, the Redemption of the white South, and increased threats to their political, economic, physical, and psychological well-being. Historians often refer to this era as the "nadir," the lowest point, in the post-Emancipation black experience. But, as Professor Holloway explains in this lecture, the oppressive realities of black life did not silence the most dedicated black activists. During this time, a new generation of black political and intellectual leaders, including Alexander Crummell, Anna Julia Cooper, and W. E. B. Du Bois, dedicated themselves to "uplifting" blacks politically, economically, and morally. As Professor Holloway reveals, uplift meant different things to different people, acting as both a subversive and conservative ideology.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Alexander Crummell
09:44 - Chapter 2. The Talented Tenth
15:09 - Chapter 3. The Uplift Ideology

Complete course materials are available at the Yale Online website: online.yale.edu


This course was recorded in Spring 2010.