The Nation Classroom

INDEX PAGE

THE NATION CLASSROOM
American History as It Happened

RACE RELATIONS and CIVIL RIGHTS
MODULE FIVE: 1930-1945

Tuskegee Airmen, with fighter airplane, at Tuskegee Army Flying School during World War 2, Tuskegee, Alabama, 1944. (Photo by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)

STUDENT PRACTICE ACTIVITY TWO

[CLOSE READING]

Carefully re-read the excerpts referenced in the questions below and answer accordingly. (After you finish this activity, you can email it to your teacher.) 

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1. In Document Two, what is meant by “in this matter a white woman’s word is law”?
2. In the cartoon that accompanies Document 2, note three visual indicators suggesting the defendant will not get a fair trial.
3. Documents One and Five refer to African American achievements in literature. What does the 1930 review of the Langston Hughes novel emphasize about the depiction of American blacks, and how does it compare to the comments made in the review, seven years later, of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God”?
4. In Document Five, what does Sterling A. Brown mean by his statement, “the Negro novel is as unachievable as the Great American Novel”?

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