In this final lecture, Professor Holloway offers a survey of some of the main themes and ideas of the course, including citizenship, uplift and respectability, political radicalism, cultural politics, and racial symbolism. The final two questions he grapples with are 1) what does it mean to be "post-racial" and 2) how is race used in our society? In order to propose answers to these questions, Professor Holloway examines Barack Obama's election; his 2008 inauguration; and his speech, "A More Perfect Union," given during the campaign.

In this lecture, Professor Holloway discusses how race influenced public policy by examining some of the key cultural symbols of the past few decades, all in an effort to answer the question: how is race used in our society? Professor Holloway discusses Bill Clinton's policies in particular, honing in on his ability to connect with the African American community, the controversy surrounding Lani Guinier's cabinet appointment, and his National Dialogue on Race.

In this lecture, Professor Holloway discusses the connections between media and high politics during the late 1980s and 1990s and reveals the ways that race was replaced by a series of keywords--such as crime, drugs, and welfare--that acted as racial signifiers in our national discourse. An examination of the political rhetoric from the George H.W.

In this lecture, Professor Holloway gives a political biography of Jesse Jackson as a way to help understand the shifting cultural politics of the 1960s, the rise of a different array of politics in the 1970s, and the high politics of the 1980s. Professor Holloway traces Jackson's ascension into Martin Luther King's inner-circle, his work in Chicago with Operation Breadbasket and then later with Operation PUSH, his reaction to King's assassination, his national economic boycotts, and his 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.

With Martin Luther King's assassination, the collapse of SNCC, and the self-destruction of the Black Panthers, one would think that all promise had faded in regards to the possibility of black political and social advancement. But in this lecture, Professor Holloway examines moments of hope for black political organization, including Carl Stokes's 1967 mayoral victory in Cleveland, the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969, and the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana.

The early 1970s marked a moment of social confusion, violence, and cultural excitement carried over from the late 1960s. In this lecture, Professor Holloway canvasses some of the political turmoil of this era and the ways that it was reflected in popular culture. By examining musical achievements like Marvin Gaye's album, What's Going On?, and some of Stevie Wonder's songs recorded around this time, it becomes clear that black cultural producers were wrestling with Vietnam, economic despair, ecological despair, poverty, and urban decay.

As the movement moved out of the South and away from a largely Christian orientation, it became clear that people were prepared to enlarge the struggle so that it became linked to international issues including the war in Vietnam, the spread of capitalism, and the exploitation of developing countries. Yet for every moment of great promise, there was a moment of great confusion and despair. In this lecture, Professor Holloway traces the competing lines of activism, change, struggle, frustration, and political brinksmanship that occurred in the late sixties.

Just as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X have been mythologized in American history, organizations and individuals affiliated with the Black Power call have also been romanticized as well as demonized in such a way that the truth behind their image has been lost.

In this lecture, Professor Holloway focuses on the events between 1964 and 1966 that contribute to a fundamental shift in the tone and tactics of the civil rights movement. By examining the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's quest to seat alternate delegates at the Democratic National Convention in 1964; "Bloody Sunday" and the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery; the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and the riots that summer in Watts, a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles, Professor Holloway reveals that people were struggling with the new tactical change in the movement.

In this lecture, Professor Holloway revisits Malcolm X's life in order to offer a more nuanced interpretation of the black leader than is traditionally taught. Professor Holloway links Malcolm X to a tradition of black intellectuals and political activists like Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and Robert Williams, and he explores the philosophy of the Nation of Islam (NOI), the organization for which Malcolm X is the national spokesman before his split with Elijah Muhammad in 1964.