Paper One
Pick four of the following sources and write an essay addressing the prompt below. Based on your reading and analysis of the four sources of your choice, make an argument addressing the following:
How did African Americans perceive their place in American society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? What were some arguments African Americans made concerning American society and the African American community as a whole, especially in terms of addressing racial issues at the time? Be sure to be mindful of the complications concerning notions of gender, religion, and progress or “civilization.” How do these notions differ among African American leaders?
Essays should be approximately 1000 words (4 pages) double spaced.
Sources
Mary Church Terrell “The Progress of Colored Women” (1898), (1898) Mary Church Terrell, “The Progress of Colored Women” • (blackpast.org)
W.E.B. DuBois, “Training Negroes for Social Power” (1903), https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/w-e-b-du-bois-training-negroes-social-power-1903/.
Booker T. Washington, “Atlanta Compromise Speech” (1895) https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/39/
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, “Discussion of the Same Subject [The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Women of the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation]” (1894), https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1000677202.
Ida B. Wells, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells, [Excerpts about occurence in the years 1894 and 1908 respectively] http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nineteen/nkeyinfo/aarwellsexrpt.htm.
Mary Church Terrell, What It Means To Be Colored in the Capital of the United States (1906), (1906) Mary Church Terrell, “What It Means to be Colored in the Capital of the U.S.” • (blackpast.org)
