Chapters On Civil Rights Movements example essay topic

Review of Portrait of America During the process of reading this compilation of works, Portrait of America, many different point of views were aired. The opinion or attitude on the subject was too tainted. The authors were very biased to their perception of the 'story'. This book could have been much more beneficial if the facts would have stayed to the straight and narrow. Only the detrimental facts needed to be applied to these chapters. For a history class, as broad as this, this book opened too many doors that could not be explained in as much detail as would be liked.

Many of the authors enjoyed mentioning the most scandalous moments of the people's lives then dropped the fact without much support or follow through as to what happened to cause or end these events. Brief summaries only tease the mind, and with the course load of most students, there is hardly extra time to investigate the matter further in detail. For a class such as History 152, biographies and / or documentary style books are more worth the while of the student. For instance make a list of a selection of novels that could be read for the class, so that every student can then explore in depth what that student thinks is interesting. Although the book was teasing in nature the chapters did flow well and were easy to read. The procession of the chapters had wonderful transition as to not loose the student.

While proceeding through this book there were several different reoccurring topics that appeared. This paper will discuss these two reoccurring topics: the civil rights movement and former presidents. The civil rights movement, by many people, is though to have happened during the 1950's and 1960's. The truth of the matter is that civil right has and always will be an ongoing issue for anyone who is not of color.

The civil rights movement started when the black slave started arriving in America centuries ago. The civil rights movement is one of the most known about issues in American history. Everyone at some point in their life has studied this movement. This movement is particularly interesting due to the massive amounts of different stories and occurrences through the course of the movement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a vital figurehead to this movement.

He inspired many people who had lived their whole lives in the shadow of fear of change. People knew that things were rough and many people took that as how things have been and always will be. Then Jr. decided to make a martyr of himself and try to further the cause. There was a specific chapter, 'Trumpet of Conscience: Martin Luther King Jr. ', that dealt with nothing other than the, abbreviated, life of Dr. King Jr. Learning about this man has always been interesting because of the many different issues that were broached during this era. The author of this chapter, Stephen B. Oates, portrayed several negative aspects of Jr.'s life.

As in many chapters in this book, this chapter divulges Jr.'s lack of better judgment regarding staying faithful to his wife. As with any person in the world that has ever done anything close to the outrageously great projects as he, there will be bad times. In every fight the are smaller battles lost to win the war. A man can give his life to the nation to better their lives, and in return all America ever does is look for weakness to criticize. The country is so threatened by insecurity that the immediately attack something that has been nothing but wonderful to them.

There was also a blurb in this chapter on the attempt of suicide at age twelve. In what way does this give an insight to his life other than the fact that he was a compassionate child that could not weigh consequences? This small undescribed incident leaves much to be considered. Was Jr. of the mental capacity and state of mind to be a leader? Is this why he cheated on his wife? Or is this the lamenting of a normal child who has been instilled with the fear of God because of a very religious upbringing?

If so how was a suicide attempt even contemplated at all? These questions and many more like these are the kind of answers that can be answered in a novel, not excerpt from novels or large biographical works. Although the civil rights movement is a very known about topic there are several numbers, percentages, and facts that are made available in the chapters dealing with blacks. In the chapter 'African Americans and the Quest for Civil Rights' there are several references to the disfranchisement of blacks.

It was interesting to learn how much of an impact the disfranchisement 'laws' made. There was a statistic in this chapter that said that the disfranchisement laws basically dropped voting participation by sixty two percent in the South. In Louisiana voting went from 130,344 in 1890 to 5,320 in 1990. That large of a jump in numbers is a very awful revelation. Never would anyone suspect that these laws would have that much of an effect on the voting numbers of blacks when in 1990, 11.5 percent of the American population was black. It is outrageous that American could have been completely different because of such a decision by a small amount of its populace.

