Reading Black Lives Matter

This module, intended for use in introductory humanities courses, will be an interdisciplinary, comparative analysis of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Students will compare/contrast popular narratives about BLM with stated goals of movement participants. They will also consider the place of BLM in larger historical narratives. Students will be encouraged to move beyond initial assumptions, and instead ask the questions that humanist scholars ask of such texts and events. In the process, students will:

• gain a more scholarly understanding of the goals, methods, organizational and social philosophy, complexity, and identity of BLM;
• understand the place of BLM alongside other civil rights movements in the post-Civil War era; and
• better understand the complex relationship between social movements and public opinion.