Remember the Titans

The political and social purpose of Reconstruction was to bring more than 4 million black men, women, and children into American society with equal status. The thirteenth amendment banned slavery; the fourteenth amendment guaranteed equal protection under the law; and the fifteenth amendment gave black men the right to vote. The conquered South was forced to accept African Americans as a freed people, they did not however, accept blacks as equals.

Reconstruction was a failure. Laws were passed in the South to keep blacks from voting. Groups like the Ku Klux Klan used violence to intimidate the black population. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court decided that "Separate but Equal" was Constitutional. As long as facilities were equal, blacks and whites could be segregated from one another by law. Separate drinking fountains, restrooms, bus and restaurant seating, and even separate schools would be the norm for the next 100 or so years.

In 1954, the Supreme Court decided against segregated schools in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. The Civil Rights Era of American history had begun. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. led a movement for black equality in the United States. Schools were ordered to be desegragated.

The film "Remember the Titans" is based on the true story of a football team in Virginia that struggles with desegregation, equality, and acceptance.

Rights and Power: The Politics of Reconstruction

Click on the title of this link to go to the 4th section of Reconstruction. Use Google Docs, and you may have partners again. Remember to invite me when you invite partners to work with you.
I have written some to the questions for you to answer by looking at the pages. The rest, I have given a title to each page, and you are to write a question and answer for each page.

From Slave Labor to Free Labor (click here to go to website)

If you have finished the first two sections of the Reconstruction site, and have sent the information to me in an email as an attachment, you are ready to move on to the third section. This section of the site is called "From Slave Labor to Free Labor". It covers what working life was like for the freedman during Reconstruction.

As with the second section, you may work with other people on Google Docs. Also, like the second section, you will ask one good question (and answer it) from each page of this section. Remember, when you invite students to see and edit your document, you must invite me also! Use the spreadsheet so you can effectively communicate through the chat application.

If you choose to work alone on this assignment, you can use a regular google document, or a microsoft word document. When you finish, you will email to me as an attachment.