Research Guides: #CharlestonSyllabus Research Guide: Home

When Should I Use This Guide?

This guide was created to encourage thoughtful, honest, and respectful dialog amongst the WVU community. It is appropriate to use all or parts of this guide in any class tackling the complex issues surrounding racial violence, race relations, racial identity, diversity, and/or social justice in the United States. If you have recommendations for additional resources to be added to this ever-evolving guide, please contact the guide administrator.

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Acknowledgements

This guide was created by Visiting Librarian Chanelle Pickens.

Created by a group of African-American scholars and activists, the #CharlestonSyllabus represents an ever-evolving list of readings to help educators and students begin a dialog about the devastating events that occurred on June 17, 2015 at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC.

The original #CharlestonSyllabus was conceived by Chad Williams (@Dr_ChadWilliams), Associate Professor of African and Afro-American Studies at Brandeis University. With the help of Kidada Williams (@KidadaEWilliams), the hashtag started trending on Twitter on the evening of June 19, 2015. The original list was compiled and organized by AAIHS blogger Keisha N. Blain (@KeishaBlain) with the assistance of Melissa Morrone (@InfAgit), Ryan P. Randall (@foureyedsoul), and Cecily Walker (@skeskali).

This guide is an extension of the original syllabus, created for the use of the entire WVU community. While this guide is not exhaustive, every attempt has been made to include as many timely resources as possible. Additionally, resources readily available from the WVU Libraries have been linked for quick and easy access.

An easy way to get started is to browse and read selected resources on some of the major themes (located below). These five themes, Historical Overviews, Op-Eds & Editorials, The Confederate Flag, Racial Violence, and 1 Year Later capture the essence of the events of June 2015 and their ongoing impact. Then, for a more in-depth look, explore each of the readings categories to the left. Topics include everything from slavery to white supremacy to the black power movement.

Getting Started

Freedom Dreams: the Black Radical Imagination by Robin D G Kelley
Publication Date: 2002
Kelley unearths freedom dreams in this exciting history of renegade intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora in the twentieth century.
Living Black History: How Reimagining the African-American Past Can Remake America's Racial Future by Manning Marable
Publication Date: 2006
Are the stars of the Civil Rights firmament yesterday's news? In Living Black History scholar and activist Manning Marable offers a resounding "No!" with a fresh and personal look at the enduring legacy of such well-known figures as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers and W.E.B. Du Bois.
What Is African American History? by Pero Gaglo Dagbovie
Publication Date: 2015
Organized chronologically and thematically, "What is African American History?" offers a concise and compelling introduction to the field of African American history as well as the black historical enterprise, past, present, and future.

Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys!: South Carolina and the Confederate Flag by K. Michael Prince
Publication Date: 2004
Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! is the most comprehensive history to date of the Confederate flag controversy that has engaged South Carolina politics for nearly four decades.
The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem by John M. Coski
Publication Date: 2005
In recent years, the Confederate flag has become as much a news item as a Civil War relic. Intense public debates have erupted over Confederate flags flying atop state capitols, being incorporated into state flags, waving from dormitory windows, or adorning the T-shirts and jeans of public school children.

Behind the Mask of Chivalry: the Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan by Nancy K. MacLean
Publication Date: 1994
On Thanksgiving night, 1915, a small band of hooded men gathered atop Stone Mountain, an imposing granite butte just outside Atlanta. With a flag fluttering in the wind beside them, a Bible open to the twelfth chapter of Romans, and a flaming cross to light the night sky above, William Joseph Simmons and his disciples proclaimed themselves the new Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, named for the infamous secret order in which many of their fathers had served after the Civil War.
Men, Mobs, and Law: Anti-lynching and Labor Defense in US Radical History by Rebecca N. Hill; Christopher Hill
Publication Date: 2009
In Men, Mobs, and Law, Rebecca N. Hill compares two seemingly unrelated types of leftist protest campaigns: those intended to defend labor organizers from prosecution and those seeking to memorialize lynching victims and stop the practice of lynching.
Lynching Beyond Dixie: American Mob Violence Outside the South by Michael J. Pfeifer
Publication Date: 2013
This collection of essays illuminates the factors that distinguished lynching in the West, the Midwest, and the Mid-Atlantic.

The Beginning of #CharlestonSyllabus

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#CharlestonSyllabus Research Guide