COMPARATIVE FREEDOM MOVEMENTS: THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTH AFRICA

Macalester College                                                                                            Spring 2005

Monday nights, 7-10 PM                                                                                Old Main 009

Optional films, Wednesday nights, 7 PM                                                       Old Main 010

History 394-01/American Studies 394-11

Peter Rachleff     rachleff@macalester.edu                      X 6371                   Old Main 306     

Office hours:      M 10 am -12 noon          T  8:30 am – 10 am              Th  12 noon – 2 pm

 

     Two of the most important movements to challenge institutionalized racism in the second half of the 20th century were the civil rights movement in the United States and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.  This course will explore these two movements in a comparative fashion: the nature of institutionalized racism, structures, ideologies, and identities in each society; the leadership produced by both movements; the functioning of both movements at a grassroots level; internal tensions, conflicts, and diversity within each movement; the roles of particular cohorts – women, workers, youth, allies – in each movement; the uses of culture – music, theater, poetry, visual art, etc. – in each movement.  We will also be interested in the ways that the power structure – particularly the state – responded to the challenges raised by these movements.  In addition to our comparative structure, we will also be interested in how the movements influenced each other, became interwoven, and can be understood in a transnational, diasporic sense.  We will rely on scholarly readings, memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, primary documents, music, documentary and dramatic films, and guest speakers to help us explore both of these movements.

     This is an advanced level course which assumes that students have some knowledge of the processes of comparative racial formations and anti-racist activism, some experience interpreting primary documents, weighing historical arguments, and writing analytical papers.  There are no expectations that students have any prior knowledge of the histories of South Africa or the United States, let alone these particular movements, or any prior experience in a History course at Macalester. 

     This course is intended to provide a substantial learning experience and students should take it only if you are prepared to make a substantial commitment.  In order to accommodate interest and to build a certain level of energy, the class size will be a bit larger (35 in contrast to a more typical 25) than normal, and, with the class meeting formally only once a week, there is the danger that students who assume a passive orientation to the class could become lost.  Please ask yourself if you are prepared to make a substantial commitment to this course before signing on for keeps.  The reading load is heavy, essentially one book a week required.  There are also recommended readings that will be valuable when you are writing a paper or taking a lead role in a class presentation.  I have also decided to schedule an optional Wednesday night session for film viewing in Old Main 010.  While I cannot require you to attend these additional sessions, they will be a valuable source for the gathering of additional information and additional layers of understanding.  I do have personal copies of most of this visual material and so, if you are unable to attend a Wednesday night session, it should be possible to make other opportunities possible.  There will also be additional events – the

 

                                                                                                                                            2.

 

African American Studies Conference on February 11-12, performances by John O’Neal, the founder of the Free Southern Theatre Movement, on March 5-6, and other learning                                                                                                                                   opportunities – that I will expect you to attend and that we will fold into our work in the course.

     You will be expected to attend all of the Monday night classes and to come prepared to discuss the night’s reading assignment.  We will do a variety of things in these three hour blocks – some lecture from me, perhaps a guest lecture, listening to music, viewing film, reading and interpreting primary documents, meeting in small groups, raising questions within the class as a whole.  I guarantee you that time will not lag.  You will be expected to make at least one brief oral presentation to the class about a recommended reading – a tight five minutes in front of the class and 2-3 written pages to me – in which you analyze the relationship of that reading to the night’s required text(s).  There will be a short paper in response to the African American Studies Conference, three analytical papers of 4-5 pages in length and an optional final paper.  These will not be “research” papers that require you to go beyond the syllabus for information, but I will offer “A” grades only to those papers which make some use of the recommended readings and the films.  You will be expected to articulate and support an argument/ hypothesis in each of your papers, and to provide footnotes and references in a conventional scholarly format.  Your grade for the course will be based on your weekly participation, your oral presentation, and your papers.  I will be available to you to discuss your work all along the way, from strategizing an oral presentation to developing an argument for a paper, to deciding whether to commit to the optional final paper.  I hope you will make it a habit to visit me in my office to discuss all of this and the material we will be engaging.        

