Write out everything in your own words unless you are quoting a source. Use quotations sparingly and only to emphasize your own points. Paragraph long block quotes copied and pasted from American Yawp that substitute for your own writing doesn’t accomplish much. I’ve read American Yawp. I want to read your interpretations of different assigned sources.
3. Please cite your sources in each essay. As usual, please use parenthetical (in-text) citations. For example, (American Yawp, Chapter 29), (Rise of the Religious Right film).
4. Please type out your exams and then upload them on Canvas as a Word document. You should use 12-point font. You can use single or double-spacing.
Due Date: Tuesday, August 22 by 11:59PM.
EXAM QUESTIONS (100 possible points)
1. (25 points) Some historians refer to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s as “The Second Reconstruction.” Why would this phase of the Civil Rights Movement be called “The Second Reconstruction” and what does this say about the “first” Reconstruction (our first topic of the semester)?
2. (25 points) The title of Chapter 29 in American Yawp is “The Triumph of the Right,” which is another way of saying the triumph of conservativism in American politics from about 1968 to the early 1990s. If liberalism dominated American politics from the 1930s to the 1960s (the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement, etc.), how and why did conservatism become dominant from the late 1960s to the 1990s? And why did conservative Christians play such an important part in this conservative “triumph”?
3. (50 points) After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, stood side by side on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and sang “God Bless America” together. Almost twenty years later, on January 6, 2021, American citizens stormed those same steps and broke into the Capitol with the intent to stop the certification of the presidential election that was happening inside. The attack on the Capitol resulted in the deaths of five people on January 6. Over the next few months, four police officers who tried to defend the Capitol from the attacks committed suicide because of the pain and trauma of that day. How did you explain this tragic transformation from unity and deep and violent disunity? Your essay should highlight three turning points or events between 2001 and 2021 that help explain this transformation. As always, you are not graded on what you think or argue but on how you make historical arguments supported by evidence.
https://www.americanyawp.com/text/26-the-affluent-society/
https://www.americanyawp.com/text/15-reconstruction/
https://www.americanyawp.com/text/29-the-triumph-of-the-right/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/america-after-9-11/