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First Exam Africans in the New World Major questions: Who is Eve? What is the Black Athena argument? What was life in West Africa like prior to the expansion of the Atlantic slave trade? What was the African religious heritage of black Americans? How did the slave trade develop? How was it justified? What was the Middle Passage? How was English contact with Africans different from Portuguese or Spanish contact with Africans? What factors contributed to the shift from indentured servitude to slavery in America? How was slavery different in the Chesapeake, the low country, and the North? How did African traditions survive in America? Who was Olaudah Equiano? What is the larger significance of his life? Key terms: Ghana, Mali, Timbuktu, Songhai, Eve, Black Athena, middle passage, Olaudah Equiano, seasoning, indentured servitude, miscegenation, creolization Reading: The African-American Odyssey, chapters 1, 2, 3; selections from "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano" American Slavery Major questions: What roles did African Americans play in the War for Independence? How did their choices in the conflict affect how the war was fought? How did we become a nation simultaneously dedicated to slavery and freedom? How could the Founding Fathers have allowed such a paradox? What happened to slavery during and immediately after the Revolution? How was the issue resolved in the Constitutional Convention? What do you make of the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings? How should we feel about Jefferson now? What was slave life like in the Old South? How did the domestic slave trade and the exploitation of black women by white males affect slave families? How did slaves resist? What is the significance of Nat Turner's rebellion? Key terms: Crispus Attucks, Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker, Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, domestic slave trade, Nat Turner Reading: The African-American Odyssey, chapters 4, 6; "Jefferson's Secret Life"; Kenneth Greenberg, The Confessions of Nat Turner Abolition, Disunion and Civil War Major questions: Why did North and South become so bitterly divided over slavery? How did reactions to Uncle Tom's Cabin, the caning of Charles Sumner, the Dred Scott case, and John Brown's raid help widen and deepen the sectional divide? To what extent did Abraham Lincoln's policies and attitudes toward black people change during the Civil War? Does Lincoln deserve credit as "the Great Emancipator"? What roles did African Americans play in the Civil War? Were the results of the Civil War worth the loss of 620,000 lives? Key terms: Amistad, Henry Highland Garnet, black nationalism, William Lloyd Garrison, American Anti-Slavery Society, Sojourner Truth, slave narratives, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, the North Star, underground railroad, abolitionism, Liberty Party, Free Soil Party, Wilmot Proviso, fugitive slave laws, Anthony Burns, Margaret Garner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Kansas-Nebraska Act, caning of Charles Sumner, Dred Scott, John Brown, "contraband," Colonization Movement, Emancipation Proclamation, 54th Massachusetts, Fort Pillow, Harriet Tubman, New York City Draft Riot Reading: The African-American Odyssey, chapters 9, 10, 11; selections from Uncle Tom's Cabin; Frederick Douglass's narrative; Harriet Jacobs's narrative; Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Second Exam Reconstruction Major questions: How did ex-slaves struggle to define freedom for themselves in the aftermath of the Civil War? How did Reconstruction play out at the federal level? Why was it so difficult for the Republican party to maintian control of southern state governments during Reconstruction? How would you evaluate Reconstruction? How effective was it in assisting black people to make the transition from slavery to freedom? How effective was it in restoring the southern states to the Union? Key terms: Presidential Reconstruction, Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan, Special Field Order #15, Freedmen's Bureau, black codes, Andrew Johnson, radical Republicans, Thirteenth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment, redemption, Compromise of 1877 Reading: The African-American Odyssey, chapters 12, 13 The Challenge to Jim Crow Major questions: How were each of the Reconstruction Amendments rolled back after 1877? What were the psychodynamics of segregation and lynching? What white needs did they serve? In what various ways did African Americans challenge the Jim Crow system between 1890 and the 1930s? How would you compare the backgrounds and approaches of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois? What was the Great Migration? What was the Harlem Renaissance? Were its accomplishments a part of American culture or separate from it? Key terms: sharecropping, crop lien, segregation, lynching, disfranchisement, Jim Crow, Brownsville, Buffalo Soldiers, immune regiments, Scott Joplin, jazz, Plessy v. Ferguson, Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee, W.E.B. DuBois, NAACP, the Great Migration, Harlem Renaissance, Marcus Garvey, self-segregation, Pan-Africanism, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Jesse Owens, Joe Louis Reading: The African-American Odyssey, chapters 14-19; Plessy v. Ferguson decision; Waco Crisis; speeches by Washington and DuBois Third Exam Civil Rights Movement Major questions: Why did the Civil Rights movement begin when it did? What were the ideologies, objectives, and tactics of SCLC? Of SNCC? How did their tactics, ideologies, and objectives change over time? Key terms: Brown v. Board, sit-ins, Martin Luther King, Jr., Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, Orval Faubus, The Little Rock Nine, James Meredith, SCLC, SNCC, Bull Connor, March on Washington, Freedom Rides, Freedom Summer, Voter Registration, MFDP Reading: The African-American Odyssey, chapters 20, 21; Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream”; Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi Black Power Major questions: What is Black Power? What role does Islam play in black nationalist movements? What do you make of Muhammad Ali's stand on the Vietnam war? How were the black power and countercultural movements related? How and why did the Civil Rights Movement die? Key terms: Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, Nation of Islam, Muhammad Ali, Black Panthers, black nationalism Reading: The African-American Odyssey, chapters 22, 23; Stokely Carmichael, Project Detroit Speech; Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet” Modern Black America Major questions: Where are we now on race? What does it mean to be black in America now? What do you make of the Hill-Thomas hearings? What is the message of Do The Right Thing? Why did the verdict in the trial of Rodney King's arresting officers touch off a riot in L.A.? How did the O.J. Simpson trial reveal a racial gulf wider than anyone had imagined? Is it really so wide? How do Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and Eminem suggest the modern malleability of race? Key terms: Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, Spike Lee, O.J. Simpson, Rodney King, Eminem, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson Reading: Excerpts from the Anita Hill / Clarence Thomas Hearings; Rodney King reading; O.J. Simpson reading; Bill Clinton readings; Michael Jackson Turns 40; The Rap on Rap