essay about The Scottsboro trial

History 2020

Document Assessment Exercise

Scottsboro: An American Tragedy

Fall 2017

Good Luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

General Directions/Checklist:

Submit your essay exclusively in Microsoft Word format.

Submit your essay with conventional font (12 point, Times New Roman) and conventional margins (1 inch top, 1 inch bottom, 1 inch right, and 1 inch left). The length= five (5) to seven (7) typed double-spaced pages.

Submit your essay electronically through the eLearn dropbox.

Submit your essay no later than 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, November 15.

Treat the exercise as you would an in-class essay. It is NOT a research paper. The only resources required are your textbook, references to the documentary viewed online, class and online lecture notes, and the primary sources indicated below. Any and all attributions can be done with in-line parentheses. When citing the Hewitt/Lawson EOH text and other secondary sources, be sure to put page numbers. No footnotes or endnotes are required and indeed are discouraged.

*Primary Sources/Secondary Sources:

*Primary sources are first-hand documents that provide distinctive perspectives about events or environments under investigation. Historians use such sources to produce narratives that describe and explain past actions. They also rely on the work of other scholars (secondary sources), particularly to declare whether they agree or disagree with leading interpretations. There are a number of primary sources and primary source genres that are available to historians interested in the Scottsboro case. Contemporary newspaper coverage represents one important primary source.

For this exercise, you are to utilize as references five (5) contemporary newspaper articles from these two library databases:

Historical New York Times

Black Studies Center (African American Newspapers)

(Includes the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Atlanta Daily World, Los Angeles Sentinel, New York Amsterdam News)

For information from the above newspapers, cite the newspaper (NYT, CD, PC, ADW, LAS, AN), date (9/12/36), and page number with in-line parentheses at the end of the sentence or paragraph.

Be sure to present only work which you can claim to be your own. Any material that can be deemed as plagiarized will result in a zero (0) for the entire exercise (elearn utilizes plagiarism detection software -- "TurnItIn -- that is comprehensive -- it picks up everything from the web, including previous papers submitted by students electronically).

Essay Directions:

Respond to the question below. Emphasis should be on providing both description and analysis. Elaborate and be precise. Avoid generalization. Utilize the primary sources provided as examples to support your argument or thesis (For advice as to how you should create a thesis statement and thesis, see http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts-demos/writing-the-paper/thesis-statements). Address all of the “questions within the question.” Also adhere to the rubric located on the drop box directions page. Assessment will be based on strength of argument and ability to compel the reader to see the issue from the same perspective as the writer.

The Question: Scottsboro, Social Change, and the Study of History (Question #3 FE Study Guide)

Briefly describe the event that became known as “Scottsboro: An American Tragedy.” What does this episode from U.S. history teach us about the American and southern pasts? In your discussion, be sure to address issues relating to race, class, gender, sex, and southern culture. Also consider how perceptions of the past affected what people did in their present. In this sense, think particularly about how perceptions of the Reconstruction Era – perceptions we may refer to as the “Reconstruction Syndrome” and which were encased deeply in myth -- may have influenced the region's views of outside opinions and outsiders in general, especially regarding the questioning or challenging (or changing) of local customs and attitudes. Do you consider the Scottsboro incident a historical phenomenon that can help us understand the dynamics of social change (a reference either to people giving in to or resisting such transformations)? Explain.

In short, how did your examination of evidence associated with Scottsboro help you understand the historical process as not only an art of description or storytelling, but also one of analysis? Do you consider the analytical methods that you used relegated only to addressing the past? Explain.