African-American Political Philosophy (PHIL 274H)

In this course we will interpret African American political thought as an extended response to a well known paradox of Thomas Jefferson: on the one hand in the Declaration of Independence appearing to found the new country on the idea of human equality; on the other hand in his Notes on the State of Virginia appearing to insist that African Americans could never be American citizens. After getting clear on the meaning of the paradox we will examine the African American response to it in the works of Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and Booker T. Washington. We will conclude our study with several essays by contemporary African American philosophers.

Bernard Boxill’s webpage