 

The following books are available for purchase:

 

     G. Frederickson,  WHITE SUPREMACY

     N. Mandela, LONG WALK TO FREEDOM

     D. Garrow, BEARING THE CROSS

     A. Marx, LESSONS OF STRUGGLE

     C. Carson, IN STRUGGLE

     M. Mayekiso, TOWNSHIP POLITICS

     C. Payne, I’VE GOT THE LIGHT OF FREEDOM

     A. Krog, THE COUNTRY OF MY SKULL

     W. Churchill, THE COINTELPRO PAPERS

 

Additional readings will be available via weblinks such as JSTOR, on Electronic Reserve via the Library’s website or in the Electronic Course Folder that you can find through any college computer.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                            3.

Weekly syllabus

(subject to change)

 

M  1/24    Introduction to the course

                View and discuss Mapantsula

 

W  1/26    Do the Right Thing

 

M  1/31    Structures and Ideologies of White Supremacy

                 Required: Frederickson, WHITE SUPREMACY: A COMPARATIVE

                      STUDY IN AMERICAN AND SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY

                 Recommended: Frederick Cooper, “Race, Ideology, and the Perils of

                      Comparative History,” AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

                      (October 1996), 1122-1138 [JSTOR]

                          Shula Marks, “White Supremacy: A Review Article,” COMPARATIVE

                      STUDIES IN SOCIETY AND HISTORY (April 1987), 385-397 [JSTOR]

                          Harold Wolpe, “Capitalism and Cheap Labor Power in South Africa:

                      From Segregation to Apartheid” [E-Reserve]

                          Philip Bonner, Peter Deltus, and Deborah Posel, “The Shaping of

                      Apartheid: Contradiction, Continuity, and Popular Struggle” [E-Reserve]

                          Leonard Thompson, A HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA, ch.6: “The

                      Apartheid Era, 1948-1978,” and ch.7: “Apartheid in Crisis, 1978-1989”

                      [E Course Folder]

                          Joseph Lelyveld, MOVE YOUR SHADOW: SOUTH AFRICA, BLACK

                      AND WHITE, ch.11: “W-A-R” [E-Reserve]

                          Nan Woodruff, AMERICAN CONGO: THE AFRICAN AMERICAN

                      FREEDOM STRUGGLE IN THE DELTA, ch.6: “A War Within a War”

                      [E-Reserve]

                          Manning Marable, HOW CAPITALISM UNDERDEVELOPED

                      BLACK AMERICA, ch.1: “The Crisis of the Black Working Class” [E-R]

                          Cedric Robinson, BLACK MARXISM, ch.1: “Racial Capitalism: The

                      Non-Objective Character of Capitalist Development” [E-R]

 

W  2/2      Bamboozled

 

M  2/7      Leadership, Ideology, Organization, and the South African Freedom

                      Movement

                 Hand out topic and guidelines for Paper #1, due 2/21

                 Required: Nelson Mandela, LONG WALK TO FREEDOM

 

W  2/9     Boesman and Lena

                Reading available: Errol Durbach, “‘…No Time for Apartheid’: Dancing Free

                      of the System in Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena,” in Marcia Blumberg

                      and Dennis Walder, eds., SOUTH AFRICAN THEATRE AS/AND

                      INTERVENTION [E-Course Folder]

                                                                                                                                            4.

F  2/11 and Sat 2/12: African American Studies Conference:

                “Incarcerated Intelligence”

 

M  2/14    Leadership, Ideology, Organization, and the African American

                      Freedom Movement

                Short paper due on the conference and its relation to the course

                Required: David Garrow, BEARING THE CROSS: MARTIN LUTHER

                     KING, JR., AND THE SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP

                     CONFERENCE

                Recommended: MAGAZINE OF HISTORY (January 2005), articles on

                     Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement [E Course Folder]

 

W  2/16   Malcolm X

 

M  2/21    Comparative Freedom Movements: Leadership, Ideology, Organization

                 Paper #1 due tonight

                 Required: Lewis V. Baldwin, “Soaring on the Wings of Pride: Martin

                     Luther King, Jr., and the ‘New’ South Africa,” SAFUNDI, 15 (July 2004)

                     [E-Course Folder]

