American History

American History
1) What perceptions of “others” are reflected attending Miss Columbia’s School House (Document 1)? How
does Aguinaldo’s criticism of America’s policies towards the Philippines (Document 2) echo the 1894
political cartoon? What do these two documents suggest about the way America perceived conquered
peoples and the likelihood that they would ever be fit for American citizenship and its liberties?

2) What relationship does President Eisenhower draw between events in the modern Civil Rights Movement
and the goals of the United States in waging the Cold War (Document 3)? How does the Alcatraz
Proclamation (Document 4) and the “The Soiling of Old Glory” photograph (Document 5) reflect the
increasing radicalization of the Civil Rights Movement by the 1970s as well as the violent responses it
could produce within Anglo American communities? Based upon Eisenhower’s speech, how do you believe he
would respond to Documents 4 and 5 in the context of the Cold War?

3) According to President Reagan (Document 6), what does “having a positive view of American history”
mean and what values does the country stand for? What should modern Americans think of their country’s
past in regards to race relations according Senator Obama (Document 7)? Do you agree with these
documents arguments about America’s past? Why or why not?

4) Based upon your reading of these documents, to what extent do you believe America’s past continues
to influence American society and modern debates about inequality? Does our past and efforts to
confront and resolve issues of inequality empower us with a moral authority to dictate world affairs
today? Why or why not?

Document 1: Miss Columbia’s School House (1894)
The caption for this cartoon read “Please, Ma’am, May We Come In?” with the male figure standing
outside the gate representing Hawaii and the female figure representing Canada.

Document 2: Emilio Aguinaldo Criticizes American Imperialism in the Philippines (1899)As one of the
principal leaders of Filipino independence from Spain, Emilio Aguinaldo railed against American
policies towards his people in this document published in North American Review in September 1899.
For this document, please read DOCUMENT 20-5 in Reading the American Past: Selected Historical
Documents, Volume 2: From 1865 (pages 96-99)
**REFER TO DOCUMENT 20-5, WHICH IS ATTACHED TO THE ORDER.

Document 3: President Eisenhower’s Little Rock Address (September 24, 1957)
Please watch the complete address HERE or at the following url:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?15186-1/eisenhower-speech-little-rock

Printed below are key excerpts from the speech
Good Evening, My Fellow Citizens: — For a few minutes this evening I want to speak to you about the
serious situation that has arisen in Little Rock. To make this talk I have come to the President’s
office in the White House. I could have spoken from Rhode Island, where I have been staying recently,
but I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson and of Wilson, my words would better
convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to take and the firmness with which
I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the Federal Court at Little Rock can be executed
without unlawful interference.
In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented
the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorities have not eliminated that
violent opposition and, under the law, I yesterday issued a Proclamation calling upon the mob to
disperse.
This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of Little Rock, obviously for
the purpose of again preventing the carrying out of the Court’s order relating to the admission of
Negro children to that school.
Whenever normal agencies prove I nadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive
Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the
President’s responsibility is inescapable. In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued
an Executive Order directing the use of troops under Federal authority to aid in the execution of
Federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary when my Proclamation of yesterday was not
observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues.
It is important that the reasons for my action be understood by all our citizens. As you know, the
Supreme Court of the United States has decided that separate public educational facilities for the
races are inherently unequal and therefore compulsory school segregation laws are unconstitutional.
Our personal opinions about the decision have no bearing on the matter of enforcement; the
responsibility and authority of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution are very clear. Local
Federal Courts were instructed by the Supreme Court to issue such orders and decrees as might be
necessary to achieve admission to public schools without regard to race-and with all deliberate speed.
During the past several years, many communities in our Southern States have instituted public school
plans for gradual progress in the enrollment and attendance of school children of all races in order to
bring themselves into compliance with the law of the land.
They thus demonstrated to the world that we are a nation in which laws, not men, are supreme.
I regret to say that this truth -the cornerstone of our liberties -was not observed in this instance.
It was my hope that this localized situation would be brought under control by city and State
authorities. If the use of local police powers had been sufficient, our traditional method of leaving
the problems in those hands would have been pursued. But when large gatherings of obstructionists made
it impossible for the decrees of the Court to be carried out, both the law and the national interest
demanded that the President take action . . . .
The very basis of our individual rights and freedoms rests upon the certainty that the President and
the Executive Branch of Government will support and insure the carrying out of the decisions of the
Federal Courts, even, when necessary with all the means at the President’s command.
Unless the President did so, anarchy would result.
There would be no security for any except that which each one of us could provide for himself.
The interest of the nation in the proper fulfillment of the law’s requirements cannot yield to
opposition and demonstrations by some few persons.
Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts . . . .
A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for law.
In the South, as elsewhere, citizens are keenly aware of the tremendous disservice that has been done
to the people of Arkansas in the eyes of the nation, and that has been done to the nation in the eyes
of the world.
At a time when we face grave situations abroad because of the hatred that Communism bears toward a
system of government based on human rights, it would be difficult to exaggerate the harm that is being
done to the prestige and influence, and indeed to the safety, of our nation and the world.
Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation.
We are portrayed as a violator of those standards of conduct which the peoples of the world united to
proclaim in the Charter of the United Nations. There they affirmed “faith in fundamental human rights”
and “in dignity and worth of the human person” and they did so “without distinction as to race, sex,
language or religion.”
And so, with deep confidence, I call upon the citizens of the State of Arkansas to assist in bringing
to an immediate end all interference with the law and its processes. If resistance to the Federal Court
orders ceases at once, the further presence of Federal troops will be unnecessary and the City of
Little Rock will return to its normal habits of peace and order and a blot upon the fair name and high
honor of our nation in the world will be removed.
Thus will be restored the image of America and of all its parts as one nation, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all.
Good night, and thank you very much.

