Spring 2015 beckons

Tera Hunter's important study takes us to postbellum Atlanta.

This spring, I will be teaching black urban history for the first time as a graduate course.  It is titled "Gender, Race and the Urban Space."

I plan to rely greatly on excerpts from the growing literature on urbanization and African Americans in urban settings. This is partly because I really want the students to home in on "city" as a category of analysis while keeping other categories like gender and race front and center. 

I welcome the challenge.

This course is an outcome of my joint appointment in the University of Alabama's Gender and Race Studies Department.

Whether we read social, political, economic or cultural histories, the students will be pushed to see how the urban space functions alongside the experiences, attitudes, trials, triumphs, motivations of people of African descent. 

Over sixteen weeks, we will thoughtfully and rigorously see them in anticipated and unexpected narratives. To help me get myself going, I can't help but turn to one of my favorite soundscapes: Marvin Gaye's What's Going On/What's Happening Brother.

And just looking at the titles in my prelim summaries, I get excited about this rich literature again. With able minds beside me, I get to roll up my sleeves  and really pull apart an incredible body of scholarship and re-piece a critical narrative in the "American" story. 

This task is welcomed as I slowly pivot from studying the migratory experiences of African Americans in antebellum Cincinnati, which is my first research project, to 20th century Miami, my second one.

For now, I press on through the Fall semester (and watch the growing list of things to do for the Spring).

the rural space remains part of the equation

I am in Miami, Florida, my hometown, conducting research on black migration across time in this city and Miami-Dade County. In just two days of interviewing individuals who were born or migrated here, I have learned more than I thought I would. I will share more in the coming months as research continues. For now, I was reminded again of the ways in which black life continues to reflects the tensions between urban and rural spaces. Before I left Alabama, I saw two videos that showcase as much. Those videos - one by gospel singers Bebe and Cece Winans and the other by Arrested Develoment are presented above. I will leave it there for now. I look forward to discussing this topic and more with the students enrolled in Black Urban Culture next semester at the University of Alabama. Until then, happy holidays and happy new year.