Description
I need help with a paper. I provided a total of 7 sources that you must use. 5 are attached and 2 are in links. MUST BE FLUENT IN ENGLISH. The sentences need to make sense and flow, I do not want broken English. If the sentences don’t sound fluent or if it sounds like its written by a foreigner I will refund. Thank you for understanding. Let me know if you have any questions.
Instructions for paper: Series Finale
Instead of doing the more traditional style of timed final examination, this assignment will allow
you a chance to think creatively through what you have learned this semester. The objective of
this assignment is to synthesize knowledge you have already acquired, to see connections across
time periods and to think about primary and secondary sources in an applied way. I have called
this the “Series Finale,” because in some ways, like a television show, we are at the culmination
of an epic drama that covered the time span of American history in 7 episodes, or modules.
For this assignment, I want you to imagine that it is the year 2024. It is presidential election
season and a presidential candidate has asked you to produce a brief document summarizing
what you think they should know about American history to be an effective president.
You will choose five primary sources and two secondary sources (list on page 2) that you think
give the president a good sense of who the American people are, the unique nature of U.S.
politics, what major crises they have faced, and how both oppression and the quest for freedom
have been an integral part of the American experience. You should aim for a selection of sources
that covers the long time span of American history and covers several themes. For instance,
perhaps you think the president should know about how abolitionists fought to create a more
equal society. You might select the Angelina Grimke speech as a primary source and the “History
in Brief: Fighting to End Slavery” as a secondary source, and then explain why you think the
president should know about abolitionists. The textbook can be one of your secondary sources,
but you should pick out a specific section that you think your presidential candidate should read.
The directions you can take this assignment are practically endless. The list of the sources
assigned in this class can be found below, in order of when they were assigned.
Papers should be approximately 800-900 words (roughly 3 double-spaced pages). You must
turn in the Series Finale Paper by February 23 at 11:59 PM. I will host a review session where I
will share information about how to approach the assignment. More information will be
provided in iCollege.
You must submit your paper on iCollege in the dropbox of the module folder. Do not e-mail it
to me. Microsoft Word or PDF will be the only formats accepted I will be running a plagiarism
check, so be sure that you are turning in your own, original work.
Assignment Rubric
Content and Evidence – This is the most important goal! Paper is
supported by relevant evidence from the
iCollege documents, lectures, textbook, and
other course material. You should only use
course material, and not outside resources
without prior permission.
Analysis/Critical Thinking – The paper demonstrates that you have thought critically about the assignment questions and have considered all aspects of
the question. Provides well-reasoned and
historically informed examples that support
your points.
Organization/Integration of
Sources – Paper is organized in a logical manner by
introducing your point of view and integrating
sources in a manner that helps illuminate your
perspective.
Mechanics – The paper is proofread, free of grammatical
errors, answers all parts of the question,
and meets the length requirements. Your
paper includes citations for sources that you
have used.
Style – Paper considers the style of writing
demanded by the paper options (i.e.,
letter, diary entry, etc.—in this case, it
should resemble a communication to the
presidential candidate
Inaugural Address – https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/inaugura…
Federalist Papers – https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/…
Unformatted Attachment Preview
HIST 2110 Survey of United States History
Spring 2024
Online
Series Finale
Instead of doing the more traditional style of timed final examination, this assignment will allow
you a chance to think creatively through what you have learned this semester. The objective of
this assignment is to synthesize knowledge you have already acquired, to see connections across
time periods and to think about primary and secondary sources in an applied way. I have called
this the “Series Finale,” because in some ways, like a television show, we are at the culmination
of an epic drama that covered the time span of American history in 7 episodes, or modules.
For this assignment, I want you to imagine that it is the year 2024. It is presidential election
season and a presidential candidate has asked you to produce a brief document summarizing
what you think they should know about American history to be an effective president.
You will choose five primary sources and two secondary sources (list on page 2) that you think
give the president a good sense of who the American people are, the unique nature of U.S.
politics, what major crises they have faced, and how both oppression and the quest for freedom
have been an integral part of the American experience. You should aim for a selection of sources
that covers the long time span of American history and covers several themes. For instance,
perhaps you think the president should know about how abolitionists fought to create a more
equal society. You might select the Angelina Grimke speech as a primary source and the “History
in Brief: Fighting to End Slavery” as a secondary source, and then explain why you think the
president should know about abolitionists. The textbook can be one of your secondary sources,
but you should pick out a specific section that you think your presidential candidate should read.
