INSTRUCTIONS
Before you begin, review the discussion guidelines and sample discussion post located in the Course Overview section. Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions to answer, and then give a substantive response to at least TWO other students or the professor. Aim for around 300 words per initial discussion post. A substantive response is not just a one-liner post that agrees or compliments your peer. Instead, substantive posts ask relevant questions, offer new insights, and dig deeper into the topic in order to create an academic discussion. Aim for around 100 words in each response.
Note that academic weeks at UMGC begin on Wednesdays and end on Tuesdays. Initial discussion posts are due by Saturday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Tuesday by 11:30PM ET.
Week 7
- Choose one of the following economic systems and discuss how it evolved in America after slavery was "abolished": debt peonage, sharecropping, tenant farming, convict leasing, prison farms, privatized prisons.
- Discuss the importance of African American property ownership, entrepreneurship, banking, and wealth creation and accumulation from slavery to the present. What challenges have African Americans faced in accumulating and passing on generational wealth from slavery to the present? How does this connect back to criticisms of Black capitalism by earlier African American activists and leaders?
- Discuss Baltimore's Segregation Ordinances of 1910–1913, and the city's significance in the development of residential racial segregation in the United States. What role did the city play in helping to create blockbusting, white flight, and redlining?
- How has America's infrastructure and supporting systems contributed to and maintained geographies of racism from slavery to the present? Make sure to consider the role of or threat of racial violence in your answer.
- Explain the historical role played by African American unions such as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Washerwoman's Union in Atlanta. Why were these organizations important and what opportunities did they provide for African Americans?