This course examines African American culture and politics from the 1920s to the 1980s. These years are marked by social movements for justice, equality, and liberation. Even still, Black writers regularly debated the political purposes and relevant forms of Black expression. Together we will examine working-class and grassroots activism in relationship to the development of African American literature. From the Great Black Migration to the New Negro Movement, and from the Black Left to Black Modernism, and from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Power, we will discuss the complex relationship between working-class culture and politics and Black political and cultural history.