General Education (GE) Assessment Essay

Background information: To describe the African American experience throughout the course of United States history, African American writer Margaret Walker once stated, "Handicapped as we have been by a racist system of dehumanizing slavery and segregation, our American history of nearly five hundred years reveals that our cultural and spiritual gifts brought from our African past are still intact" (On Being Female, Black, and Free; Essays by Margaret Walker, 1997).

This assignment asks you to examine both the impact of racism on African American lives, and the strategies that Africans have devised to make life more livable in the face of racist injustice.

We have divided the African American experience into three broad chronological eras, from slavery to the civil rights movement.

1.) Early American Slavery -Civil War America (1793-1865);

2.) Reconstruction - the Age of Jim Crow (1865-1941);

3.) Civil Rights (1941-1965);

Assignment: Select one of the eras listed above. Write an essay of three pages in which you discuss specific challenges African Americans have faced in regards to racism and white supremacy as indicated by the era you have chosen and the specific ways in which African Americans have demonstrated resistance and resiliency to these obstacles.

Instructions: Your essay must include the following components:

1. An introductory paragraph providing an interpretation of Margaret Walker's quote along with an overview of the topic.

2. Transition to the body of the essay in which you indicate the era you have chosen and discuss two examples of racial oppression blacks faced during that era. Then, examine two ways in which African Americans demonstrated resiliency and resistance to these obstacles. You are free to interpret notions of resistance as you choose. For instance, you may focus on acts of political resistance, slave revolts, the quest for black voting rights, and the pursuit of political office. Or, you can examine the development of family life and community, or the creation of art and literature. Accurate names, dates, and events must also be included.

3. Your concluding paragraph should summarize your ideas about this topic and the continued impact of racism and African American resiliency in present-day United States.

4. Your essay will need to include parenthetical citations and a references section that lists at least three different scholarly research based materials-this may include book chapters from our textbook/ peer-reviewed articles/books/ films/documents. You may include additional materials from other sources however three different academic sources are a minimum requirement for the assignment.

5. Your essay should be typed, double spaced (12 point Times New Roman, using one inch margins). The sixth edition of the APA (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association) will be the required reference for the writing and citation guidelines for this essay.