This course is focused on African Americans’ lived experiences in a Post-Reconstruction American society. We will cover themes that highlight the oppressive forces that have worked against upward mobility for black Americans, as well as the community’s victories and reclamation of power through movements and advocacy organizations. The intersectional nature of oppressive structures is integral to understanding these individuals’ lived experiences with blackness in a society that perpetuated oppressive policies rooted in Reconstruction-era rhetoric. This course aims to capture African Americans’ day-to-day encounters with oppression throughout history by considering the social construction of “race” and its effect on society as well as on the individual. The trajectory of the course is divided by integral time periods and movements to encompass vital ideas, actors, and events. The second half of the course accounts for themes that consider modern social constructions of race and lived experiences under oppressive social and political structures.