Afro American Studies

Please answer the following questions as fully as possible, in at least two paragraphs. You

are to cite the sources you use. You may work in groups of three or less. You are

to collaborate (i.e. work together on each question), not delegate questions

to each member. Please upload this assignment to Blackboard (if you are

physically unable to provide a physical copy due to travel). Please do not

submit this exam through email. No late exams will be accepted.

1) For W.E.B. Du Bois (“Conservation of Races”) and Vincent Harding (“The

Vocation of the Black Scholar”) what is the role of intellectual work in the pursuit of

freedom? How do their positions compare? In what ways does Cedric Robinson’s

(Black Movements in America excerpt) understanding of “two alternative political

cultures” align with Du Bois’s and Harding’s perspective? How might we use this

work to frame issues that continue to persist?

2) Which of the five methods for approaching Black intellectual genealogy outlined by

Carr, singularly, or in combination with others, provides the most salient means for

studying the Black Power Movement? How would you use these same methods to

categorize the work of Peniel Joseph (Waiting ‘til the Midnight Hour) and Joshua

Bloom and Waldo Martin (Black Against Empire)? Why?

3) In what ways did Black Power exist as a concept or orientation before June 1966?

How does Peniel Joseph develop this history? Who are the key actors and

organizations involved in these movements in the 1950s and early 1960s? How does

this Black Power “pre-history” contribute to our understanding of what occurred

after June 1966?

4) What were the principal motivations around the conception of organizations like the

Group on Advanced Leadership and the Freedom Now Party? Who were the key

figures involved and what did they contribute? How did they energize political

movements in northern and urban settings? What was the relationship of the

organizing efforts like the Grassroots Leadership Conference to the Southern

freedom struggle? Why did prominent figures in the North develop critiques of the

Southern freedom struggle?

5) What was the context surrounding the June 1966 call for “Black Power”? How did

the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee engage other civil rights

organizations during this particular moment? What were the implications for the

evolution of Black Power and/or Black nationalist consciousness in the years to

come? How did figures like Stokely Carmichael conceptualize and justify the need or

desire for Black Power?

6) How did the Black Power movement approach the question of internationalism or

transnationalism? In what ways did the concept extend beyond the borders of the

United States? How did the Cold War influence these developments? How did the

Pan-Africanist movement connect to the Black Power movement? What were the

critical developments that extended these convergences of struggle into the early

1970s?

7) How do Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin frame the intellectual genealogy of the

Black Panther Party for Self-Defense? What were the precursor organizations and

influential figures that helped set the context for the rise of the Party? What were the

conditions in Oakland that called for a unique formation to address the question of

Black self-preservation and self-determination? Why are the familial origins of the

founders of the Black Panther Party significant?

8) Why did the Panthers have to shift their organizational purposes during its first year?

What were some of the features of their early revolutionary politics? How did they

conceive of police brutality, capitalism, self-determination, and imperialism? What

was the Ten Point Platform? How did the survival programs influence the ways in

which the Panthers were perceived by both the Black community and law

enforcement? How did police repression, political education, and international

development influence and change their ideological development over time? What

changes in perspective and approach do we notice over the life of the Party?

9) In what ways did the Black Panther Party relate to the New Left? How did resistance

to the Vietnam War influence and direct this relationship? How did the Left frame

the question of the revolutionary vanguard? How did these collaborations produce

various episodes of resistance? What might we learn from such coalitions? How did

the Panthers come to embrace anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, women’s liberation, gay

liberation, and other political movements of the 1970s?

10) What is the relationship between the repression of the Panthers and their anti-

imperialist politics? How did they conceive of the police? How was this influenced

by the Panthers’ understanding of anti-colonial thought? How was this influenced by

their engagement of revolutionaries from around the world? How did they develop

political responses based upon these viewpoints? What are the ultimate lessons that

Bloom and Martin draw from these political responses? How might they be relevant

today? How do Bloom and Martin understand the decline of the Panthers’ support?

What implications does it have for how we think about their legacy?

Bonus: Explore the nature of political struggle of the women discussed in both Waiting ‘til the

Midnight Hour and Black Against Empire. How did they conceive of liberation? What

organizations did they create or support? What do their lives tells us about the nature of

gender in Western society and about the ways forward in the contemporary moment?