Hist 465 Civil Rights and Politics

HIST 465 Civil rights and American Politics 1933-1968 
The last offering of this course was in Spring of 2013.  See the syllabus from that course, below:
  (Link to the Syllabus Here)

Future offerings of Hist 465:  To Be Announced

Have you ever looked at old election maps of the United States and noticed that the party affiliations of the Reconstruction Era were near opposites of the current “Red State Blue State Divide?” 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1876  (Especially the popular vote!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1880

When and why did those red states turn blue and the blue states turn red? How does this evident “transformation” mask underlying continuities in voting behaviors, cultural attitudes, and political affiliation? How did these changes impact a broader spectrum of issues and the meaning of such identifiers as “conservative,” “liberal,” “left,” and “right?” If the major relevance of historical analysis is that it explains the way things have turned out, then the period of US History studied in this course is more relevant to the present political situation than almost any other era. The contested formation of a multi-cultural superpower will be the theme of Hist 465; its focus will be on the strategies used by the many sides of this contest. The course will be lecture and seminar based, with readings of primary and secondary source materials, scholarly synthesis, and three major biographies of observers who were also participants in the events.      If you are qualified to take 400 level history courses and if you have completed Hist 21 or Hist 152, please do not be dissuaded by the other prerequisites for this course, several of which can be waived by the department and some of which are not even regularly offered at this location.