Gilbert Osofsky's study of the African American presence in Harlem from the late 19th century through the early years of the Great Depression is one of numerous books taking up the issue of black bodies in the urban space. Next spring, students at the University of Alabama will have an opportunity to explore how people of African descent became associated with cities. As mentioned in an earlier blog entry, few people thought twice about the racial identity of the Supremes' 1960s hit Love Child. Talk of starting one's life in a "cold, rundown tenement slum" was enough to make it an easy guess that the child in question was African American. This course will take up the issue of how race came to be a "social construction," which is to say, agreements made about who was "white" or "black" for political reasons before moving on to how ideas about race figure into black bodies in the urban space. However, unlike last semester rather than framing this discussion from the colonial period to the present, we will start with the antebellum period, or years leading to the Civil War and bring it forward to the Obama administration. One reason is because it proved difficult, at least for this instructor, to cover this topic with a longer sweep. More time seemed warranted for certain eras like the late nineteenth century period that witnessed the rise of Jim Crow, or the postwar years of urban renewal. We'll see how it goes as we try it again. Please join us by taking this course via Gender and Race Studies or the History Department. It is now titled "Black Urban Culture."
