COURSE SPECIFICATION
Department/School:
Course Title:
Course Code:
Pre-requisites:
Aims:
Learning Outcomes:
Course Content:
History
Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights
Movement in the USA
HI3018
With effect from
Academic Session:
Course Value:
Status:
2013-14
60 credits, Level 6
Optional
None
Co-requisites:
None
The course aims to provide a detailed, intensive and thorough examination of Martin
Luther King and the civil rights movement. In so doing it will enable students to:
• develop a close and critical familiarity with a selection of primary and secondary
material;
• develop a detailed appreciation of historiographical issues;
• develop personal communication skills through discussion;
• develop skills in integrating primary and secondary material into structured and coherent
written work.
Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:
• understand the role played by Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement;
• describe the changing nature of civil rights between 1955 and 1968 and especially the
emergence of mass protest and direct action;
• demonstrate an ability to analyse and reflect critically upon the main historiographical
debates;
• engage with a variety of primary and secondary sources.
In terms of the acquisition of skills, students who successfully complete this course will be
able to:
• demonstrate skills in the handling of a variety of primary materials;
• demonstrate knowledge of the secondary literature and the main historiographical
debates.
1. Course Introduction: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement – What You
Know Now
2.The Historiography of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement
3. Brown v. Board of Education, Massive Resistance, and the Little Rock Crisis, 19541957
4. King’s Early Life, 1929-1955
5. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-56
6. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 1957-60
7. King, the Sit-Ins and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),1960
8. King, the Freedom Rides and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1960-61
9. The Albany Movement Campaign, 1961-1962
10. The Birmingham Campaign, 1963
11. The March on Washington, 1963.
12. The St. Augustine Campaign and the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
13. The Mississippi Freedom Summer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
(MFDP), 1964
14. The Selma Campaign, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the FBI
15. The Chicago Campaign, 1965-66
16. The Meredith March against fear and Black Power, 1966.
17. King’s Final Years: Vietnam and Economic Justice, 1967-68
18. A Contested Hero: Commemorating King
19. Course Conclusion: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement – What You
Know Now.
Teaching & Learning
Methods:
A combination of written topic materials (19), plus asynchrony seminar classes (5) lasting
a fortnight each, taught interactively, with discussions around specified historical
debates/problems accompanied within the online classes by tutor responses.
Details of teaching
resources on Moodle:
Dedicated HI3018 Moodle website run by the UoLIP, incorporating reading lists, essay
questions, details of assessment, primary and secondary sources, complete texts from
lectures delivered in Egham, links to relevant websites.
Key Bibliography:
Formative Assessment
& Feedback:
Summative
Assessment:
John A. Kirk, Martin Luther King, Jr (Pearson Longman, 2005).
John A. Kirk (ed.), Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement: Controversies
and Debates (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Clayborne Carson (ed.) The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Various editions,
originally published 1998).
Cook, Robert, Sweet Land of Liberty: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights in the
Twentieth Century (London: Longman, 1998)
Fairclough, Adam, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000 (New York:
Penguin, 2001)
Online feedback from seminar tutors on seminar posts and participation;
Written feedback on two formative essay.
Regular assistance/feedback on dissertations – including on a dissertation plan.
Exam – 50% (One Unit)
10,000-word Dissertation - 50% (One Unit) (To be submitted electronically.)
The information contained in this course outline is correct at the time of publication, but may be subject to change as part of the Department’s
policy of continuous improvement and development. Every effort will be made to notify you of any such changes.