Week 5 _African American Studies
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Week5_ASAP201_Article1.docx
Week 5 – Learning Resources – 1945-1950
Dr. Schwenk-Borrell, September 2020
Although black Americans had contributed 100% to the U.S. fighting in World War II, soldiers returned from the war, as they had after World War I, to an America where their freedoms and rights were curtailed. The military had also been segregated. For example, few blacks were able to serve in combat or as officers in the Navy. The Army and Army Air Force were also segregated, but the recruitment of black soldiers to be pilots was not prohibited – they merely had to be trained away from where white men were being trained. Here is a good, but brief history of the Tuskegee Airmen Tuskegee Airmen
In 1945, most public schools were still segregated. Even after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that schools had to be integrated “with all due speed” in 1954 and 1955, many schools in the former slave states refused to do so, or did so by only allowing a handful of students into the school and not having more than one black student at a time in any class.
Most hospitals would not admit non-whites. Most places of work would not hire African Americans. Although the violence by whites was worse in the South, Northern whites also did not want to live near or work with people of African descent. For example, a white person was not allowed to sell his home to “Negroes” or “Jews” in many places outside of Washington, D.C. in the 1940s and 1950s. Newspapers around the country did not want to hire black Americans as reporters. Law firms, advertising and marketing companies, and schools did not want to hire black professionals. Needless to say, African Americans were getting very tired of being treated as, at best, second-class citizens.
Essay Prep Assignment: To get an idea about life for black Americans between 1945-1959, please take a look at the Blackpast.org timeline:
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history-timeline/
From this timeline, write down names and events in two different categories (10 total)
Names/Events You Recognize (a bit) Names/Events You Don’t Know (at all)
(1-5) (1-5)
As you read and watch the materials below, make a note of when you hear/see about a person or an event from your two lists. What have you learned about for the first time? What did you find out about something/someone you had heard of before? For example, you have heard of Rosa Parks, but what did you learn new about her? Or, you had never heard of Autherine Lucy before. What did she do that was significant?
Write down information and quotes about that person or event and where you found that information so that you can write about them for the Week 5 Essay.
Resources – Be sure to read/watch all of them.
1. Parker, Christopher S. (2009) Fighting for democracy : Black veterans and the struggle against white supremacy in the postwar South. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
This book is available in the UMGC Library. Please read chapter 4, “When Jim Crow Meets Uncle Sam: The Veteran Returns to Dixie.
Instructions: Go to the UMGC Library under the “Resources” button on this page. In the Library’s “One Search” box, put the name of the book. Save and/or read Chapter 4.
2. Civil Rights for Beginners. E-book found at the UMGC Library. Author Paul Von Blum. Chapter 3. “The 1950s: Beginning of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. The Chief Catalysts: Emmitt Till and Brown v. Board of Education”
Instructions: Go to the UMGC Library under the “Resources” button on this page. In the Library’s “One Search” box, put the name of the book. Read Chapter 3.
Eyes on the Prize
The landmark series Eyes on the Prize, produced by Blackside and first broadcast in 1987, has recently had a special re-presentation on the award-winning PBS history series, American Experience.
3. Awakenings (1954-1956) Individual acts of courage inspire black Southerners to fight for their rights: Mose Wright testifies against the white men who murdered young Emmett Till, and Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpY2NVcO17U&t=42s
Credits: Awakenings (1954 -1956) Creator And Executive Producer Henry Hampton 1940 -1998
Produced And Directed By Judith Vecchione
Associate Producer Llewellyn M. Smith
Edited By Daniel Eisenberg
Narrated By Julian Bond
4. Fighting Back (1957-1962) States' rights loyalists and federal authorities collide in the 1957 battle to integrate Little Rock's Central High School, and again in James Meredith's 1962 challenge to segregation at the University of Mississippi. Both times, a Southern governor squares off with a U.S. president, violence erupts — and integration is carried out.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bb76CK3Cwc&t=93s
5. Watch this 20-minute movie produced in 1963 by the U.S. Information Agency about the integration of Little Rock High School in 1957: “Nine from Little Rock” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPVOO5sugMY
Note how the U.S. government portrayed the events in Little Rock differently than the documentary film “Eyes on the Prize." The government's film about Little Rock was used by the United States to show foreign audiences in embassies around the world that our country was “making progress” on civil rights. Ask yourself how convincing this portrayal of the Little Rock Nine is as these young adults face their futures in 1963. What do the film-makers leave out? I’ll tell you one thing they left out: the real voices of the Little Rock Nine!! I had the chance to speak to the producer and director of the film, and they admitted that they used white people’s voices for the students because they feared foreigners would have a hard time understanding the voices of Southern blacks.