Document 4: Alcatraz Proclamation (November 1969)
From November 20, 1969 until June 11, 1971, Alcatraz Island was occupied by a Native American rights
group called Indians of All Tribes. Alcatraz Penitentiary was closed in 1963 and the U.S. Government
had declared the island as surplus federal property. Indians of All Tribes claimed the island by citing
the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) between the United States and the Sioux. The treaty returned to
Native peoples all retired, abandoned and out-of use federal lands. Between 1964 and 1969, several
small scale attempts were made to claim Alcatraz on behalf of native peoples. On November 20, 1969, 79
members of Indians of All Tribes managed to land on Alcatraz despite a Coast Guard blockade and issued
the following proclamation:
Proclamation to the Great White Father and All His People
We, the native Americans, re-claim the land known as Alcatraz Island in the name of all American
Indians by right of discovery.
We wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with the Caucasian inhabitants of this land, and
hereby offer the following treaty:
We will purchase said Alcatraz Island for twenty-four dollars ($24) in glass beads and red cloth, a
precedent set by the white man’s purchase of a similar island about 300 years ago. We know that $24 in
trade goods for these 16 acres is more than was paid when Manhattan Island was sold, but we know that
land values have risen over the years. Our offer of $1.24 per acre is greater than the 47¢ per acre
that the white men are now paying the California Indians for their land. We will give to the
inhabitants of this island a portion of that land for their own, to be held in trust by the American
Indian Affairs [sic] and by the bureau of Caucasian Affairs to hold in perpetuity—for as long as the
sun shall rise and the rivers go down to the sea. We will further guide the inhabitants in the proper
way of living. We will offer them our religion, our education, our life-ways, in order to help them
achieve our level of civilization and thus raise them and all their white brothers up from their savage
and unhappy state. We offer this treaty in good faith and wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings
with all white men.
We feel that this so-called Alcatraz Island is more than suitable for an Indian Reservation, as
determined by the white man’s own standards. By this we mean that this place resembles most Indian
reservations in that:
1. It is isolated from modern facilities, and without adequate means of transportation.
2. It has no fresh running water.
3. It has inadequate sanitation facilities.
4. There are no oil or mineral rights.
5. There is no industry and so unemployment is very great.
6. There are no health care facilities.
7. The soil is rocky and non-productive; and the land does not support game.
8. There are no educational facilities.
9. The population has always exceeded the land base.
10. The population has always been held as prisoners and kept dependent upon others.

Further, it would be fitting and symbolic that ships from all over the world, entering the Golden Gate,
would first see Indian land, and thus be reminded of the true history of this nation. This tiny island
would be a symbol of the great lands once ruled by free and noble Indians.

Document 5: “The Soiling of Old Glory” by Stanley Forman (April 5, 1976)
In 1965, Massachusetts passed the Racial Imbalance Act that required school districts to desegregate or
risk losing state funding. In 1974, federal judge Wendell A. Garrity Jr. ordered a compulsory busing
program in Boston that required white and black school children to be bused throughout the district to
finally bring about desegregation. While Garrity’s ruling would eventually be upheld by the Supreme
Court, racial tensions immediately boiled over in the streets of Boston. This photograph was taken as
Theodore Landsmark, simply walking to Boston City Hall, was attacked by a group of white anti¬busing
protesters, including Joseph Rakes who attempted to assault him with an American flag.

Document 6: President Ronald Reagan Defends American Morality (1983)
Known as “The Great Communicator,” Ronald Reagan addressed a meeting of the National Association of
American Evangelicals in 1983 to articulate his belief in America’s moral righteousness, particularly
in relation to the Cold War.
For this document, please read DOCUMENT 30-4 in Reading the American Past: Selected Historical
Documents, Volume 2: From 1865 (pages 310-314)
**REFER TO DOCUMENT 30-4, WHICH IS ATTACHED TO THE ORDER.

Document 7: “A More Perfect Union” Speech by Senator Barack Obama (March 18, 2008)
In running for President of the United States in 2008, Senator Barack Obama faced severe criticism over
his prior attendance at a church where the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s incendiary sermons about America
and race stirred anxieties about the presidential candidate’s own feelings about race in America.
Speaking at the National Constitution center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Barack Obama delivered a
campaign defining speech that paved his way to winning the Democratic Party nomination and ultimately
the White House.
Please watch the complete speech HERE or at the following url:

A transcript of the speech can be found HERE or at the following url:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/03/18/text-of-obamas-speech-a-more-perfect-union/

Exam Two Rationale: Realizing one’s “liberties” following the Reconstruction era was no easier for many
Americans than it was prior to the Civil War. Industrialization and immigration in the late nineteenth
century only served to draw deeper and clearer distinctions on who and what an “American” was or could
be. As the United States became an empire through the Spanish-American War domestic relationships of
inequality transcended across the globe through our foreign policies. Domestic issues of race, class,
and gender found expression throughout America’s foreign policies in the twentieth century, culminating
in the near simultaneous onset of the Cold War and rise of the modern Civil Rights Movement. As
minority groups found domestic and global audiences for their grievances, America’s moral authority to
lead the world came under intense scrutiny. In many respects, America’s past continues to profoundly
shape America’s view of the world and their view of us to this very day.