HIST324

A turning point is a period, person, philosophy, or event around which the direction of a people is changed or cemented. The period between 1866 and 1917, the Age of Segregation, was such a time in the history of America. Not only did the country fully commit to the industrialization that would drive its rise to preeminence as a world leader but also it adopted a post-slavery social structure that became as central to the fabric of the country as industrialization. This course will reduce the period to its basic elements. It will then detail the growth of the struggle to define the meaning of black citizenship from the combination of three of those elements: the urge to industrialize, the remnants of a slave society, and the will of African Americans to be full citizens. Material will also place the period in historical context detailing how the Age of Segregation evolved from a chaotic past and how it influenced 20th Century America. Among the topics students will review are black's response to segregation, the ramification of segregation, the four freedoms of post-slavery blacks, black's political successes of the reconstruction period, and the Hayes compromise.