AFAM 101: The Black Experience

Course Overview

Welcome to AFAM 101, The Black Experience. The two primary objectives of this course are to provide:

• a clear understanding of the origins of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the subsequent development of African-American political thought, social and economic experience, and cultural expression.
• the opportunity to develop the critical-thinking skills necessary to understand our American past.

Students in the course are expected to draw upon material presented in the class in discussing issues of current and historical interest.

The course is designed to follow a historical chronology of events and trends experienced by Africans and African Americans during 1441-1861. During this period, slavery was a major social and cultural force throughout the New World, and thus it is the focus of this course. We will also discuss the significance of the category of "freeness" in relation to "Africaness."  One of the most important issues we will explore is how slavery became associated with "blackness" in the Americas and how current definitions of race are still tied to this aspect of "western" history. Note well the use of quotation marks above--all of the terms in quotes are highly laden with multiple meanings, which we will discuss throughout the course. To provide one example, the category of "free" black in the United States had many meanings throughout American history, but it rarely, if ever, connoted the same type of "freedom" that was enjoyed by many European Americans.

Many of the issues we will discuss are controversial both in terms of history and politics; please feel free to share your opinions in an open and nonconfrontational manner.

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Required Texts and Materials

Three texts and a video series are required for this course:

• African Americans in the Colonial Era: From African Origins through the American Revolution, second edition, 2000, by Donald R. Wright

The Wright reading is an excellent synthesis of the best current scholarship on the experiences of African Americans in the slave trade, early and late colonial America, and the revolutionary periods.

• African Americans in the Early Republic, 1789-1831, 1993, by Donald R. Wright

  This book, together with the one above, will form the basic "textbook" for the course.

• Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South, revised edition, 1999, by Deborah Gray White

This important study of enslaved American women examines labor, resistance, sexuality, culture, and family. White argues that women experienced slavery differently than men as she explores the stereotypes and realities of female bondage.

• Africans in America: America's Journey through Slavery, four-part PBS video series

  In this course we will also use a four-part PBS video series, Africans in America: America's Journey through Slavery. The lessons in the Course Schedule will alert you about what and when to view in this series. Students should quickly find that they will want to carefully read the instructions and overview for each viewing and to take notes as they watch the video; this video series is an excellent political history of the African American experience between 1450 and 1865.

  We will also work extensively with the Web site that was developed to support this video series. The Web site Africans in America has an excellent brief text, identified as the “narrative,” as well as a fascinating collection of primary source documents in the “resource bank.” The site is divided into four parts, corresponding with each of the 120-minute videos: “The Terrible Transformation, 1450-1750,” “Revolution, 1750-1805,” “Brotherly Love, 1791-1831,” and “Judgment Day, 1831-1865.”

You can order these texts from the Higher Grounds bookstore at the Friday Center either online or by using the book order form. You will need to order the videos or DVDs from another source such as Amazon.com or at PBS.org (VHS | DVD).

NOTE: The course also requires students to read portions of four books written by Africans and African Americans who were slaves, thus providing an "insiders" perspective to the visceral experience of slavery and examples of the political writing of enslaved Americans (these were all written to help bring about an end to slavery). These narratives can be found online at the sites below. If students prefer a hard copy, or book, most of these are readily available in libraries and book stores. The Jacobs, Douglass, and Equiano narratives can be found in a single volume, The Classic Slave Narratives, 2002 reissue, edited by Henry Louis Gates.

• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
• Charles Ball, Fifty Years in Chains

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Supplemental Materials and Web Sites

There are thousands of excellent articles and books about the New World Black experience and a growing number of Web sites with links to primary source material as well as analyses. 

The Stone Center library at UNC has created a very useful Web site for scholars and students who are interested in researching and reading about the African Diaspora.

Students who would like a more comprehensive “textbook” are strongly encouraged to use one of these excellent resources, available in most libraries and bookstores:

• The African-American Odyssey (Volume 1), fourth edition, 2007, by Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold
• From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 8th edition, 2000, by John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss
• To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans, 2000, edited by Robin Kelley and Earl Lewis

If there is a particular topic that fascinates you about Black American history, please contact me for further sources.

