Film as a Medium to Study the Twentieth-Century Afro-American Experience

Interpreting the past has long been subject to the biases of historians. Most historical monographs lean heavily on the assumption that the reader has amassed a corpus of facts and has perused the existing literature relevant to the issue at hand. Thus, these works become part of the ongoing debate. Rather than instruct or analyze, they argue and rebut. Although useful to the scholar intent on synthesis, these works obfuscate the issue for the student. The alternative, which most college undergraduates dread, is the conventional textbook. Written more for laymen, this resource offers a compendium of facts which many innocent victims are instructed to memorize. The learning process in this instance is never completed. Facts fade away once examinations have passed, leaving little or no trace of knowledge in their wake. Moreover, students find this conventional approach tedious, perhaps explaining the declining enrollments in introductory history courses. Although this reality is apparent in all areas of history, no one solution can rectify the overall problem. However, with regard to the history of Afro-Americans, an intriguing opportunity exists. Utilizing films to teach a course on twentieth-century Afro-American history presents both teachers and students with a new, refreshing and analytical method of studying the past.1 In this article, certain key components of such a course are discussed. As opposed to traditional history textbooks, which offer a onedimensional, chronological view, film reflects the diversity of the

Sociology · Cuban History and Society · History · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society · Theater, Performance, and Music History

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