The first chapter in this book, '1865: Beautiful, Cruel Year of Transition in the Black Struggle', was a chapter that could be more enjoyed than some of the other chapters in this book. This chapter divulges information that was not prior ly talked about in any other chapter. In all of the chapters assigned there was never mention at all of the 13th amendment. It seems that the actual end of slavery, basically the largest civil rights event in the history of America, is never actually explained. There has never been a word said reference the 13th amendment in any previously taken history class. In this chapter there is not great detail on the subject, but at least there has been mention to the actual writing on paper that 'ended's lavery.

In a whole he chapters on civil rights movements restated the basic facts that people have largely known since the beginning of this struggle. History is a very interesting subject to study. The history of American presidents is a very colorful part of history that is explored in Portrait of America. The most interesting chapter dealing with presidents is: Franklin and Eleanor: The early wartime White House'.

This chapter was really enjoyable to read. There were areas to hit on that could not be done on other presidents. The fact that his wife, for the most part, ran the White House is completely amazing. Excerpts like this are the ones that make learning history enjoyable. The reason i found this enjoyable was because of the detail the author, Doris Kearns Goodwin, went into about the role of Eleanor.

Everyone knows the cover to this story, but this is one president that does not get touched on much in history maybe because of the nation's fear or weakness. Maybe the reason Franklin is not d welled upon is that the country does not want to emulate an imperfection, an imperfection so huge that a woman did his job. In this excerpt the mention of unfaithfulness is revisited. When Franklin and Lucy's 'relationship' ended, so also did the relationship between Franklin and Eleanor. This was interesting due to the fact that Eleanor had a big say about Franklin not talking to Lucy again. Then about two pages later in this chapter Missy is introduced.

The author seems to be portraying Lucy as a Devil and Missy as the sweet girl next door. This just seems to be contradictory to the whole idea of mentioning this at all. Why imply that Eleanor made Lucy leave, but then did not care that missy was doing the more 'wife like' activities while she ran the White House? It appears that the second time around they agreed to team up at being the first lady. This was not stated well. Another presidential chapter that was interesting to read was 'Harry Truman: 'One Tough Son-of-a-Bitch-Man'.

The main interest factor to this excerpt is that Truman's presidency occurred during the Korean War, one of the greatest to study. A president during a more interesting war like the Korean War, WWI, or WWII becomes a more interesting president. This article portrayed a backwards normal man with a Missourian twang that did not want to be president, but when he was in that box, he stepped up and took a wonderful cut at it. This chapter showed a man of courage. A man that up heaved the country when he fired MacArthur. The whole country was upset, but he upheld the constitution like a man in the presidency should.

This was also a very easy chapter to read. The closing paragraph to this chapter is wonderful. It is a very good summation of the chapter as a whole. Another bearable chapter was "Trapped: Lyndon Johnson and the Nightmare of Vietnam". Even though this chapter was based around the most nearly boring war in our history, the article was actually interesting at times.

This author knew how to at least keep the reader interested for the last few pages. If all chapters had outrageous moments like this one did, they would be tenfold more bearable to read. When the author, Larry L. King, inserted Johnson comparison of his "manhood" to that of Ho Chi Minh's, the reader becomes hooked looking for more interesting blurbs of the same kind in more abundance later into the chapter. As a whole though this chapter was a little dry. The article again was brought down by the constant reoccurring theme of the Vietnam War. The chapters on presidents in this work, Portrait of America, were interesting and at the same time boring also.

Again this maybe be due to no great depth on one particular subject. While concluding a summary of Portrait of America thee is a crossroads. Some people have massively different levels on learning subjects such as history a certain way. Some people like to know the minimum about everything. While others need depth and details to make something quit lingering in their head. This book is like the end of a bad movie doomed for a sequel.

This book is really open ended. It seems to grant no closure to someone who actually took interest in one or more of the chapters. Previously stated, this just is not the way that a survey of a history class should be taught. The book is good for those who could care less about the past events of our country. For those who may not enjoy every aspect but enjoy some one part of history, there should be availability in a class like this to deeply investigate that instead of having to do a summary of such a broad category, such as the topics I have spoken about: the civil rights movement and former United States Presidents.