Description
Use the readings, lectures, discussions, and screenings to craft your answer. A good answer will include quotations (that are then explained and addressed by you), specific examples (from the readings and/or the media), and clear writing in your own words.
Why was World War II so significant for questions of liberation for Black people in the U.S. and for oppressed people across the globe? Then, explain the shift in Black politics after World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. This was when the Civil Rights Movement first emerged. What changed about their political strategies, as opposed to the Black internationalism prevalent before (and during) the war?
How was the “image of race” managed abroad as the US expanded its power overseas? Use the USIA film The Little Rock Nine and/or The March to explain your answer.
What was the relationship between the early years of the Civil Rights Movement and network television news programming? Either use the news special “Clinton and the Law” or network television’s coverage of the “The March on Washington” to explain your answer.
Describe some of the features of Malcolm X’s radical politics. Identify some of the major characteristics of the Black Panther Party. Make sure to state the connections both Malcolm and the BPP had with the earlier Black internationalists of the late 1930s-early 1940s.
How did the mainstream media portray the Panthers, and how did the Panthers portray themselves? Refer to Rhodes’ ideas of the Panthers’ ‘Revolutionary Culture’ and use specific examples from the BPP Newspaper, and the independent, activist documentaries (Newsreel and Chicago Film Group) to help you answer the question.
Identify the events and reasons that initiated Black public television programming. What were the networks’ initial intentions, according to Heitner, and how did Black producers use and re-envision public television for their own purposes? Identify some of the characteristics that made Black public television programming an alternative to mainstream television.
Essay Question: 40 Points: No MORE than 3 double spaced pages.
Using knowledge from the readings, lectures, screenings, and discussions, you will write an essay on three media examples from a class that express a more radical, internationalist Black politics. One of those three media must be the film The Spook Who Sat by the Door. The other two can be drawn from any other media we’ve seen in this course. You will need to be strategic and choose the best examples of Black radical politics and give specific details from those examples to make your point. You can refer to other media that help to make your point, such as more filtered, mainstream, whitewashed, or neutral media examples we’ve seen. However, you will want to choose media examples that most obviously illustrate Black radical politics. A strong answer will provide specific examples of both the content and form (or style) that is representative of a Black radical politics and aesthetics. A strong essay will make connections between the three media examples you choose.
Sample Solution