Historians' recent investigations of the centrality of racialized chattel slavery to the origins of capitalism -- along with activists' efforts to expose the ongoing legacy of New World slavery -- inspire a broad reconsideration of the connections between capitalism, race, and coerced labor. This course will examine how historical and present-day forms of slavery and racism have shaped, and continue to shape, our society, culture and politics. Using primary and secondary sources, we’ll examine leading figures and forms of resistance from the antebellum abolition movement onward to emancipation, the crucible of Reconstruction and the coming of Jim Crow segregation.