Description
For your midterm, you must answer three short answer questions and one essay question. There is no required minimum or maximum word count for your responses. We expect that short answer responses should be approximately one-to-two paragraphs each; the essay response likely should be completed in at minimum of four-to-five paragraphs.
Question 1
Please answer EITHER question A or B:
A.) Describe the concept of the Black metropolis. What was the relationship between working class Black laborers and respectable Black elites in Chicagos Black metropolis, and how did that relationship contribute to the economic independent of Chicagos Black community?
B.) How did Ida B. Wells attempt to address the problems of anti-Black violence and Black oppression? Describe three of the strategies she employed and what she hoped to achieve with each one.
Question 2
Please answer EITHER question C or D:
C.) How did womens labor organizing evolve during the Progressive Era? How did issues of class help to shape womens organizing in the period? (In your answer, be sure to mention at least one of the organizations and one of the women organizers/activists that we read about)
D.) How did non-white intellectuals and activists like Ho Chi Minh and Marcus Garvey engage the concept of self-determination? In light of what you learned about Woodrow Wilson, was it hypocritical for Wilson and the United States to promote self-determination in the wake of World War 1? Why or why not?
Question 3
Please answer EITHER question E or F:
E.) What factors contributed to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II? In your opinion, why were German and Italian Americans treated differently than Japanese Americans?
F.) How did anti-Communist sentiment during the Cold War impact left-wing political activism in the United States? In your answer, discuss at least three US activists who were impacted. You may include examples from the period immediately after WWII, the Civil Rights movement, or the anti-war movement.
Question 4
Please answer EITHER question I or II:
I.) The article The Strategies and Contexts of Social Protest: political mediation and the impact of the Townsend Movement in California by Amenta, Halfamann, and Young provides insight on how the success or failure of the strategies employed by members of a social movement is determined, in part, by the political climate that the social movement faces. When the political climate is favorable for the objectives of a social movement, the movement is likely to find success even by using less assertive or mild tactics. When the political climate is not favorable, then the members of that social movement will likely need to employ tactics that are more assertive and more radical. We have read about various twentieth century US social movements including the women suffrage movement, various labor movements, the Garvey movement, the Townsend movement, American Socialist and Communist movements, the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war movement and others. These movements employed a number of strategies including publishing articles, circulating petitions, labor strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, and mass migration to name a few.
In this essay, pick any one of the social movements we have discussed and one or two of the strategies they used. Using the information you have from course readings, assigned videos, and class lectures about the political climate that the social movement you picked faced, discuss whether you think the argument of the article by Amenta, Halfmann, and Young holds true in this case or not.
II.) The assigned chapter from Charles Paynes Ive Got the Light of Freedom discusses the philosophy behind the organizing strategies of Ella Baker, Septima Clarke, and Myles Horton. Each of these incredibly important organizers adopted a strategy that focused on teaching, mobilizing, and empowering everyday people. One of the reasons this course focuses on the history of social movements is to highlight the impact of everyday people, like the ones these organizers sought to empower, on shaping history. In this essay, discuss how the approach of Baker, Clarke, and Horton resembles or differs from that of other social movements we have read about in this class. Please use concrete examples from the course readings, assigned videos, and class lectures to make your case.
These are the links of readings:
https://digital.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-g…
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14….
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/why-w…
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/froos1.as…
http://www.americanyawp.com/text/23-the-great-depr…
http://www.americanyawp.com/text/26-the-affluent-s…
http://www.americanyawp.com/text/27-the-sixties/
