Our weekly academic instructors are members of our staff, along with Stamford Public Schools' administrators & teachers. We begin each class with learning and reciting key poems while focusing on becoming our "brother's and sister's keepers".
Week 1: African Kingdoms (300BC-1594)
Focus: How African history/heritage impacted world history.
- Students will become aware of the personalities and accomplishments of African Kings and Queens.
- Create PowerPoint presentations.
- The present-day nations represented by the personality on a map of Africa.
- The natural and economic resources of this geographic area.
- Accomplishments of these personalities that had an impact on world history.
Week 2: The Atlantic Slave Trade
Focus: Exploitation and Economics. Causes/effects of slave trade on participant countries/continents.
- Differences in prior forms of servitude and the Atlantic Slave Trade
- Connection between Europe (i.e. Portugal, Spain, Britain, the Dutch) and North Africa
- Geographic locations (i.e. Goree Island, St. James Island, Eleminia & Cape Coast Castles)
Week 3: The Atlantic Slave Trade continued
Focus: Exploitation and Economics. Causes/effects of slave trade on participant countries/continents.
- Economic/social rationales for and methodology of the slave trade; use of Africans/attempted use of Native Americans.
- Effect of triangle trade system on economy and social life in Europe, Africa, and the Americas -Middle Passage (Maafa)
Weeks 4: Lives of Enslaved People in North America, South America & the Carribean (1600s-1800s)
Focus: Dehumanization process, justifications for slavery.
- Use of language and the creation of racial identity. Psychology of dislocation and de-centering,
- Blacks' attempts at cultural preservation: oral tradition and resistance through artistry, skills.
- Legal definitions, prohibitions and ramifications of servitude.
Week 5: Lives of Enslaved People in North America, South America & the Carribean (1600s-1800s) continued
Focus: Dehumanization process, justifications for slavery.
- Use of language and the creation of racial identity. Psychology of dislocation and de-centering,
- Blacks' attempts at cultural preservation: oral tradition and resistance through artistry, skills.
- Legal definitions, prohibitions and ramifications of servitude.
Week 6: Development of Plantation Structure (1600s-1800s)
Focus: Economic/social value of slave labor.
- Narratives of enslaved Africans (i.e. Equiano, Henson, Truth, Jacobs).
- Creation/perpetuation of social distinctions (among whites, between whites and free/enslaved Blacks, between free/enslaved Blacks, among enslaved Blacks).
- Economic reliance on slave labor.
- Religious, housing, and family structures among enslaved people.
Week 7: Contesting Slavery (1400s-1800s)
Focus: Abolitionists, moralists & political hopefuls.
- African resistance (as ethnic groups and individuals) to slave trade (i.e. Fante, the Congo, the Angolans, Sengbe Pieh, the Creole, Prosser, Vesey)
- Abolitionists in the Americas and the American Colonization Society.
Week 8: War Ideals (Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War)
Focus: Political, economic, legal & physical struggles.
- Early writings (Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Three-Fifths Compromise, Plessy v. Ferguson) exclusions/definitions of status of Blacks.
- Efforts of free/enslaved Blacks in three wars.
- Social/economic conditions of free Blacks in the United States.
- Fugitive slave laws' effect on the perpetuation of slavery across the United States.
- Compromise of 1850, Dred Scott decision, Missouri Compromise, Emancipation Proclamation, Amendments 13-15.
Week 9: War Ideals (Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War) continued
Focus: Reconstruction; political, economic, legal, physical struggles
- Black Wall Street.
- Turn of the century economics (Marcus Garvey).
- Development of the N.A.A.C.P.
- The Talented Tenth - W. E. B. Du Bois.
- Development of the Ku Klux Klan (Lynching and Murders).
- Pizza & Movie: Mississippi Burning and Birth of a Nation (PBS Special)
Week 10: Contributions of African-Americans
Focus: Court decisions and leaders - Civil Rights.
- Introduction of Black codes/sharecropping and the effect on social progress.
- Civil rights legislation throughout the 20th century and the struggle to achieve agreement between law and practice.
Week 11: Contributions of Africans-Americans continued
- Renaissance – Birth of Harlem
- Politics
- Athletics
- Arts/entertainment
- Science
- Prose/poetry
- Invention
Week 12: Education (1800s-1900s)
Focus: Establishing equality.
- Court decisions, Civil Rights Movement/Marches and the Leaders (i.e. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Plessy vs Ferguson, etc).
- Establishment of schools and other Black civic organizations (i.e. militancy vs nonviolence, perceptions of Black studies, assimilation vs separately equal, affirmative action, etc).
- Role of community organizations in education (i.e. development of fraternities and sororities).
- Role of Black political and social institutions.
Week 13: Final Exam Review & Reflection
Week 14: Final Exam