Preface:

Starting with a close read of The Philadelphia Negro, this seminar critically examined the research and thinking of the great scholar and civil rights leader, W.E.B. Du Bois as a way of understanding racism and the “color line” at the turn of the 20th Century. We focused on primary source documents and digital humanities methods, including oral history and geographic information systems (GIS) for mapping and spatial analysis, as ways to engage students of all ages in understanding the contemporary challenges we face relating to race and racism through an historical lens. The seminar explored the possibilities and limitations of systematic empirical data collection and analysis as a means of affecting social change, including the legacies of the settlement house and social survey movements and scientific racism.