This one-day seminar is an overview of the historical and contemporary significance of the U.S. South. The South has been central to the maintenance of the nation’s power structure, yet it has also been the site of many of its most transformative social movements and struggles. The course will analyze this dynamic and its implications for today. Areas of focus will include the abolitionist movement, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Southern labor struggles of the Depression era, and the “Long Civil Rights Movement” of the 1940’s-60’s. The course will end with an analysis of the developments of the last half century, and the potentials for movement building in the current period.
Ben Wilkins is a labor organizer based in North Carolina, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
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