The Effects of the Enlightenment on Black People

Explain how, since the conjoined birth of the Enlightenment and chattel slavery, freedom has been a
constant struggle for Black folks. Discuss, in particular, how Black folks’ struggles for liberation have
involved both acts of rebellion and acts of radical thinking, through which they developed their own
critical concepts for understanding a world defined by systemic racism. Use seven of the following:
• Natasha Piñon, “What You Need to Know About Systemic Racism” (cite as: Bonilla-Silva)
• Peter Hamilton, The Enlightenment and the Birth of Social Science”
• Laurent Dubois, “Atlantic Freedoms: Haiti, Not the US or France, Was Where the Assertion of
Human Rights Reached Its Defining Climax in the Age of Revolution” (cite as: L. Du Bois)
• W.E.B. Du Bois, “Our Spiritual Strivings” (cite as: Du Bois-Strivings)
• James Baldwin, “My Dungeon Shook”
• Sylvia Wynter, “No Humans Involved: An Open Letter To My Colleagues”
• “Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition” (interview) or “Scholar Robin D.G.
Kelley on How Today’s Abolitionist Movement Can Fundamentally Change the Country?”
(interview)
• Deborah Douglas, Angelique Chrisafis and Aamna Mohdin, “One Year On, How George
Floyd’s Murder Has Changed the World”