AFROAM 297A. Black Springfield: Revisited

3 credits

Professor Shabazz

TuTh 1:00-2:15 p.m., NAH Theater Room (03)

African American urban studies is a vibrant area of intellectual inquiry. This course will acquaint you with a variety of disciplinary tools for studying African American life in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, our urban neighbor just 25 miles away. We will start with a broad survey of the city's history that began when William Pynchon and a company of Puritan men from Roxbury, founded Springfield in 1636 at the confluence of three rivers. Pynchon established a trading and fur-collecting post and enslaved Africans became a vital part of its labor force. Springfield officially became a city in May of 1852, but by then slavery had ended and the city had developed a reputation as a Underground Railroad depot thanks to antislavery freedom fighters like Thomas Thomas, Eli Baptist, and John Brown. Springfield's location at the crossroads of New England is the most significant reason for its economic progress as an industrial city. In 2010, Springfield was a city of 156,060 that was 22.3% Black or African American, and 4.7% from Two or More Races (1.5% White and Black or African American). Latin@s of any race made up 38.8% of the population (33.2% Puerto Rican). It is a multicultural community, and is the regional center for banking, finance, and courts. Field trips to important sites, interviews with Ms. LaJuana Hood, founder of Springfield's Pan African Historical Museum USA, as well as other important culture bearers, will be special facets of the course. Community engaged research will be emphasized.