Lecture 8. Migration and Urbanization (continued)

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

In this lecture, Professor Holloway expands our understanding of "The Great Migration" by looking at what happens when African Americans settled in Northern and Midwestern cities. He examines the 1917 East St. Louis race riot, the 1919 Chicago race riot, and the NAACP's Silent Protest Parade from New York City's Fifth Avenue to Harlem. The second portion of the lecture is on African American soldiers' experiences abroad during World War, their rising expectations for citizenship rights when they return, the new militancy that they espoused, and the racial backlash against them by whites. Black soldiers, returning to the U.S. after risking their lives in war, were lynched in uniform. Responding to this backlash, Professor Holloway shows how civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois and poet Claude McKay foreshadowed the new political climate in which African Americans would assert their rights.

00:00 - Chapter 1. W.E.B. Du Bois Editorial: "Close Ranks"
06:43 - Chapter 2. East St. Louis in 1917
11:45 - Chapter 3. Chicago in 1919
16:53 - Chapter 4. The Start of World War I and Du Bois' Call to Close Ranks
23:47 - Chapter 5. W.E.B. Du Bois Editorial: "Returning Soldiers"
30:12 - Chapter 6. Claude McKay Poem: If We Must Die

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


This course was recorded in Spring 2010.