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(Unit 2) Origins: Native American Societies

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(Unit 2) Origins: Native American Societies

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Prior to the Age of Discovery, during which various European nations explored the world at a rate never before seen, numerous indigenous cultures and societies flourished in the Americas.

This included empires like that of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec. Increasingly drawn to the New World by the myth of golden cities (and just gold and wealth, period) the Spanish colonized much of the Americas.

This colonization was justified by the Doctrine of Discovery. This doctrine, establish by Pope Alexander IX, declared that any lands not inhabited by Christians were 'discoverable' and within that, claimable.

Interactions between natives and the Spanish included enslavement, conversion, and overall violence. An example of such interactions would be between the Spanish and the Pueblo peoples of Southwest N. America.

Unlike most indigenous groups, however, the Pueblo launched a successful revolt, pushing the Spanish out of the region for 12 years. Upon their return, the Spanish essentially had to compromise with the Pueblo. This allowed the Pueblo peoples to retain aspects of their culture that other groups were not.

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(Unit 2) Origins: The African Slave Trade

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(Unit 2) Origins: The African Slave Trade

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Drawn to W. Africa by the potential economic benefit (read: GOLD $$$), Prince Henry of Portugal pursued trade there. The Portuguese monarchy was the first European nation to get involved in the trade of enslaved Africans. Ultimately Spain, England, the Netherlands, France, and others became heavily involved in the slave trade.

West Africa became part of the triangular trade that took place between Africa, the Americas, and Europe. In addition to the trade of enslaved Africans, raw materials like tobacco and cotton were traded, which were then turned into processed goods (like clothes, which were also traded).

One of the most important cash crops that European nations had enslaved people cultivate was sugar cane. This was grown, harvested, and processed on plantations throughout Brazil and the Caribbean. Sugar was highly profitable for European nations, so much so that the cultivation of sugar increased European reliance on enslaved African labor, and a new form of slavery: chattel slavery. Essentially, enslaved Africans were considered literal property. This also led to the development of race as we know it.

The experience of the Middle Passage (the leg of the triangular trade from Africa to the Americas) for enslaved Africans was horrendous and dehumanizing, and the vast majority of enslaved Africans were taken to Brazil and the Caribbean. Thousands of trips were taken, and millions of Africans were enslaved. Millions also died en route to the 'New World'.

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(Unit 3) The US Grows: Westward Expansion Causes Conflict

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(Unit 3) The US Grows: Westward Expansion Causes Conflict

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In your response (at least 5 sentences!), touch on the following. Be sure to add an image to this post, too!:

Motivations for Westward Expansion: Gold, glory, and God are what I think to be major causes for westward expansion. We wanted more land to make profit from. Some people wanted glory for finding something new weather that is a new animal or an easy way to make it across the county they wanted to be remembered in the history books. And finally God, many people wanted to push Christianity onto the natives making them more "civilized".

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(Unit 3) The US Grows: The St. Louis World Fair

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(Unit 3) The US Grows: The St. Louis World Fair

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In your response, touch on three things you learned from our Gallery Walk on the St. Louis World Fair. Be sure to add an image to this post, too!:

1. We took an entire Filipino village from the Philippines to the middle of St. Louis.

2. A bunch of people got married on the giant ferris wheel.

3. they made whole palaces just for the world fair

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(Unit 3) The US Grows: The Great Migration & the Harlem Renaissance

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(Unit 3) The US Grows: The Great Migration & the Harlem Renaissance

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In your response, touch on/respond to the following. Be sure to add an image to this post, too!:

The main cause of the Great Migration was African Americans wanting to get away from the harsh Jim crow laws of the south along with the terrible job opportunities and they thought that the north would have better job opportunities and would be more accepting of them. The connection between The Great Migration & the Harlem Renaissance is that the great migrations is a main cause of the Harlem renaissance due to many black people moving to large cities like New York. With everyone concentrated in one area the black community started creating their own special culture, art, and music.

