The African American History
History 12 Fall 2020: Midterm 2, Due November 21, 2020 Instructions: Submit a two page (minimum), typed, and double spaced essay response for two of the following questions (Exam covers Chapters 7-10 in Gray, et. al., Freedom on My Mind). This exam is due. Only use your course texts/class lectures for documentation purposes. Use Internet sources will earn a grade of zero on the examination.1. Explain the transformation in Lincoln’s attitude toward slavery and the contribution of Frederick Douglass’ and other abolitionists lobbying to using abolition as a war aim.2. Why were the Civil War Amendments (13th, 14th and 15th Amendments) a necessary foundation for black American citizenship? Explain by using the features of each of these constitutional amendments.3. What special efforts were implemented to raise the status of black Americans (the formerly enslaved in the South) after the Civil War?4. What groups opposed black citizenship during the Reconstruction Period? Explain reasons for their opposition.5. After Reconstruction many black Americans moved to Western territories within the United States or left the United States entirely (this movement was called Emigrationism). Explain who were emigrationists and why did they choose this solution to the question of finding a place for black people in the United States.6. Black Americans faced continued discrimination, segregation, racial murder and other forms of violence, and exclusion from voting in various ways in the period, 1880-1920. Identify those individuals and their political projects.7. Compare the rise of a black entrepreneurial professional class (often called “the black bourgeoisie”) to the poverty of the black working class (and the US working class in general) from 1880-1929.8. Black Nationalist politics appeared as a political trend in the period, 1916-1925. Why was Marcus Garvey successful in making it a mass movement, when other advocates of that position failed to organize beyond a few intellectuals (.i.e. Martin Delany and Hubert Harrison)?9. The rise of organized Labor and social-democratic politics barely touched black communities in the United States (additionally, they barely made a dent in the white working class). Why did the social-democratic movement and labor unions failed to have an influence among all but a handful of black Americans?
