So my final is tomorrow morning. I am hoping and praying that I get the essay question about Marcus Garvey, the UNIA, and how they lay (laid?) the groundwork for the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the Black Power movement. I'm totally all over that question. I can handle the Haitian Revolution question -- all about Toussaint-L'Ouverture and his legend, and how his struggle, and the struggle of the Black residents of Haiti affected the US -- and I'd be fine with the sexism and racism question. Now, there's a question about our West/Gates book that I am utterly unprepared for...so I'm going to try to get a grip on that tonight. I've got most of the identification options down - stuff like Benjamin Banneker, Ida B.Wells Barnett, Mary McLeod Bethune, the Dred Scott Decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Ed, Phillis Wheatley, David Walker's Appeal, Nat Turner-Denmark Vesey-Gabriel Prosser, Booker T. Washington and the Atlanta Exposition... all kinds of stuff.

If you're anything like me -- a white woman educated in State College PA who's never before studied African-American history -- then you don't know much about any of these subjects. I know that I didn't -- really, still don't. It's really been pissing me off, honestly, how little I've known about this history. I had some race and ethnicity courses in college, but even so, I know very, very little. I'm hoping that I have enough elective room to take another course along the way.

Meanwhile, I need to finish my final project - writing about the contributions of African-Americans to All Souls Unitarian Church in downtown Washington, DC, and the struggles the church and the denomination have had around race. But that's not due until next week, so I have a little time. Not much, but a little.

Wish me luck!