Introduction for Students

As you heard from Agent King, time travel is possible! One group from your class will be given the secret of time travel under specific conditions. Agent King will be looking for the group that shows it knows the most about its chosen time period. Your group will be given 10-12 minutes to present her with the information you have gathered toward the end of the unit. To win, your group must show Agent King that you know all the information required to go back in time and not stick out. You will want to analyze, interpret and synthesize primary sources such as photographs, prints, broadsides, maps, letters and news articles. In addition, you will develop an understanding of the African American Civil Rights Movement. Agent King is highly knowledgeable about history, so your group will have to know its stuff to impress him. After all, he has gone back in time...

The available destinations for travel include the following:

1. Reconstruction
2. World War I and the Postwar Society
3. The Great Depression, New Deal, and World War II
4. Civil Rights

At the end of today’s class, you need to hand me a list of your top two destinations. I will brief you as to which topic you will explore at our next meeting.

The questions to ponder between now and our next meeting are the following:

• What events following the Civil War motivated African Americans to seek equality?

  Was it the slavery experience? Was it living through the era of Jim Crow Laws and the Black Codes? Was it dealing with segregation and the notion of “separate but equal”? Or was it simply the personal experience of feeling inferior to others just because of the color of your skin?

• What were some effects of slavery and segregation on American society?
• How did the African American struggle for equality become a mass movement?
• How did the law support the struggle for equality for African Americans?
• Has equality for African Americans truly been achieved today?