You have your choice of one of two essays for this assignment:

Essay A: The Origins of Civil Rights

This essay asks you to examine documents of the Reconstruction Era to get an idea of the problems faced by a nation trying to erase the stigma of 200 years of slavery. It is easy to look at the experience of the South in the period following the Civil War with a very critical eye. But we should keep in mind that, as one African-American historian has said,“Slavery was old when Moses was young.” Nevertheless, in the bitter aftermath of the war with the loss of tens of thousands

of lives and the destruction of millions of dollars worth of property, it is easy to understand the bitterness felt on both sides as the nation recovered from its deadliest war. A great deal of mythology surrounds this era, which is why the reading of original sources is helpful.

For this essay, examine the following documents and write a thoughtful commentary on the difficulties involved, both from the perspective of the Southern people, and from the perspective of a government trying to bring about change. The circumstances required great leadership, and more than one historian has remarked that leadership in that era was in short supply. Failings occurred on both sides—North and South, federal government and states—and the results were mixed to say the least. Your job for this essay is to assess what happened with an eye toward considering what the modern civil rights movement had to deal with as a legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.

Use the following documents in your essay: (Note that these documents are required reading even if you do not select this topic for your essay.)

• Civil War Amendments
• Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
• Louisiana and Mississippi Black Codes
• Douglass Views Reconstruction
• Judge Albion Tourgee on the KKK
• Booker T. Washington: Atlanta
• W.E.B. Du Bois on Booker Washington
• Plessy v. Ferguson—Harlan’s Dissent
• Plessy v. Ferguson

Essay B: Settlement of the West

Settling the Western frontier spread the nation across the Western half of the continent. The impetus for the mass movement of thousands came from the building of the railroads, the availability of low-cost land, the enticement of riches from the discovery of gold, silver, copper and lead, and the fortunes to be made from the raising of grain and cattle. The challenges were enormous, and at the center of the difficulty was the Native American culture, which was crushed beneath the weight of migrants from the East. With millions of immigrants coming in from Europe and elsewhere, and cities filling up faster than facilities could be constructed to provide for their needs, people who wanted to improve their lives followed the persistent American tendency to move westward.

The results of that Western movement ranged from bountiful to tragic, not only for the Indians, but for those who found the frontier harsh and forbidding. In this essay you are asked to examine documents from that period and try to make a brief assessment of the transformation of the American frontier. Look at the benefits, the problems, the challenges, and in so far as possible, the results. Your answer must not necessarily be definitive, but it should carefully consider the sources available for your use.

• Turner's Frontier Thesis
• Homestead Act 1862
• Homesteading on the Frontier
• Indian Stories—Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, et. al.
• Helen Hunt Jackson
• An exernal site that might be helpful: Harpweek