                 Recommended: Shaun Johnson, “‘The Soldiers of Luthuli’: Youth in the

                     Politics of Resistance in South Africa” [E-Reserve]

                        Steve Biko, I WRITE WHAT I LIKE, selections [E Course Folder]

                        Lewis Gordon, “New Introduction to the American Edition of Steve

                     Biko’s I WRITE WHAT I LIKE [E-Course Folder]

                        Nigel Gibson, “Black Consciousness 1977-1987: The Dialectics of

                     Liberation in South Africa” [E-Reserve]

                        Richard Monroe, LESSONS OF THE 1950S, a critique of the ANC and

                     the South African Communist Party from a small Marxist group in SA  

                     [www.marxist.com/Lessonsofthe1950s/index.html] 

                        Lance Hill, THE DEACONS FOR DEFENSE: ARMED RESISTANCE

                     AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, ch.4: “Not Selma” and ch.5:

                     “On to Bogalusa” [E-Reserve]

                         Timothy Tyson, “Robert Williams, ‘Black Power,’ and the Roots of the

                     African American Freedom Struggle,” JOURNAL OF AMERICAN

                     HISTORY (Sept. 1998) [JSTOR]

 

                   Film: Freedom on My Mind

 

W  2/23    Cry Freedom

                 Reading: Elaine Dubourdieu, “Biko, Blackness, and Black Consciousness in

                    Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom” [E-Course Folder]

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                            5.

M  2/28    Grassroots Activism: The U.S.

                 Hand out topic and guidelines for Paper #2, due 3/14

                 Required: Charles Payne, I’VE GOT THE LIGHT OF FREEDOM: THE

                     ORGANIZING TRADITION AND THE MISSISSIPPI FREEDOM

                     STRUGGLE

 

W  3/2     Eyes on the Prize

 

M  3/7     Grassroots Activism: South Africa

                Required: Anthony Marx, LESSONS OF STRUGGLE: SOUTH AFRICAN

                     INTERNAL OPPOSITION, 1960-1990

 

W  3/9     Finally Got the News

 

M  3/14   Comparative Freedom Movements

                Paper #2 due tonight

                Catch up on readings

                Food for thought: Gerhard Maree, “Race Thinking and Thinking About Race

                    In Contemporary South Africa” [E-Course Folder]

                Film: Freedom Song

                Read and discuss “Day of Absence” [E-Course Folder]

 

W  3/16    Serafina

 

M 3/21 and W 3/23:  SPRING BREAK

 

M  3/28    Grassroots Activism: Students in the U.S.

                 Required: Clay Carson, IN STRUGGLE: SNCC AND THE BLACK

                     AWAKENING OF THE 1960S

                 Recommended: Barbara Ransby, ELLA BAKER AND THE BLACK

                     FREEDOM MOVEMENT, ch.8: “Mentoring a New Generation of

                     Activists” [E-Reserve]

 

W  3/30    Four Little Girls

 

M  4/4     Grassroots Activism: Community Organizing in South Africa

                Required: Mizwanele Mayekiso, TOWNSHIP POLITICS: CIVIC

                    STRUGGLES FOR A NEW SOUTH AFRICA

                Hand out topic and guidelines for paper #3, due 4/25

 

W  4/6      Compelling Freedom; You Have Touched a Rock

                 Available reading: EAR TO THE GROUND: CONTEMPORARY

                     WORKER POETS, esp. Frank Meintjies [E-Course Folder]

 

 

                                                                                                                                           6.

M  4/11    Grassroots Activism: Labor in the U.S. and South Africa

                 Required: David Montgomery, “Introduction: Union Activists in

                      Industry and in the Community,” in Horace Huntley and David

                     Montgomery, BLACK WORKERS’ STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY

                      IN BIRMINGHAM, and interviews with Harvey Lee Henley, Jr. and

                      George Price [E Course Folder]

                          Robert Korstad, CIVIL RIGHTS UNIONISM: TOBACCO WORKERS

                      AND THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE MID-20TH

                      CENTURY SOUTH, ch.11: “It Wasn’t Just the Wages We Wanted,

                      But Freedom” [E-Reserve]