The directions you can take this assignment are practically endless. The list of the sources
assigned in this class can be found below, in order of when they were assigned.
Papers should be approximately 800-900 words (roughly 3 double-spaced pages). You must turn
in the Series Finale Paper by February 23 at 11:59 PM. I will host a review session where I will
share information about how to approach the assignment. More information will be provided in
iCollege.
You must submit your paper on iCollege in the dropbox of the module folder. Do not e-mail it
to me. Microsoft Word or PDF will be the only formats accepted I will be running a plagiarism
check, so be sure that you are turning in your own, original work.
Source List
*Bold indicates primary source, others are the secondary sources.
U.S. History textbook
A Historian’s Take on the Columbian Exchange
History in Brief: “The Birth of Racial Slavery”
History in Brief: “A Republic, If You Can Keep It”
“Would You Have Been a Federalist or AntiFederalist?”
Federalist Papers No. 51
Anti-Federalist Essay of “Philadelphiensis”
History in Brief: Justifying Slavery
History in Brief: Fighting to End Slavery
Bennett Barrow, Plantation Rules
Angelina Grimke Speech
Pro-slavery Argument from a Virginia
Newspaper
History in Brief: “Reconstruction Amendments”
Declaration of Secession: Georgia
Abraham Lincoln, “Emancipation
Proclamation”
“South Carolina’s Forgotten Black Political
Revolution”
Slavery by Another Name
History in Brief: The Wild 1920s
Matthew Willis, “When Forced Sterilization
was Legal”
Stone Mountain and the Rebirth of the KKK
Claude McKay, “If We Must Die”
Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America
Again”
Ma Raine, “Jealous-Hearted Blues”
Duke Ellington, “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo”
Poetry Foundation, “An Introduction to the
Harlem Renaissance”
Rudy Vallee, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime”
History in Brief: Prosperity and Protest
Franklin Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat”
“Duck and Cover”
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
“An Appeal for Human Rights”
King, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
Martin Luther King Interview 1967
Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address”
Jerry Falwell, “Listen America”
AIDs Crisis in the 1980s
“Greed is Good”
History in Brief: The Conservative Resurgence
of the 1970s and 1980s
“9/11 to Now: Ways We Have Changed”
Assignment Rubric
Goal
Description
Content and Evidence
This is the most important goal! Paper is
supported by relevant evidence from the
iCollege documents, lectures, textbook, and
other course material. You should only use
course material, and not outside resources
without prior permission.
Analysis/Critical Thinking
The paper demonstrates that you have
thought critically about the assignment
questions and have considered all aspects of
the question. Provides well-reasoned and
historically informed examples that support
your points.
Organization/Integration of
Sources
Paper is organized in a logical manner by
introducing your point of view and integrating
sources in a manner that helps illuminate your
perspective.
Mechanics
The paper is proofread, free of grammatical
errors, answers all parts of the question, and
meets the length requirements. Your paper
includes citations for sources that you have
used.
Style
Paper considers the style of writing
demanded by the paper options (i.e.,
letter, diary entry, etc.—in this case, it
should resemble a communication to the
presidential candidate.
Mark
Declaration of Secession: Georgia (January 29, 1861)
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the United States, in December 1860. Georgia
followed by declaring its secession about one month later. In the below excerpt of that
document, what did the legislature of Georgia declare was the most important issue prompting
its secession? On what principles did Georgia justify its secession?
(Source: http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~ras2777/amgov/secession.html#Georgia)
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the
United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led
to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint
against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and
persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to
that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us
of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our
confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the
passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for
many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from
habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would
bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events
have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern
confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not
to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority
committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an
equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that
they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and
the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has
been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of
Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin.
It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered
advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the
advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption
in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery
it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the
formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of
the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon
disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The
opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made
with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United
States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. . . .
. . . An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North
was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party
was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion
and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among
the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it
into aggressive activity. This question was before us. We had acquired a large territory by
successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the
question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery
sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties
asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and
demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and
unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. We had shed
our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the
Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it. These propositions were refused,
the agitation became general, and the public danger was great. The case of the South was
impregnable. The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections– of all,
and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice.
…. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of
the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and
tranquillity.
[Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861]
Abraham Lincoln, “Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
Abraham Lincoln issued the “Emancipation Proclamation,” freeing all slaves on January 1, 1863. Note
that Lincoln’s order only affected the slave states that had seceded. Slave states on the border, which had
not seceded, like Missouri and Kentucky, were not affected by the proclamation. The war aims now
shifted from simply trying to preserve the union, to defeating the Confederacy and ending slavery.
(Source: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/abraham-lincoln/the-emancipation-proclamation-1863.php)
Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President
of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
“That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or
designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States
shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United
States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the
freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any
efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
“That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the
States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in
rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that
day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto
at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated shall,
in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State
and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States.”
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me
vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual
armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and
necessary war measure for supressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863,
and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one
hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of
States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States
the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John,
St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and
Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South
Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West
Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York,
Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which
excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons
held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be,
free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval
authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in
necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor
faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received
into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places,
and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon
military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of
Almighty God.
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
(1963)
(Source: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=100)
My Dear Fellow Clergymen,
While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling
our present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of
my work and ideas … But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms
are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and
reasonable terms.
I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by
the argument of “outsiders coming in.” I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state with
headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some 85 affiliate organizations all across the South …
Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to engage in a
nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) collection of the facts to determine
whether injustices are alive; 2) negotiation; 3) self-purification; and 4) direct action. We have
gone through all of these steps in Birmingham … Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly
segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section
of the country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have
been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any city in
this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis of these conditions
Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently
refused to engage in good faith negotiation.
Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic
community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants—such
as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On the basis of these
promises Reverend Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for
Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations. As the weeks and
months unfolded we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained.
As in so many experiences in the past, we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark
shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us. So we had no alternative except that of
preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our
case before the conscience of the local and national community. We were not unmindful of the
difficulties involved. So we decided to go through the process of self-purification. We started
having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, “are you able to
accept the blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?”
You may well ask, “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn’t negotiation a better
path?” You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct
action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension
that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.
My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without legal
and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups
seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and give up their
unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than
individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it
must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action
movement that was “well timed,” according to the timetable of those who have not suffered
unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in
the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This “wait” has almost always meant “never.”
It has been a tranquilizing Thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to
give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished
jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than
340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving
with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and
buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.
I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait. But
when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters
and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even
kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20
million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent
society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to
explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has
just been advertised on television, and see the tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told
that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to
form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously
developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a fiveyear-old son who is asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored
people so mean?” when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after
night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when
you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” men and “colored” when
your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are)
and your last name becomes “John,” and when your wife and mother are never given the
respected title of “Mrs.” when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you
are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and
plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating
sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a
time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an
abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can
understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must
confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I
have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the
stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’ “Councilor” or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the
white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace
which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who
constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of
direst action” who paternistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom;
who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more
convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than
absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more
bewildering than outright rejection.
You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that
fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I started thinking
about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is
a force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have
been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of “somebodiness” that they have
adjusted to segregation, and a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of
academic and economic security, and at points they profit from segregation, have unconsciously
become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and
hatred and comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black
nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah
Muhammad’s Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration
over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith
in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white
man in an incurable “devil.”
The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let
him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he
must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these
nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is
a fact of history. So I have not said to my people, “Get rid of your discontent.” But I have tried to
say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled through the creative outlet of
nonviolent direct action.
In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white
religious leadership in the community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral
concern, serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power
structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I
have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a
desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say follow
this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother. In the midst of
blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline
and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty
struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say,
“Those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern,” and I have watched so
many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which made a strange
distinction between body and soul, the sacred and the secular.
