Review: Masterclass: Black History, Black Freedom, & Black Love
During the month of February, which has been designated as Black History Month since 1976, the online learning platform Masterclass hosted the video series Black History, Black Freedom, and Black Love: Lessons from Influential Black Voices. Seven speakers led this remarkable, three-part series, focusing on the past, present, and future of Black Americans. The class spanned across 54 videos, totaling 10 hours and 47 minutes of screen time, and broached a staggering number of topics, including:
- Democracy, Elections, & Voting Rights
- The Constitution, especially the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
- The Plantation, Enslavement, & Emancipation
- The Civil War and Reconstruction
- Linguistics and Black English
- Segregation in Education & Historically Black Colleges / Universities (HBCUs)
- Redlining & Housing
- The Prison-Industrial Complex & Policing
- The 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, and Intersectionality
- Repatriations & Affirmative Action
As someone who has spent a lot of time with the subject, this was by far the most comprehensive class on Black American history that I have seen. I was especially impressed by the variety of opinions presented during the talks by the seven expert instructors.
Now professor emerita at University of California, Santa Cruz, along with a National Women's Hall of Fame Inductee, and a recent guest on the PBS television show Finding Your Roots, Dr. Angela Davis began her teaching career at University of California, Los Angeles, where she was fired for her Marxist views and affiliation with the Black Panther Party. Her talks focused on her time of imprisonment and the criminal justice system, the Black Liberation Movement, education before Brown v. Board of Education, and blues music.
After growing up in the Baptist church, Dr. Cornel West became a theologian, the author of more than twenty books, and a lifelong activist. Dr. West currently teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, a college founded by Presbyterians in 1836 but now more universalist in teaching. His talks emphasized the love of his family and neighbors in the Black community, the work of Black intellectuals, and understanding how many Americans have internalized White Supremacy. Elsewhere on Masterclass, Dr. West co-instructed The Power of Empathy.
As a professor at UCLA Law School and Columbia Law School, along with the founder of the African American Policy Forum, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw coined the terms critical race theory, intersectionality, and #SayHerName. During her Masterclass talks, Crenshaw spoke on rulings of the Supreme Court and Reconstruction Amendments, Emancipation, the redeemer interpretation of the Constitution after Reconstruction, her work as the counsel to Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas Senate Judiciary Hearings, and the myth of racial color blindness.
Nikole Hannah-Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2020 for her work on the 1619 Project as a reporter for the New York Times Magazine. Hannah-Jones spoke broadly about the place of African-Americans in United States history, including democracy, capitalism, the Civil War, healthcare, education and Black scholars, redlining and housing, reparations, and segregation.
Recently finishing her time as the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), Sherrilyn Ifill spoke extensively about laws and legal issues faced by Black Americans, including the 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Acts, Jim Crow, and Brown v. Board of Education, and the 2020 election. She highlighted the role of Thurgood Marshall as the first Black Supreme Court Justice, along with emphasizing the importance of memorializing sites of racial violence.
Dr. Jelani Cobb is a writer at the New Yorker focusing on “race, politics, history, and culture”, along with the Dean of the Columbia Journalism School. Cobb spoke about the importance of Historically Black Colleges / Universities (HBCUs) and their impact on Black education and culture. He described the Voting Rights Act of 1965, illustrating how the 14th and 15th Amendments were not upheld until the passage of this law, and how disenfranchisement continues despite the ruling. Dr. Cobb also detailed the 1968 Kerner Commission Report, also called the “Riot Report”, a largely forgotten, federally funded project led by Governor Otto Kerner Jr. of Illinois who thoroughly explained the causes behind the race riots of 1967, including the effects of overpolicing. Dr. Cobb gave advice to Black viewers about how to react when faced with dehumanizing conditions and to continue perpetuating Black Love.
As a linguist with a podcast called Lexicon Valley, a regular contributor for the New York Times and The Atlantic, and an associate professor at the Center for American Studies at Columbia University, John McWhorter took a radically different approach from the other speakers, playing devil’s advocate as he dissected how changing language reflects or creates changes in culture. McWhorter described the origins and flourishing of Black English, heterodoxy in the exploration of Black culture; the triumph of Black Americans and the creation of the “Black Metropolis” despite oppression; the changing means of words like “prejudice”, “racism”, and “White supremacy”; and his views on reparations.
This Masterclass is ideal for anyone ready for a deep dive into Black history as taught by the top instructors in the field. Having prior, even extensive knowledge of the subject is helpful for watching this series. The four downloadable guides are also an excellent source of information. Clear audio and mostly accurate subtitling allow the majority of audience to experience the series.
Abby Epplett’s Rating System
Experience: 8/10
Accessibility: 9/10