Background:
In the 1940s America was in the throes of a crippling
depression and a world war. While all Americans coped
with the overwhelming challenges that the economy and
war presented, some Americans faced an additional hardship,
oppressive segregation. Legal segregation -- Jim Crow
as it was informally known, defined every aspect of
life for those who lived under its restrictions. Popular
culture, specifically professional baseball, was not
excluded from the effects of Jim Crow. The story of
the integration of professional baseball in the United
States in 1947 is one chapter in the long battle to
end segregation and one that warrants careful analysis.
While it was a momentous step forward in race relations
in the 1940s, it was also limited in its reach and not
without cost. Using the classroom as an historical laboratory,
students can use primary and secondary sources to research
the event, examine motivations and interpret one of
the many struggles for racial equality and civil rights
in the United States.
Objectives
- Students will be able to create a model to be used
to evaluate the validity of historical evidence.
- Students will examine primary and secondary references
to analyze the history of the integration of baseball
both in the context of race relations in the twentieth
century and against the background of World War II.
- Students will be engaged in historical research
and the critical analysis of factual evidence.
- Students will examine historical facts in the documents
to construct a biography of Jackie Robinson.
- Students will be able to identify the major social
and economic events in the pos- World War II Era as
they were shaped by race, WWII and postwar concerns.
- Students will be engaged in historical research
and the critical analysis of popular culture and events
in this era.
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