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it
possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader, but as a
fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice
will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched
communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood
will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
M. L. King, Jr.
Hey guys, start reward. Welcome to another one of my history and
brief lessons. This one we’re going to do a little bit differently. Instead of seeing my face, you’re just going to see the PowerPoint slides and there’s some
more visuals that way than usual. So hopefully that works. And let me know
if you like it more than usual,
because if you do, I can maybe do these
more often than the usual lecture
videos Saarinen tries. >> This one’s on the decade of the 19 twenties, which is one of my favorites periods to teach. >> It’s super interesting. It’s, I think it’s
one of those decades That’s really has a lot of imagery associated with it because lots of movies and pop culture had been done about
the 19 twenties. And so a lot of people
have some like, imagine like the
roaring twenties, the flappers, women
with new freedoms, the Harlem Renaissance, just as the age of jazz, just this really
exciting era where a lot of stuff was happening in America is really becoming modern in a way that, that was a really dramatic change
from the past. So this, and I’m
not going to try to cover everything in
this lecture video. Like, you know, I try
to keep these short and they usually
don’t stay very sure. So that’s probably what’s going to happen this time too. >> But, but I’ll
do my best. >> But one of the
things that I want to do with this is sort of maybe look more closely at whether
that way that we remember the 19 twenties is really all that
historically accurate. >> And really think
about the question, how should we think
about the 19 twenties? >> So the lecture
question that I posed here is where
the 19 twenties, an age of confidence
or an age of anxiety, like was this a decade that is best represented by economic prosperity, new freedoms for women
and African Americans? Or really, is it better remembered as a decade of people worried
about immigration, an era of rising
racial violence. The era in which
extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan really see revitalization. So the thesis for
this lecture is that the 19 twenties
revealed both extremes. >> You have the
racial violence, you have the
anti-immigrant hysteria. >> But that like
contrasts with also, I’m really sort of exciting
realities of modern, of a new modern age with
economic prosperity, new freedoms
for, for women. And, and really the, the rise of popularity of black culture with the
Harlem Renaissance. >> So it’s, it’s sort of one of
those. It’s both. >> It’s yes is the
answer to where? The 19 twenties and age of confidence or an
age of anxiety. The first wanted to talk
about something that has a lot of local
relevance here, which is the rise of
the Ku Klux Klan. Now, the KKK is
something that had been organized
after the Civil War. Starting in
1960, I’m sorry, 1866, as a terrorist
organization. Two restricts freedom
for newly freed slaves. And they were incredibly effective at terrorizing
people in the south, at eliminating a
lot of freedoms, like the freedom to vote, which newly freed slaves had just been granted through the 13th Amendment
and other freedoms through the 13th,
14th, 15th Amendments. But after some concerted
federal action and the Anti-Terrorism
Act of 1871, the federal government
came down really hard on so-called secret
organizations and really was
able to kind of bury the KKK for a time. But in 1915, the
client is reborn and reborn right
nearby instead. >> And Stone
Mountain, Georgia. >> And what happens is that it kind of resulted, the
newfound popularity, the rebirth of it resulted from the release
of a new film, the first blockbuster film ever released in
the United States, ever released up
to that point in the United States called The Birth of a Nation. This is a DW Griffith film which basically
celebrated the end of Reconstruction in really incredibly
vile and racist ways that demeaned the
black political gains at the end of the
Civil War and really celebrated the
people who were trying to reassert white supremacy in the South and
put it back to the way things were
before the Civil War. Really looking
backwards, and this is often called
the Lost Cause. These are often called
Lost Cause efforts. And that basically
refers to those efforts
that tried to put the south back to the
way that it was before the Civil War during
the antebellum era. And this is an
extremely popular film, is in fact the first film that was ever shown in the White House while Woodrow Wilson
was president. >> And it really sparked a rebirth of the KKK. >> And it restarts right here in
Stone Mountain, Georgia with the burning
of a cross in 1915. But it spread like wildfire throughout the
United States. It was particularly strong in not just the South. I think a lot of
people assume that it’s a southern
organization, but it was really
incredibly popular throughout
the United States, including the Midwest
and the, and the west. >> And it was, it was called the
invisible empire, partly because
people are really, in a lot of cases aiming
for anonymity when they committed
racist violence. >> But there was a lot more to it than just that. And unlike the
first sort of version of the KKK
after the Civil War, this one was particularly in areas outside the South, wasn’t so much
just focused on violence towards
African Americans, but was also also targeted people like Catholics and immigrants from
southern and eastern Europe Jews were
particular targets for, for the rebirth
of the Klan. But they were really trying to go for what they
were really advocating, something they called
100% Americanism. And so they really were, were willing to go to great lengths
to intimidate, to use violence to sort of protect what they saw
as American violins and exclude anybody
who didn’t fit their narrow definition of who 100% American
applied to. So for them, middle-class, white and Protestant
were the ways that you could be 100% Amer
