Core 102History and the Modern World

The Idea of Democracy

Roger Williams University

Section 01 LLC T, TH   09:30AM-10:50 AM GHH 205

Section 04 ELI  T, TH   12:30PM- 02:00 PM  GHH 106

Spring  Semester, 2016

Michael R. H. Swanson, Ph. D.

Office: GHH 215

Hours: M, W, F, 12:00-1:30

Or By Appointment

Phone:  ext 3230

E-mail:  mswanson@rwu.edu

For Tuesday, April  26

For Thursday, April 28

Downloading and Annotating from the Core Canon, and then upload into your Drop Box

No new readings for today.  If by any chance you did not finish annotating the Letter from Birmingham Jail, please finish before class today.  We're going to watch a film from the PBS American Experience series entitled Ain't Afraid of your Jails.  (We'll  meet Bull Connor again.)

Statement by Alabama Clergymen

Letter from Birmingham Jail (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King) (1963)

I will need to see how far we got watching the Freedom Riders DVD.  This semester is rapidly drawing to an end, and we haven't progressed as far as I had wished we would.  If there's time, I would like to continue it, if not to the end, at least for a bit more.  In the meantime, I would also like to have you prepare for a discussion of Martin Luther King and the modern civil rights movement by

Step ONE

• Read the Statement by Alabama Clergymen first.  It is the shorter document and it became the occasion for the more famous Letter from Birmingham Jail.  Note the religious affiliations of the clergymen.  Do you see a strategy here?  Identify it in a sticky note.
  

• As you read the document, identify the principal assertions made by this group of clergymen, identifying each by a number prefer.  Use a sticky note for each.
  

Step TWO

• Read Letter from the Birmingham Jail.
  

• Any place you notice a similarity to the clergy Statement, place a cf in the margin by it.  For example, if you locate a similarity to assertion 1,  place cf 1 in the margin.
  

Step  THREE

.Are you convinced by his arguments?  Why or why not?  Write about this in a final sticky note before you upload to your drop box.

As this discussion is likely to spread over two class periods, we may not get much farther than discussing the Statement of the Alabama Clergymen.

There is a lot more information on Black History, which you can find by Clicking Here. Some must be purchased.  Other things are free.  Scroll down--it's a long page.