How does this version of events differ from what you learned about The Little Rock 9 in the “Eyes on the Prize” documentary?
6. “Harvest of Shame” is a 1960 documentary that shows how poverty and lack of education were not simply a “black” problem but a nationwide one affecting all races. As you watch this hour-long documentary, what do you learn about migrant workers that you did not know before? Have you ever studied migrant workers or how food gets from the field to your table?
a. Background information about “Harvest of Shame” - DiscoveryTimes, September 11, 2005
b. CBS News Documentary: “Harvest of Shame” Link: "Harvest of Shame"
Harvest of Shame was a 1960 television documentary presented by broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow on CBS that showed the plight of American migrant agricultural workers. The program caused a good deal of controversy when it was aired.
Director: Fred W. Friendly
Original release: November 25, 1960
Original network: CBS
Produced by: Fred W. Friendly , Edward R. Murrow , David Lowe
Essay Question
Instructions: Write a 250-300 word essay using at least 3 paragraphs. Put your chosen citation style at the top of the essay (MLA/APA/Chicago).
Background: When we are learning about history, we often start off with a set of things we know or half-know about the topic. But we also have whole regions of history we have never heard of. Why is that?
This week, write about two different events/people regarding black history from 1945-1959. You wrote down 10 people/events from the Blackpast.org timeline that you either had heard about a little bit or had not heard of at all. Choose one event/person from each of those two lists to explore why you think you had no knowledge about one of them, and only partial knowledge of another. Reflect upon what you learned more about while watching/reading the Course Materials for this week.
Ask yourself, “why did this person/event not make it at all into Black History Month (or history classes) in my public school?”
Ask yourself, “why was my education about another person/event so limited?"
Explain what you think are the answers to those two questions in your essay.
Suggestions/Examples:
You might write an essay explaining what you had not understood about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, comparing it with the fact you had never heard of Orval Faubus before. Why did you learn a little bit about one and nothing about the other?
or
You might write about the Little Rock Nine and explain what you have learned about this 1957 event through your schooling, and then write about the new information you have gained about it this week. Compare the events in Little Rock with an event in Civil Rights history you had never heard of but was discussed in this week’s materials. Why has one person or event been ignored while another one is frequently mentioned or commemorated?
or
You might write about information you never knew about the murder of Emmett Till, but then compare it with the fact that you had never heard about how hard it was to travel by car in the 1950s. What did Till’s murder “mean” in high school and how has your understanding of it changed, and why do you think you had never heard of the racism at hotels, gas stations, and restaurants which made travel so painful for blacks in the 1950s.
Your Thesis: The thesis of this paper will be your assessment of why you have had only limited knowledge about Black History. At the end of a brief introduction, write your thesis using the word “because” in that sentence. The two examples you have found will be the “evidence” for your thesis that you will describe in your next paragraph. Then, you will have a conclusion that provides further insight into what your thesis stated in the first paragraph.
Rationale: Our sense of history gives us a road map to understanding ourselves and the present time. In this class, your job is to expand and enrich your knowledge and to gain some tools in writing and thinking about the past. Should we always question what we think we know is true? Should we seek out more details on our own? Should we find the people for whom time has lost both their narrative and significance?
For example, who is Ella Baker? Who is Daisy Bates? Who is Fannie Lou Hamer? Who is Bayard Rustin? What is the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee? What is Freedom Summer? Who is Bob Moses? What did the Birmingham Campaign achieve? What did the Selma to Montgomery March achieve?
All of these people and events should be taught to all Americans, regardless of race. The fact that most of you have no clue who or what they are tells you something about what our society would prefer you to know and not know. I hope this class empowers you to question what you have learned and to dig for the stories and people beyond those that have made it into school textbooks.
Let me know if you have any questions at [email protected]