The US grew in the sense of diversity in its culture and more and more people began to become more accepting of black people, not everyone but with more black people living in predominantly white areas it lead to white people growing more used to being around black people. (TBH I just be yapping)

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In your response, briefly describe the "Spiral of Injustice".

The spiral of injustice is a model about intolerance and discrimination. It can be applied to many different groups of people and a main example used is Jewish people in 1940s Germany.

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(Unit 4) The Spiral of Injustice: Jim Crow, Redlining, & Race Riots in the US

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(Unit 4) The Spiral of Injustice: Jim Crow, Redlining, & Race Riots in the US

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In your response, define the following and note the impact they have had on different groups of people within the US.

Jim Crow : Jim Crow laws are laws made by the state and local governments that were discriminatory towards people of color.

Race Riots : A race riot is a violent fight between people of different races, usually caused by people who are racist.

Redlining : Redlining is a illegal practice that involves denying financial services to people in certain areas based on their race

Sacrifice Zones : Areas where people live that are dangerous to live but are not taken into account because the profits out way the downsides of people getting sick and dying.

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Eugenics societies were organizations that promoted eugenics, a set of ideas that were once considered progressive but are now linked to scientific racism

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(Unit 4) The Spiral of Injustice: American Eugenics

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(Unit 4) The Spiral of Injustice: American Eugenics

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**After reading this post as a class, respond to the questions on BB.**

"Eugenics" was once considered by many to be a legitimate science (it no longer is; it is highly racist/ableist and not based on actual science). Highly educated people -- in the literal sense of the word, people who went to schools like Harvard, etc. -- were proponents of this set of ideas. Famous and well-known individuals like Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, and Margaret Sanger were staunch eugenicists.

Over 20,000 people were compulsorily sterilized in California alone. Overall, nearly 70,000 (likely more) people. Eugenics-based laws largely targeted working-class women (over time, undoubtedly targeting working-class women of color) and people with disabilities (both mental and physical). Some women were coerced into sterilization by being told their doctors would refuse to help with their pregnancy if they did not agree to a hysterectomy.

Nearly a third of Puerto Rican women were sterilized from the 1930s-1970s. Trials of birth control were introduced and used with little informed consent on Puerto Rican women as there was also a belief by some leaders that the population of Puerto Rico needed to be controlled. Sterilizations became so commonplace, in fact, that women began to call it “La Operación (The Operation)”.

In a case that became nationally known, two young girls -- 12 and 14 -- were sterilized when their mother, who was unable to read, 'consented' to their sterilization. However, there was a lack of transparency -- the Relf girls had already been subjected to an unsolicited experimental birth control trial; their mother thought they were receiving that same shot. Instead, both girls were surgically sterilized. This led to their parents filing a class-action lawsuit on their daughters' behalf. Relf v. Weinberger resulted in the prohibition of the use of federal funds for involuntary sterilizations. This is just one example of many -- this practice was prolific and thousands of women and girls were put into situations in which they were underinformed, coerced, and sterilized.

Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist, was herself sterilized without her consent. She noted how these nonconsensual sterilizations of working-class Black women in the South were so common that within Southern Black communities, the procedure was called "a Mississippi appendectomy."

Other groups known to have been targeted for sterilization includes Native American women -- the Indian Health Service was accused of sterilizing nearly 25% of Indigenous women during the 1960s and 1970s.

The Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell (1927) decided that a Virginia law authorizing the mandatory sterilization of inmates in mental institutions was constitutional. Essentially this meant that people, mostly women, who were committed, could be sterilized without their consent. People with disabilities were targeted for sterilization, and the law permitted it.

Eugenics was on the rise in other parts of the world, too, however. Notably -- Germany. In Mein Kampf Hitler praised the United States, noting, “There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States.”

