Syllabus for Black History Month Discussions

Updated February 23, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

For this month, a team working with revcom.us/Revolution has been developing a syllabus that can be used for groupings of people getting together to engage in these discussions—in classrooms, conferences, living room gatherings and meetings large and small.

To help guide the discussions, we are suggesting an array of topics/questions that can be taken up. A reading list for each topic will be provided, which includes works from Bob Avakian, Revolution newspaper/revcom.us and other publications. And for each session—we are providing some questions to spark off the discussion.

This syllabus is in development. Write to revolution.reports@yahoo.com with any suggestions and questions as well as responses and experience gained in taking up these discussions.

 

Readings/video clips:

1. BAsics from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian

2. “The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System and the Revolution We Need,” special issue of Revolution/revcom.us, sections titled “The Rise of Capital—on a Foundation of Slavery and Genocide” and “There Would Be No United States as We Now Know It Today Without Slavery.”

3. Three clips from the DVD REVOLUTION: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, a film of a talk by Bob Avakian (see the embedded clips on the Resource page):

“They are selling postcards of the hanging”

“Emmett Till and Jim Crow: Black people lived under a death sentence”

“What To The Slave Is Your Fourth of July? From the Past to the Present”

 

Readings:

1. The American Enterprise—Property and Slavery Peculiar Notions of “Freedom” and Profound Contradictions, by Bob Avakian

2. Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, by Bob Avakian, in particular the section “Jeffersonian Democracy, Ideals, Illusions, and Reality” (pp. 3-8 in the print edition)

 

Readings:

1. The U.S. Constitution and the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal): Two Constitutions, Two Different Systems, Two Different Futures for African-American People

2. A Question Sharply Posed—Nat Turner or Thomas Jefferson, by Bob Avakian

For further study: 

1. Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, by Bob Avakian

2. Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves, by Henry Wiencek (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012)

 

Readings:

1. The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System and the Revolution We Need, special issue of Revolution/revcom.us sections titled: ‘The First Betrayal, after Slavery”; “Aftermath of the 60s: The Second Betrayal”

2. Three Strikes…by Bob Avakian

3. How This System Has Betrayed Black People: Crucial Turning Points, by Bob Avakian

4. Two Constitutions, Two Different Systems, Two Different Futures for African-American People , Part 2: Reconstruction and the First Great Betrayal, 1867-1896 Part 3:  Battle Over Segregated Education in the 1950s and 1960s.

Additional readings:

1. Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, a film of a talk by Bob Avakian, Session 1.

2. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander (The New Press)

 

Readings:

1. The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System and the Revolution We Need special issue of Revolution/revcom.us. See section: The Civil War.

2. Democracy: Can’t We Do Better Than That? by Bob Avakian, Chapter 4, “The USA as Democratic Example...Leader of the Pack,” page 110-111

For further study:

1.  The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System and the Revolution We Need, special issue of Revolution/revcom.us

2. Democracy: Can’t We Do Better Than That? by Bob Avakian, Chapter 4

3. "We Call Bullshit—4 Big Lies and the 1 truth of Lincoln", by Toby O’Ryan , February 24, 2013, Revolution

4. Lincoln, 2012 film directed by Steven Spielberg

 

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