This is a special topic honors module of five weeks, focusing on the U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and American literature. This case, coming to the Supreme Court in the October term of 1895 from the Louisiana Supreme Court, confirmed on a national level the concept of "separate but equal" for Negroes in the United States, a concept which was a legal argument for what were known throughout the country as Jim Crow laws. In the south, these state laws were a way around the consequences of the Fourteenth Amendment giving citizenship to Negroes (passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified by the states in 1868). The Emancipation Proclamation (1863), the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery (ratified in 1865), the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment giving Negroes the vote (ratified in 1870) set the stage for the period of Reconstruction of the south.
The course will center on the study of three novels chronologically surrounding the Plessy decision: Albion Tourgée's A Fool's Errand (1879), Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and Charles W. Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901). These novels predict the decision, parody the logic it was based on, and chronicle its aftermath, respectively. The course will also, of course, include a study of the Supreme Court decision itself and the briefs filed with the court. Arrangements have been made for all who are able to do so to visit the Supreme Court on a day it is sitting, before the semester formally begins (January 11). Finally, Oliver Hill is expected to visit us for an hour or so, to discuss the context of the overturning of Plessy by the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Mr. Hill was part of the NAACP team, headed by Thurgood Marshall, that successfully argued the case in 1954.
Copies of the novels are avaliable in the bookstore. Transcripts of the Supreme Court decisions and briefs are available in the reference section of Cabell Library. They are also available at the U. of Richmond's law school library, and officials there have welcomed our use of them.
Class sessions will be devoted to discussions of the law documents and the three novels; students will also present brief (10 minute) oral reports on their independent research and writing. A short paper (6-7 pages) on some aspect of this topic will also be required. Individual conferences will help focus the ideas for these papers.
Grades will be determined by the paper, the oral report and by class participation. Class attendance is required; participation in class discussions is essential. Missed classes should be explained and approved beforehand when possible and afterwards always. All assigned work is to be read en toto by the day it is assigned.
As a policy, missed work cannot be made up. Exceptions will be made only when a given set of circumstances warrants.