                          Ari Sitas, “The Sweat Was Black: Working for Dunlop” [E-Reserve]

                          Phillip van Niekerk, “The Trade Union Movement in the Politics of

                      Resistance in South Africa [E-Reserve]

                          John Hinshaw, “The Politics of Steel in the United States and South

                      Africa” [E-Course Folder]

                 Recommended: Johann Maree, ed., THE INDEPENDENT TRADE UNIONS,

                      1974-1984: TEN YEARS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN LABOUR

                      BULLETIN: “Trade Unions and the State: The Question of Legality,”

                      “Overview: Trade Unions and Politics,” and “The Workers’ Struggle:

                      Where Does FOSATU Stand?” [E Course Folder]

                          Roger Kerson, “The Emergence of Powerful Black Unions” [E-Reserve]

                          Robin D.G. Kelley, “‘We Are Not What We Seem’: Rethinking Black

                       Working-Class Opposition in the Jim Crow South,” JOURNAL OF

                       AMERICAN HISTORY (June 1993 ) [JSTOR]

 

W  4/13    At the River I Stand

 

M  4/18    Comparative Freedom Movements: Uses of Culture

                 Required: Rob Nixon, HOMELANDS, HARLEM AND HOLLYWOOD,

                       Ch.1: “Harlem, Hollywood, and the Sophiatown Renaissance [E-R]

                           Helen Kivnick, WHERE IS THE WAY? SONG AND STRUGGLE

                        IN SOUTH AFRICA, “Let Freedom Sing” [E Course Folder]

                            Rolf Solberg, “Introduction,” ALTERNATIVE THEATRE IN SOUTH

                        AFRICA [E-Reserve]

                            Keyan Tomaselli, “The Semiotics of Alternative Theatre in South

                        Africa” [E-Reserve]

                            Astrid von Kotze, ORGANIZE AND ACT: THE NATAL WORKERS

                        THEATRE MOVEMENT, ch.1: “The Dunlop Play” [E-Course Folder]

                            P.V. Shava, A PEOPLE’S VOICE: BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN

                        WRITING IN THE 20TH CENTURY, ch.6: “The People’s Cause:

                         Popular Theatre and the Political Ferment of the 1970s”[E-Reserve]

                            Ari Sitas, “Traditions of Poetry in Natal,” in Liz Gunner, ed.,

                         POLITICS AND PERFORMANCE: THEATRE, POETRY, AND

                         SONG IN SOUTHERN AFRICA [E-Course Folder]

                            EAR TO THE GROUND: CONTEMPORARY WORKER POETS,

                                                                                                                                           7.

                         selections [E-Course Folder]

                            Bhekizizwe Peterson, “Apartheid and the Political Imagination in

                         Black South African Theatre,” in Liz Gunner, ed., POLITICS AND

                         PERFORMANCE [E-Course Folder]

                            Errol Durbach, “‘…No Time for Apartheid’: Dancing Free of the

                         System in Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena,” in Marcia Blumberg

                         and Dennis Walder, eds., SOUTHERN AFRICAN THEATRE AS/AND

                         INTERVENTION [E-Course Folder]

                            THE FREE SOUTHERN THEATER BY THE FREE SOUTHERN

                         THEATER, selected documents [E Course Folder]

                             Komozi Woodard, A NATION WITHIN A NATION: AMIRI

                         BARAKA (LEROI JONES) & BLACK POWER POLITICS, ch. 1:

                         “Groundwork: The Impact of Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba, Robert

                         Williams, and Malcolm X on Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts

                          Movement” [E-Reserve]

 

W  4/20   Amandla!

 

M  4/25    Repression and Resistance: South Africa 

                Required: Antjie Krog, COUNTRY OF MY SKULL: GUILT, SORROW,

                     AND THE LIMITS OF FORGIVENESS IN THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA

                Paper #3 due tonight

                Hand out topic and guidelines for optional final paper, due 5/5

 

W  4/27   Long Night’s Journey Into Day

 

M  5/2     Repression and Resistance: The U.S.

                Required: Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, THE COINTELPRO

                    PAPERS, selected sections to be announced

 

Th  5/5    Optional final paper due, noon today