By now, most of you in our US History class will have heard of the Trayvon Martin murder which occurred in a Florida suburb on February 26th. As of last Friday (March 30th), his killer had not been arrested. Here is a great report from Democracy Now:
How do we begin to deconstruct and make sense of this event? How can we use history to help us understand how a young African-American could possibly be gunned down in the middle of the day? Here is a video from Democracy Now that attempts to compare the Civil Rights movement in the 20th century with this recent event:
Please comment on what has been posted before you and try to incorporate what you have learned about the racial divide in the United States to help shape your answer. Comments are due on April 5th at 9:00 AM.
Check out this campaign ad created for the Newt Gingrich 2012 Campaign for the Republican nomination. I was struck by it based on our recent conversations about the Declaration of Independence, Article of Confederation, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and Howard Zinn’s take on all of it.
What are the creator’s of this ad (and others like it) trying to tap into? Are there themes from the 18th century that are being rejuvenated? What is Gingrich’s angle? Finally, if Zinn was correct in assuming that the Founding Fathers only created a society for rich white men, could history repeat itself?
Henderson Hallway 