HIST 1025 University of Colorado at Boulder African American Civil Rights HW

HIST 1025 – Final Exam
Please answer two of the following three questions in the form of short essays (ideally between
750-1000 words each, or approximately three pages double-spaced). Essays should be detailed
and should tap into information found in multiple audio lectures and textbook chapters. The
more details you can include and the more connections you can make between topics discussed
over the last third of the semester, the stronger your essays will be. The exam is open book, but
please make use only of assigned course materials – textbook, lectures, etc.
1) How were the elections of 1968 and 1980 pivotal to the political history of postwar
America? In answering that question, explain who the candidates were, how the
elections intersected with other domestic and international historical events, and what
each election said about the trajectory of American politics.
2) The cartoon below tells a story about African American civil rights in the postwar period.
What is that story, and do you think it is an accurate rendering of the trajectory of
African American civil rights during the postwar period? In your answers, please
attend not only to the details of the Civil Rights Movement itself, and its many
accomplishments, but also to African American history since 1970.
3) In July of 1959, Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev met
in Moscow and engaged in what became known as the “Kitchen Debate,” an impromptu
exchange in front of two American model kitchens that the U.S. sent to Russia as part of
an exhibition on American life. Discuss how the “Kitchen Debate” served to connect
America’s Cold War competition with the Soviets, the development of an “Affluent
Society,” and evolving gender roles in postwar American society (which eventually
led to the second-wave feminist movement). For additional background on the “Kitchen
Debate,” see the Foner textbook (pp. 942-944) and the attached New York Times article.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Two Worlds: a Day-Long Debate
New York Times 1857; Jul 25, 1959; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 – 2003)
pg. 1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.