Does Race Matter?

12th Grade elective

Homework assignments are in bold.

IV. Race and Rights

A. Drawing Legal Boundaries

1. Native Americans

Assignment 1: (Due 2/22) READ in Red Photocopy, pp. 43-47.  ANSWER the following questions in your own words.

• How were Indians treated in the Colonial Period and early years of the republic?

 

• How did the Indian treaties change over the course of the 19th century?

• Compare and contrast US and Canadian Indian policy.

• What is the significance of the shift of Indian affairs from the War Department to the Department of the Interior?

• Explain the purpose, content, and effects of the following:

  • Dawes Act

 

• Indian Reorganization Act

• Has government policy served to marginalize Indians or to assimilate them?  What do you think US government policy toward Native Americans should have been?

 

IN CLASS: Indian Policy--Dawes Act; Chief Joseph (see attached sheets)

• How did the Dawes Act define who is an American?
• How did Chief Joseph view the relationship between his people and the American government?

2. African Americans

Assignment 2: (Due 2/26) READ “Who is Black?” (attached).  Write a paragraph or two on the following: “What is the ‘one drop rule’?  How has it affected racial attitudes in the US?”

IN CLASS: Plessy v. Ferguson.  What is the basis of the majority decision in the case?  How did this case define blackness and whiteness?  What is the reasoning in Harlan’s dissent?  Is Harlan’s a “color-blind” decision?

IN CLASS: Mamie Garvin Fields, “The Effect of Jim Crow Laws”

3. Defining Whiteness

IN CLASS: Read “Defining Whiteness” in Red photocopy, p. 55.  How did the court reach its decision?

B. Asserting Rights

Assignment 3: (Due 3/3) READ “Black Schools in the Jim Crow South” and “Argument in Brown v. Board” in Red Photocopy, pp. 56-8. ANSWER the following questions in your own words:

1. What did you find most striking in Clark’s description of the school where she taught?

 

• What aspects of the Brown argument to you find most convincing?  Why?

 

IN CLASS: Film: The Civil Rights Struggle

IN CLASS: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Assignment 4: (Due 3/7) Questioning Integration.  Read “Forces for Indian Identity” and “Black Power” in Red Photocopy, pp. 48-51, 59-61.  Answer the following questions in your own words.

• What strategies did Indians use to preserve their culture/identity/rights?
• Describe the context of the emergence of Black Power
• What is Black Nationalism?
• How did Malcolm X criticize the Civil Rights Movement
• What is Lester’s attitude towards integration?  Why?

Film: Eyes on the Prize II "The Time has Come" (see attached)

Response Paper 3: (Due 3/14) Consider all of the readings, discussions, etc. up to this point in the class.  Write 1-2 pages on the following question: Is racial integration necessary for racial equality?