FYS 69 Freedom Dreams in Black Newsprint
Declaring that “knowledge is power,” African American men and women across the nineteenth-century funded, wrote, and published newspapers to broadcast the freedom dreams of their day. In this course, we use the tools of digital humanities to explore the political, intellectual, and creative worlds of nineteenth-century Black newspapers. Beginning with Freedom’s Journal, first published in 1827 and stretching through the eras of Civil War, Reconstruction and the retrenchment of white supremacy, we explore Black newspapers as sites of community building, fierce debate, artistic expression, and political organizing for abolition, equality, and human rights. Students will learn skills of digital archival research and collaborate in a Wiki research unit with the national Early Black Press initiative.
Open only to first-year frosh.