Here are some other useful African-American history Web resources. This is just a start!

• The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record is a vast and interesting collection of illustrations, art work, maps and photographs of the slave trade and slavery in the U.S. and Latin America.
• The American Anthropological Association's Statement on "Race" discusses the controversial history and (mis)use of the term.
• The full text (and analyses) of the Declaration of Independence. Were all men really created equal in 1776?
• The full text (and various analyses) of the Constitution of the United States.  A close reading will let you see the debate about slavery (and, more generally, race) that is encoded in the three-fifths compromise. Also look at the Bill of Rights and Amendments 11-27, which include the 13th Amendment that actually ended legal slavery in the United States (Amendments 14 and 15 are relevant to this course as well).
• The Library of Congress has mounted an excellent site on the Amistad case with many useful primary sources.
• American Slave Narratives have been collected by the WPA and archived by the University of Virginia.
• The text of the Dred Scott v. Sanford decision issued by the Supreme Court in 1857.
• A speech by Abraham Lincoln on the Dred Scott decision.
• The full text (and an analysis) of the Emancipation Proclamation. This is useful when considering what really ended slavery in the United States.
• An excellent documentary overview of African-American life can be found at African-American Odyssey.

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Course Requirements

Readings/Discussion Forum (10% of final grade)
It is critically important that you complete the readings before the start of the lesson. The online discussion forum allows you to work at your own pace (within reason) and at the hours you choose; however, it also means that there is no one watching over you, so you must take responsibility for completing all work by the time it is due. The readings are at the center of the course, and the discussion forum is the way for you to share your ideas about these readings with your classmates and your instructor. You will only achieve the full experience of this course by actively participating in the forum.

To get full credit for the discussion forum part of the course, you must specifically address one of the issues presented for discussion, and you must accomplish this task in a timely fashion--in the week it is assigned. It is not helpful to respond to topics that are weeks old, so late postings will not be accepted. I expect you to interact with your fellow students; respond to at least one classmate's posting every week--read their postings, respond to them, and get a dialogue going. Specifically, each week you should:

1. post a response to a discussion question by Tuesday
2. respond to a classmate's posting by Friday.

In other words, to be successful in this part of the course, you must make two different types of responses in the discussion forum each week. The discussion forum is one of the most exciting things about taking a Web-based course, so use it to its fullest potential.

Your discussion forum postings will not be graded based on spelling and grammar (within reason), so feel free to write informally and often. Remember, however, that these postings will be read by everyone in the class, so please keep them clean and respectful.

You will notice that there is a discussion forum entitled "Ask any question." This is designed for questions about the content of the course, or the mechanics of the course, or anything else, and can be used and answered by anyone of us. Personal questions or issues should be e-mailed to me, but there are other kinds of questions that may come up from time to time. Technology questions can often be answered by classmates (or the Instructional Designer at the Friday Center), and we can all jump in to answer questions like: "What time of day do our essays have to be in?," or "What's the difference between Senegambia and Senegal in Africa?"

Course Essays/Exams (18% of course grade each)
In order to assess your progress throughout the course, you will be required to submit five 1,500 word essays. Essay 3 is considered your midterm exam; essay 5 is your final exam. Each essay will ask you to read a brief statement, article, or document and interpret or respond to this by reflecting on the previous weeks' lessons. Essays should include direct quotations and information from the course readings to support the development of issues and ideas. In addition to the academic content, each essay will also include a separate and identified paragraph of personal reflection. Detailed instructions on the expectations for essays are available. Please read all instructions carefully!

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Honor Code

All work in AFAM 101 falls under UNC's Honor Code. If you have any questions about whether your usage of sources is acceptable, please contact me.

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Course Mechanics

Blackboard

Some of your class components (announcements, discussion forums, exams) are accessed through a software package called Blackboard, and you will need to login to Blackboard using a unique identifier known as your UNC Onyen (Only Name You'll Ever Need) and Onyen password.

