Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs:

The Fight for Equality in the United States

 

 

“Historians strive constantly to improve our collective understanding of the past through a complex process of critical dialogue—with each other, with the wider public, and with the historical record in which we explore. former lives and worlds in search of answers to the most compelling questions of our own time and place.”

                                                                                    AHA Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct

​

 

Shortly after graduating from Oberlin College in 1847, abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Lucy Stone remarked, "I expect to plead not for the slave only, but for suffering humanity everywhere. Especially do I mean to labor for the elevation of my sex.” Three years later, 1850 found her on a national stage at a conference on women’s rights that included noted abolitionists. Stone understood the necessity of a fight that brings rights to all peoples. There were those who felt she and some of the other women present were dupes of the abolitionists. History would unfortunately prove this correct, for when African American men were given the vote through the 15th Amendment, the abolitionists felt their work was done. It would take another 50 years before women would be granted the right to vote.

 

Recognizing, as Lucy Stone did, that the fight for human rights does not exist in a vacuum, this course will look at the intersection of the three major American movements for African American rights, women’s rights, and gay rights. Looking back over160 years of history, we will compare and contrast the three movements. We will also examine how events in the United States and around the world informed and changed the dialogue on civil rights as so many fight even today to keep the conversation alive.