The Nation Classroom

INDEX PAGE

THE NATION CLASSROOM
American History as It Happened

RACE RELATIONS and CIVIL RIGHTS
MODULE THREE: 1900-1918

An African-American family leaving Florida during the Great Depression. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

STUDENT PRACTICE ACTIVITY TWO

[CLOSE READING]

Carefully re-read Document Two, “The Negro Problem in Foreign Eyes,” then answer the questions below about the article. (After you finish this activity, you can email it to your teacher.) 

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1. The excerpt refers to two events that happened over the course of a year in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield, Illinois. What types of events were they, and how did they differ?
2. Explain the author’s use of the term “iron caste.”
3. What is being referred to in the following sentence: “The world, the educated world outside of the eleven Southern States, has had about enough of this bogey.” What argument does the author of that quote use to refute the “bogey”?
4. How would you characterize the overall tone of the excerpt—optimistic, pessimistic, both, neither? Provide examples to support your position.

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