Students examine the daily life of ordinary citizens
in the new nation in order to understand the life of
servants, blacks (free and slave), and American

Indians___Students study the searing accounts of

Indian removal and the “Trail of Tears.”… Students
learn about Helen Hunt Jackson, who worked to
improve living conditions for California Indians.

Students learn about the major impetus given to the
women’s rights movement… and the connections
between the women’s rights movement and the
antislavery movement. . . .

Students study major reform campaigns; for ex-
ample, the evils of slavery. Students learn of black
slavery . . . and its marked effects on the region’s
political, social, economic, and cultural develop-
ment. The institution of slavery in the South is
studied in its historical context (which includes the
review of seventh-grade studies of West African
civilizations before the coming of the Europeans).

Students compare the American system of chattel
slavery… with slavery in other societies, and learn
about the daily lives of slaves, . . . the inhuman
practices of slave auctions, the brutal separation of
families, the illiteracy enforced on slaves by law, and
the many laws that suppressed the efforts of slaves

to win their freedom___Particular attention should

be paid to the more than 100,000 free blacks in the
South and the laws that curbed their freedom and

economic opportunity___Special emphasis should

be given to what blacks did themselves In working
for their own freedom… and the activities of leading
black abolitionists… and the support of white abo-
litionists___Students should read excerpts from lit-
erature regarding slavery and excerpts from slave
narratives and abolitionist tracts of this period….

Students concentrate on the causes and conse-
quences of the Civil War. During study of the
Reconstruction Era, students should learn of the
federal civil rights bill passed by the Republican
Congress to grant full equality to black Americans,
which was followed by adoption of the fourteenth
and fifteenth amendments. Students learn of the
influence of black citizens on the direction of south-
ern politics and the election of black members of
Congress. Students analyze how events during and
after the Reconstruction raised and then dashed the
hopes of black Americans for full equality . .. and
how slavery was replaced by black peonage, segre-
gation, and other legal restrictions on the rights of

blacks. Racism prevailed___The events are linked

with the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Stu-
dents learn that all civil rights progress is based on

18