HIS 100 Project Inequality and Human Rights
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Southern New Hampshire University *
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Course
100
Subject
History
Date
Feb 20, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
4
Uploaded by DeanRatPerson864
HIS 100 Project Template(1)HIS 100 Project Template
Use this template to address the steps in your Project Guidelines and Rubric. Replace the bracketed text with your responses. Ensure that you have considered your instructor’s feedback when revising your work. Proofread the entire document before submitting it.
Part 1: Creating a Research Question
1.
Describe how your assumptions, beliefs, and values influenced your choice of topic.
Everyone may look different and come from unique cultures, but we are all equal. No one
should be discriminated against simply because of something they have no control over. When I was a kid, I thought everyone was equal. As I grew older, I learned through school and family relations that not everyone thought or believed that. One of my biggest regrets is feeding the side that did not promote tolerance or respect, but bigotry and division. I do not have a lot of room to speak on the subject, but I would like to learn more about and work to understand inequality and human rights through the historical event known as the Tulsa Massacre and a current event of the murder of George Floyd.
2.
Discuss the significance of your historical research question in relation to your current event.
After the events of the Tulsa Massacre, how has white privilege using discriminating stereotypes promoted subtler segregation and racial violence? This question is connected to my current event, the murder of George Floyd because it was through bias, stereotyping, and a supposed counterfeit twenty-dollar bill that the police were called on Mr. Floyd. This bias and stereotyping continued when former Officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd to the ground using his knees, killing George Floyd. Through discriminating stereotypes such as, “Black people, or people of color, commit the most crimes” even though there is not any evidence to back this up in a conversation, people like George Floyd and Dick Rowland are relegated to criminal status over something they
had no power in. Both of these men were accused of a crime and because of how they were portrayed, they became victims.
3.
Explain how you used sources to finalize your research question.
A helpful source was “Community Engaged History: A Reflection on the 100
th
Anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre” by Karlos K. Hill. This secondary source took a historian’s eye to the Tulsa Race Massacre describing what happened on that day in 1921. Hill presented a wide perspective of events, from Tulsa police and Oklahoma state officials not only doing nothing to stop the rampant anti-Black violence but becoming active participants in it as well. Hill then goes on to show the resilience of the community as they worked to rebuild Greenwood, “…without any certainty that another attack would not occur…” Hill does his best to show the events that led up to, during, and
after such a horrendous event.
Another helpful source is an interview conducted on National Public Radio (NPR) in 1999. In the interview, Mr. George Monroe, and Mr. Kenny Booker give first-hand accounts of what happened during the Tulsa Race Riot. Mr. Monroe talks about how he hid under a bed while men came into the room carrying torches. Mr. Booker describes how a man he did not know came to his family’s door, used discriminatory language, asked Mr. Booker’s father if he owned a gun, and hearing that Mr. Booker’s father did not own a gun, set the house on fire while Mr. Booker and his family were in the attic.
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These sources helped to strengthen the focus of my research question because both sources help give perspective to the awful event of the Tulsa Massacre. The sources help to give a perspective of the discrimination and racial violence that we still see today, as with the murder of George Floyd back in 2020.
Part 2: Building Context to Address Questions
1.
Describe the context of your historical event that influenced your current event.
The events that caused the Tulsa Race Massacre were social. At the time the social norms
were dictated by outlawed Jim Crow laws, robbing African Americans of their rightful freedoms. Oftentimes, white citizens would exaggerate situations to incite violence against the Greenwood community in Oklahoma. One such exaggeration was that of a teenage Dick Rowland, an African American teenager, supposedly attacking Sarah Page a white teenager.
The historical context of segregation and discrimination influenced my chosen current event, the murder of George Floyd because in 2020 tensions were high as people faced the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. People, especially people of color, were succumbing to this new pestilence. While tension from COVID increased, police brutality seemed to do the same. Subtle discrimination and racism became not so subtle, resulting in Mr. Floyd’s murder at the knees of former officer Chauvin. Who seemed to want to make a point that Mr. Floyd, and people like him, were beneath him.
2.
Describe a historical figure or group’s participation in your historical event.
