Department of American Studies

The Black Lives Matter Movement has been criticized as a leaderless, violent, disruptive, and ineffective movement. Critics often denigrate it by contrasting it with the civil rights movement of the 1960s, which is imagined as a non- violent, peaceful, and effective movement primarily led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Are the two movements that different? This course seeks to analyze histories and myths about the civil rights and Black Power movements.