If you do not already have a UNC Onyen, go to the Onyen Web site and follow the instructions for creating an Onyen. If you have an Onyen but have forgotten it (or the password), you will find help on the Onyen Web site.

There is a link to the Blackboard site in the gray navigation bar at the top of every page in this course. Click on that link, and then use your Onyen to login to Blackboard. Click on the "AFAM 101" link and you will see navigation buttons on the left labeled Announcements, Discussion Forum, and so on.

If you experience problems accessing Blackboard, this is what you should do:

• If you do not already have a UNC Onyen, go to the Onyen Web site and follow the instructions for creating an Onyen.
• If you have an Onyen but have forgotten it (or the password), you will find help on go to the Onyen Web site.
• If you have your Onyen but can't log in to Blackboard, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
• If you can log in to Blackboard but can't find this course listed, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
• If you can't locate an exam or discussion forum in Blackboard, contact the Instructional Designer.
• If you have other technical problems while using Blackboard, contact Blackboard Help (use the Help button in Blackboard, or call 919-962-HELP).

Library Services and E-reserves

Students enrolled in Carolina Courses Online can access online library resources from the UNC Library System by linking to Library Services for Distance Education Students. This site includes information on using general online reference works as well as accessing e-reserves. If you are using an off-campus computer, you will need to consult this page for instructions on how to access the resources. The UNC library staff is available to assist any students who have difficulties accessing online library resources.

E-mail

All communication from your instructor will go to your UNC Onyen e-mail address (the one that appears when you post to the discussion forum). Off-campus users can access their UNC e-mail using Webmail. You can have your e-mail forwarded to a different e-mail address by clicking “Forward e-mail” at the Onyen Web site.

If you use a filter on your e-mail account, you are responsible for ensuring that it does not prevent you from receiving messages from me, the course listserv, or Friday Center staff. Hotmail users should be aware that Hotmail will block messages sent from within Blackboard because Blackboard uses “blind carbon copy” to protect privacy. We recommend that you use your UNC Onyen e-mail account rather than forwarding to Hotmail for this course.

Submitting Assignments

It is extremely important for you to save copies of any work you send to me via e-mail. If I don't receive your work, you must have a duplicate copy, indicating the date sent, to prove that you submitted the assignment on time. It is your responsibility to maintain copies of your sent e-mails, as there is no way to guarantee that any e-mail message will be delivered.

Please check your e-mail software to see how it manages sent and saved messages. Some software automatically deletes messages one month after they have been sent; others only save messages if they are filed in folders; others save messages received but not those sent. You may need to send yourself a copy of your e-mailed assignment at the same time you send it to me, or you may need to print a copy of the e-mail message and any attachments to keep in your paper files. No matter how your system works, make sure you know how to save a copy of all work that you submit to me and that you save the copy for several months beyond the end of the course.

Other Questions

Contact me with questions regarding the content of the course and your progress. There is an e-mail link to your instructor at the top of every lesson page. Please include "CCO AFAM 101" in the subject line of your e-mail.

Contact the Instructional Designer at the Friday Center about problems with this Web site, including bad links.

If you have any logistical questions as you work through the course (enrollment, Onyen, credits, withdrawal, and so on), contact the Student Services staff at the Friday Center for Continuing Education (phone 919-962-1134 or 800-862-5669).

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Course Schedule

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A Final Note From Your Instructor

I have been teaching online for almost ten years and I always enjoy the ability to connect with students through the virtual classroom. The discussion forums are an important part of your ability to interact with one another and so I tend to not "say" much in the forum, though I read it almost every day with great interest. You are always welcome to email me at any time with questions, comments, or concerns about the course. Unless I am traveling, I try to respond within 24-48 hours. Occasionally, my spam filter catches messages it shouldn't, particularly if you e-mail me rom a non-UNC account. Please e-mail me again if you haven't heard from me within a reasonable period of time. I'm looking forward to a great semester with all of you.

Try to connect with one another in the discussion forum and always ask for what you need from me.

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Lesson 1

Course author: Tim McMillan

Current revision by: Tim McMillan