AFRO3125W

Course on the critical thought of Black intellectual-activists and others enmeshed in the struggles for the radical transformation of U.S. democracy. Introduces the following three leaders and activists--Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X--whose work in the building of the Black freedom movement spanned the period from the 1930s to the late 1960s. Course proposition is that their life and times in the struggle for liberation offer important insights into the transformation of the U.S. political economy from the welfare/warfare state to the neoliberal state. These intellectual-activists, as well as others who translate their radical traditions through Black-Brown and Afro-Asian solidarity projects (e.g. Grace Lee Boggs of Detroit) have responded to racial formation in the U.S. and presented not just visions of liberation but concrete alternatives at the grassroots to usher in a more just, egalitarian, and ethical society.