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Titel
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The African American Experience
Mini-project
Working in groups, your task is to research an aspect of African American history (subjects below) and prepare a 45 min. lesson on your subject. Find information on your subject in the book 'Black Voices' (Systime, 2022) and on the internet, and prepare to teach and educate your classmates (yes, you will be teaching your classmates). Your lesson must include a PowerPoint presentation as well as tasks for your text(s). List your sources on the last slide of your PowerPoint presentation. You may include a few short YouTube clips in your lesson.
Group 1 – An introduction to slavery and The Civil War
America is often referred to as “the land of the free”, and most people associate America with a country “conceived in Liberty” in which the right and opportunity of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” is given to everyone by God. The reality, however, might be somewhat different. Slavery was a part of the history of the United States of America from the very beginning and thrived for several centuries.
Materials:
“Slavery”, pp. 8-14
“Separate but equal”, pp. 66-68 top of page)
Group 2 – Solomon Northup and Twelve Years a Slave
Solomon Northup was born in the state of New York, but he was kidnapped and forced to work as a slave for 12 years. Northup wrote an autobiography about his experiences as a slave.
Materials:
Solomon Northup: Twelve Years a Slave (extract, 1853)
Group 3 – An introduction to Reconstruction and Jim Crow Laws
After the American Civil War, most states in the South passed anti-African American legislation. These laws became known as Jim Crow laws. This included laws that discriminated against African Americans with concern to attendance in public schools and the use of facilities such as restaurants, hotels, cinemas and public baths.
Materials:
”Separate but equal”, pp. 68-69
“Jim Crow Laws 1876-1965”, p. 87
Group 4 – W.E.B. Du Bois and Billie Holiday
W.E.B. Du Bois and Billie Holiday are considered a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a movement that spanned the 1920s to the mid-1930s. The Harlem Renaissance was a literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity.
Materials:
Billie Holiday: ”Strange Fruit” (1939, pp. 94-95
W.E.B. Du Bois: “On Being Crazy” (1907), pp. 89-91
Group 5 – I Am a Man – an introduction to The Civil Rights Movement
60 years ago, Rosa Parks became a symbol of the mass movement against racism that eventually ended the system of official segregation in the American South. Her arrest on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, triggered a year-long bus boycott, an event that is generally seen as the beginning of a decade-long battle against segregation.
Materials:
”I Am a Man – introduction to the Civil Rights Movement”, pp. 114-117
Anne Moody: Coming of Age in Mississippi (extract, 1968), pp. 124,-126
Group 6 – Ralph Waldo Ellison and Invisible Man
Ralph Waldo Ellison was an African American novelist and literary critic. Ellison was born in Oklahoma but moved to New York as a young man. In 1945 he began writing the novel Invisible Man. Seven years later it was published and won the National Book Award. The novel is often seen as a statement about the experiences of African Americans living in the US in the 1950s.
Materials:
Ralph Waldo Ellison: Invisible Man (extract, 1952), pp. 137-141
Group 7– Post-racist America?
The election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008 no doubt marked a watershed in American history. It seemed finally to prove the saying that “anyone can grow up to be president” was true also for African Americans. But is racism in America over?
Materials:
“Post-racist America?”, pp. 150-156 top of page
Group 8 – Barack Obama and the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery Marches
2015 saw the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday”, a violent attack on peaceful civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama. In 1965, to protest harassment by officials when trying to register African Americans to vote, Civil Rights leaders intended to March from Selma to Montgomery. On the Edmund Pettus Bridge, police and white volunteers attacked the protesters, shocking Americans and leading to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Materials:
Barack Obama: “50th anniversary of Selma to Montgomery marches” (extracts 1-3) pp. 156-161
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