American Studies
Discussion board



Final reminder about videos. We hope that these assist you and either reinforce the content from the text OR add new ideas to reflect upon. These are intended to add to the textbook as another way to learn the material NOT to replace .
Choose one of the topics for your main post. Respond to at least one student who answered a different question from you. The answers should come from your textbook, the book of primary source documents, the assigned website, the lecture, videos, and the research you conducted.
1. What did the New Deal do for Blacks? The black press said that the National Recovery Administration (NRA) actually stood for “Negro Run Around” or “Negroes Ruined Again.” Why did they write this? What examples can you find that support or refute these slogans?
2. How did James Baldwin compare the African-American experience to the Algerian experience in France? Why did Baldwin go to France?
3. Historians recognize the importance of model figures. In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s which African Americans were model figures to African Americans? How did they influence white Americans to see African Americans differently?
4. Explain what the Black Cabinet was and who was in it? Was this a political move by FDR to gain the Black Vote?
5. Discuss A. Philip Randolph, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and what this meant for the Civil Rights Movement that will be developed after WWII?