Black Lives Matter

Resource Description

This module is intended for students interested in having a global perspective on the impact of George Floyd’s death and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Students will survey BLM in the U.S. context and its international iterations around the globe by addressing the complexity of race in relation to social justice, political oppression, and the role of the media and technology. Through the assigned materials, students will grasp the ways in which racism manifests across cultural contexts and local histories, with particular attention to the regions of Central Europe (Germany and France), East Asia (China, South Korea, and Japan) and Latin America and the Caribbean (Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic).

Resource Description

This module, intended for use in introductory humanities courses, will be an interdisciplinary, comparative analysis of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Students will compare/contrast popular narratives about BLM with stated goals of movement participants. They will also consider the place of BLM in larger historical narratives. Students will be encouraged to move beyond initial assumptions, and instead ask the questions that humanist scholars ask of such texts and events. In the process, students will:

• gain a more scholarly understanding of the goals, methods, organizational and social philosophy, complexity, and identity of BLM;
• understand the place of BLM alongside other civil rights movements in the post-Civil War era; and
• better understand the complex relationship between social movements and public opinion.