Abe Lincoln and Jim Crow

Abe Lincoln and Jim Crow

A Web Quest for High School U.S. History

By

David Farrar

Introduction Task Process Resources Evaluation Conclusion

Introduction

Abraham Lincoln is rated by many as our greatest President. He is remembered as the man who freed the slaves, "The Great Emancipator," but what did that freedom really mean to the freed slaves? This Web Quest is designed to help students examine the years following the Civil War to see what freedom and the reconstruction of the South was really like.

Task

The years after the Civil War were turbulent, to say the least. The country went from an agricultural country with a fairly homogeneous ethnical composition to a large, powerful, diverse industrial nation. What did the Civil War, Reconstruction and the years leading to complete segregation mean for the African-American? You will be looking at this from several perspectives. The class will work in groups to research the viewpoints of several different groups and people on the subject of race relations. Each group will take a point of view and try to see the motivation behind it and express to the class the basic beliefs of the people or groups and why they felt the way they did.

Each group will research their assigned viewpoint.
Each student will become familiar with the overall history of the time period.
Groups will know the historic, social, economic, and racial perspectives of their group or person.
All will become familiar with relevant Supreme Court decisions, especially Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson.
Each group will prepare a brief presentation to be made as 'friends of the court' to the Supreme Court as they prepare to decide the Plessy case.

Process

The lesson will require all to do work in class and out. A trip to the library or computer lab will be arranged, but outside reading and some good old fashioned research will be necessary.

Everything used, even pictures, will be documented.

Each group should gather their information and save it on a disc. Do not simply download all the material you can find.

The groups will prepare to make their presentations before "The Court." This will happen in a class period.

Every student will write a short paper stating their groups point of view and whether they agreed with it or not. The conclusion of the paper should be your own opinion.

The individuals involved will include some or all of the following:

Freed slaves

The Ku Klux Klan

Northern politicians

Business leaders.

Booker T. Washington

W.E.B. Du Bois

Poor whites

European observers.

Resources

http://www.nilevalley.net/history/jim_crow_laws.html Civil War site

http://www.nps.gov/malu/documents/jim_crow_laws.htm Jim Crow

http://www.allsearchengines.com/ Massive search engine.

http://www.nilevalley.net/history/jim_crow_laws.html

http://www.africana.com/Articles/tt_026.htm

http://www.toptags.com/aama/docs/jcrow.htm origins of Jim Crow

http://pages.ivillage.com/kelly_chase_2004/segregatedbyjimcrowlaws/id9.html details about Jim Crow Laws.

http://afroamhistory.about.com/cs/jimcrowlaws/?once=true& links to Jim Crow sites.

http://www.ushmm.org/olympics/zcc036a.htm pictures.

http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vcdh/afam/cvillecontents.html

http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/

http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/data.htm African-American soldiers in the Civil War.

http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/k12/history/gb/civilhome.html Civil War site.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~bdentler/BKDJMO.html African Americans, Civil war and beyond.

http://www.altered.com/dengue/kkk/history.htm history of the kkk

http://www.unf.edu/dept/equalop/oeop11.htm more KKK history.

Much more information is also available at other sites and in books, so feel free to research on your own.

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Evaluation

The project will be evaluated based on overall effort and knowledge of the subject. The research, the presentation, the essay and the quality of the material used will combine to make up the final grade. The following rubric will show you what grade you will earn depending on the amount and quality of the work put in.

Excellent Good Fair Not so good

The Research

All involved.

Continuous, effective effort.

Decent effort with all involved.

Some wasted time, cooperation fair.

Off task, little cooperation, poor research.

Quality of Material

Material historically significant, relevant, and plentiful.

Most of the material useful, maybe some superfluous.

Got most of the information needed.

Irrelevant information, not enough of it, much of it irrelevant.

The presentation

Well planned, smooth delivery, persuasive.

Good job. Message came across.

All right. Assignment completed in acceptable fashion.

Confusing, not persuasive, lackadaisical.

The essay.

Well-written, informed opinion. Used much historical information.

Decent historical information. Basically well written.

Acceptable. Some historical information, but not exceptionally well written.

Just enough to meet the requirements.

Conclusion

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You have research and discussed the status of equal rights in the U.S. during the post Civil War Era and had a chance to state your opinions on them. Hopefully this lesson will help you as you track the progress made in civil and equal rights up to the present.

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The Research	All involved. Continuous, effective effort.	Decent effort with all involved.	Some wasted time, cooperation fair.	Off task, little cooperation, poor research.
Quality of Material	Material historically significant, relevant, and plentiful.	Most of the material useful, maybe some superfluous.	Got most of the information needed.	Irrelevant information, not enough of it, much of it irrelevant.
The presentation	Well planned, smooth delivery, persuasive.	Good job. Message came across.	All right. Assignment completed in acceptable fashion.	Confusing, not persuasive, lackadaisical.
The essay.	Well-written, informed opinion. Used much historical information.	Decent historical information. Basically well written.	Acceptable. Some historical information, but not exceptionally well written.	Just enough to meet the requirements.