A couple of major groups that participated in the Tulsa Race Massacre were the Tulsa police and the Oklahoma state officials. Per Hill’s article, they had the power to attempt to quell the riots, but they did not. The officials and police instead decided to willingly participate in the raiding and destruction of the Greenwood community. (2021)
3.
Explain the historical figure or group’s motivation to participate in your historical event.
The groups were motivated by racism and a sense that they were putting people in their place. The officials and police who participated in the massacre simply took joy in ruining the lives of people who were trying to do their best in an unjust world.
Part 3: Examining How Bias Impacts Narrative
1.
Describe a narrative you identified while researching the history of your historical event.
One narrative that I identified while researching the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre was the first-hand account of the event given by Mr. George Monroe when he was interviewed by NPR in 1996 and again in 1999. In the 1996 interview, Mr. Monroe described how, “The guys with the torches did come into the house, and after they came in and set the curtains on fire…” (1996) a little later in his interview, he tells the reporter how clear this is in his mind even after so many years.
2.
Articulate how biased perspectives presented in primary and secondary sources influence what is known or unknown about history.
Potentially biased sources could frame the events of the Tulsa Massacre and the murder of George Floyd as something the victims of these events deserved. For instance, in my secondary source, Hill makes a point to let those reading his article know that “There is no record what, if anything, Page said to bystanders who interviewed her…” (2021) all we are left with is the accusation that Rowland attacked Page while they were both in the elevator that day. An already biased group used the little knowledge given as justification
to terrorize a community.
3.
Identify the perspectives that you think are missing from your historical event’s narrative.
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The only narrative that is glaringly missing is Sarah Page’s. The public is never privy to her side of the story, to her version of what happened between her and Rowland in that elevator. It was as if her perspective was intentionally left out as a way to help incite the coming violence.
Part 4: Connecting the Past with the Present
1.
Explain how researching its historical roots helped improve your understanding of your current event.
Being able to examine the current event of the murder of George Floyd from a more historical perspective helped me to better understand how much more subtly the Jim Crow laws are around compared to 100 years ago. For example, African American people are still often judged for their skin color and are given impossible standards to meet in some situations so that they cannot conduct business like everyone else. In 1921, the Jim Crow laws were slowly being abolished in the southern states, as a way to help promote equality for all many years after the Civil War. However, because these laws were around for so long, and even before then, the white population was slow and resistant to the changes that were happening all over the southern part of the country where slavery had been more prominent. This led to the white population of the southern states finding loopholes or other ways of discriminating against African Americans. Less than 100 years later the discrimination against African Americans has persisted, a former police officer stood in the way of proper justice, and simply based on an accusation, an African American man was murdered.
2.
Articulate how questioning your assumptions, beliefs, and values may benefit you as an individual.
Questioning the assumptions, beliefs, and values would benefit me as an individual as it would help me to understand where I get these beliefs, and how they affect not only me but those with whom I interact. It is valuable for me to be aware of them as I encounter information in all aspects of my life, especially if any of my assumptions, beliefs, and values are challenged. If any of these are challenged it would give me room to examine the information against my conceived beliefs and truly ask myself how to accept the information in its entirety. If necessary, I change my assumptions and modify my beliefs and values so that I can be more impartial.
3.
Discuss how being a more historically informed citizen may help you understand contemporary issues.
Being a more historically informed citizen would help me understand contemporary issues by allowing me to look back on similar events in the past and try to understand people’s mindsets during the time of these similar events. Thus, allowing me to gain perspective on the consequences of those who either attempted to fix them or make the event worse. Learning from the attempts of those in the past would allow me to attempt to come up with solutions that would apply to today’s contemporary issues.
Works Cited
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Tulsa Commemorates the 1921 Race Riots. (1996, May 31).
Morning Edition
, NA.
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A608849100/UHIC?
u=nhc_main&sid=bookmark-UHIC&xid=71c32837
Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921 Testimony Given. (1999, August 10).
Morning Edition
, NA.
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A558334253/UHIC?
u=nhc_main&sid=bookmark-UHIC&xid=5b47af60
Hill, K. K. (2021). Community-Engaged History: A Reflection on the 100th Anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
American Historical Review
,
126
(2), 670–684. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1093/ahr/rhab193
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