The Black Metropolis: Citizenship and Development in Urban America

Given the significant migration of African Americans to major American cities during the post-World War II era, and the historical role cities have played in the nation’s political, social, and economic development, this course closely examines the relationship between race and citizenship in majority Black cities and spaces. Together, we will explore the history of majority-Black cities and the competing visions of citizenship that have emerged from them. We will also investigate why these visions have led to conflict and compromise, and discuss the prospects for political and social equality in urban America today. To accomplish these goals, this course is guided by three central questions:

1. How and why are cities, and the politics and processes of urbanization, often characterized by conflict?

2. In what ways do cities and their residents shape the meaning and practice of American citizenship?

3. Does liberal democracy provide African Americans, and other historically oppressed groups, the best opportunity to achieve freedom and equality in the U.S.? Or, is the liberal democratic project itself deeply implicated in the production of inequality and marginalization, making it fundamentally unable to include non-whites as full members of its political community?