We're roaring toward the end of the semester. That happens sometimes, when the weather closes in and things don't happen according to schedule. This is the last day of class. Final exams happen starting Thursday and into Next Week. There is no in-class final for us. There will be one last reflection paper for you to work upon out of class. I expect that I will post it over the weekend. When I get it finished I'll e-mail it so you can look to see what I want you to do and prepare any questions you have.
All our readings today revolve around the Civil Rights Activist and Nobel Prize Winner, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I hope to show a video in class Thursday the 30th of April, which will show us the Civil Rights Era's beginning in the 1950s. Then today, I hope to show a second video on the March on Birmingham, and its aftermath, the bombing of Ebeneezer Baptist Church, resulting in the deaths of four children.
Read the Letter from the Group of Clergymen first. Download it and prepare to mark it up, but also read the Letter from the Birmingham Jail. Download it and prepare to mark it up, as well. If you can have two screens open simultaneously that would be great, as I want you to flip back and forth between the two documents. King wrote his letter as a response to the letter from the Clergymen. I want to have you notice as many of the points he makes as you can, as you can, and reflect on the quality of his responses. What kinds of evidence does he use, what distinctions does he make about just and unjust laws? (Do you see any "echoes" of earlier documents we've read?)
Finally, read I have a dream. and write some sticky notes on it. Were there any parts of it which moved you especially? Have we reached his dream, or do we still have a lot of work to do, here, and world-wide?
Last: Watch this video, Without Sanctuary You may want to have a box of tissues handy.
Lynching of African American male. 1960, McDuffie County, Georgia.
Early one morning in the 1960s, two young boys bicycling to a favorite fishing hole happened upon this scene: a county prison farm trustee's dead weight hanging by the neck in a thorny bramble of Georgia hardwoods.
After they reported it to the local authorities, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's chief looked briefly at the scene and declared, "Suicide." This photograph was snapped, and the investigation was closed.
Click on photo to visit the website Without Sanctuary
