Part II: Synthesis Activity - Understanding how historians connect ideas across time

Directions

1. Watch this Eric Foner clip, "1866: The Birth of Civil Rights"
2. Read the Eric Foner article, The Reconstruction Amendments: Official Documents as Social History”
3. Use the following questions to guide your reading:
1. What is Foner’s thesis? What are its implications?
2. In what ways does Foner develop his thesis with information about events up to 1877?
3. In what ways does Foner connect his thesis to the 20th century?
4. Refine your answers in groups of 3
5. Full Class discussion:
1. In what ways was the Fourteenth Amendment an example of Radical Reconstruction?
2. Equality, citizenship, right of Congress to enforce - which of these is the most significant part of the Fourteenth Amendment?