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(Unit 4) The Spiral of Injustice: Mini-Research Project

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(Unit 4) The Spiral of Injustice: Mini-Research Project

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Choose one of the following and provide a 2 2 paragraph (6-8 sentences) summary of events as well as the impact of the event(s). Be sure to cite any sources you use!:

1917 East St. Louis Race Riot

The Scottsboro Boys

Cancer Alley

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(Unit 5) Movements: The Civil Rights Movement

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(Unit 5) Movements: The Civil Rights Movement

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Choose one of the following lesser-known activists and create a brief Google Slides presentation (6-8 slides) outlining their origins, activism, and notable events they were part of.

**You will sign up for a figure on this Google Doc to make sure we have a variety!** (<<<click)

You will submit a link to you slideshow on BB.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Ella Baker

Diane Nash

Bayard Rustin

James Baldwin

A. Phillip Randolph

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(Unit 5) Movements: The Black Power Movement

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(Unit 5) Movements: The Black Power Movement

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Provide a response providing brief descriptions of the following -- be sure to note their significance!:

The Black Panther Party: They were a African American revolutionary party and they were originally founded due to the large amounts of police brutality.

The Rainbow Coalition: They were made up of a few different activism groups, most notably of them was the black panther party.

Fred Hampton: He founded The Black Panther Party

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The Black Power movement inspired other groups, such as Chicanos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and LGBTQ people, to pursue their own goals of overcoming discrimination. Choose one of the following movements and create a brief slideshow touching on the goals of the movement, notable leaders of the movement, and if you think the movement was successful.

**You will sign up for a figure on this Google Doc to make sure we have a variety!** (<<<click)

You will submit a link to you slideshow on BB.

El Movimiento

Gay Liberation Movement

Asian American Movement

American Indian Movement

Women's Liberation Movement

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(Unit 6) Crises of the 80s: The War on Drugs

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(Unit 6) Crises of the 80s: The War on Drugs

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Following lecture and discussion in class, respond to the following questions:

Why was a 'war on drugs' declared?

To undermine the poorer people in america

What are the social consequences of the war on drugs?

The US having the largest incarceration rate in the world

What has the 'cost' of the war on drugs been?

Many people losing jobs, thousands of people imprisoned for years, and large amounts of discrimination and dehumanization towards people who have illegal drugs.

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(Unit 6) Crises of the 80s: The AIDS Epidemic

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(Unit 6) Crises of the 80s: The AIDS Epidemic

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Read the following, then respond to the Exit Slip on BB.

(excerpt from "A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States: The HIV/AIDS Epidemic")

The United States was the focal point of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. The disease was first noticed en masse by doctors who treated gay men in Southern California, San Francisco, and New York City in 1981.

When cases of AIDS first emerged in the U.S., they tended to originate among either men who had sex with other men, hemophiliacs, or heroin users. The fact that the disease was also prevalent among Haitians led to the "Four-H Club" of groups at high risk of AIDS.

Though some people believe that AIDS began in the U.S. in the 80's, that is actually the decade when it gained recognition as a health condition. Instances of HIV are believed to have been in the U.S. long before that - perhaps as early as the 1960s. The first reported cases of HIV are believed to have come from Kinshasa in or around 1920. Scientists believe the disease was transferred from monkeys and chimps to humans.

The prevalence of the disease among gay men in the U.S. in the 80's and 90's resulted in a stigma against homosexuals and a general fear and misunderstanding regarding how AIDS was spread. Over time attitudes changed as celebrities like Rock Hudson and Freddie Mercury revealed that they had the disease, and Magic Johnson came forward with HIV, and dedicated his retirement to educating others about the virus. In 2010, a U.S. travel ban on HIV-positive people that had been in effect since 1987 was lifted, finally allowing entrance to the country without a waiver.

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Provide a brief response to the following question:

What factors influenced the impact of COVID-19 on different groups? (reference class lecture/discussion in your response; provide a minimum of 3 sentences in your response)