Blake Bullock

Final Examination
Short Questions
1. Drawing on the texts and the lectures, explain the agenda and goals of the Civil Rights
Movement. Use the experiences of at least two specific civil rights advocates in your
answer.
The goals of the Civil Rights movements were to get equality for the blacks and there were
two major people/ideals about how to do that, the first one was a more peaceful one with
protests and boycotts, and the second one was with violence. The most famous person who
demonstrated peaceful protest was Rosa parks. She got famous for refusing to give up her bus
seat to a white rider. She would also be a part of boycotts, and sit ins (Johnson, 890). But not
everyone know that she was armed, sometimes she would carry a weapon with her to protect
herself (lecture, 11/16).
Now on the other extreme there was Malcolm X, he was one of the main faces for the Black
Power movement. His strategy was violence all the way, but he was also a eloquent speaker
(Zinn, 9463). Now some say that the reason for his violence was because of his hard childhood.
When he was young his father was killed by the back legion (Lecture, 11/18).
2. Drawing on the texts and the lectures, explain the nature and significance of at least
two labor unions in late 19th-century America.
One of the first labor unions was know as the National Labor Union. They started because
more and more people wanted to get a movement going for eight-hour days. The first strike
happened in New York and it took three months and 100,000 workers for them to finally get
eight-hour days (Zinn, 5004). As they grew more and more, they began to put more of their
energy on political issues, especially currency reforms (Zinn, 5032).
Another labor union was Knights of Labor. One of the major things that made Knights of
Labor stick out so much was the fact that it was focused on a big, unified unions that accepted
everyone even women (Online, 7.3).
3. Drawing on the texts and the lectures, explain the causes of the Cold War’s end and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union.
One of the reasons for the end of the cold was the fact that Russia had a new leader
Gorbachev. Gorbachev was a little more relaxed than the rest of the leaders before him so after
so much pushing and fighting he finally accepted the inevitable he pulled troops out of
Afghanistan (Johnson, 930). Another reason the was the fact that Gorbachevian started letting
the states taken over after World War II hold their own elections (Johnson, 930). Another reason
for all of this was the fact that Russia was just out of money. They couldn’t keep that much
money on the arms race anymore.
 Long Questions
1. Following World War II, the United States was at the apex of its prestige. How did
America’s engagement with the global community change during the Cold War?
Use examples from all the texts and lecture material available to you.
Before World War II the United States was isolated didn’t really want anything to do with
other countries especially Europe after WWI. Well after World War II the United States became
one of the worlds superpowers and was now engaged with all of the global events. It became part
of the UN and began to take part in other countries business. The most notable of these
interventions was during the Cold War.
The Cold War forced the Americans, out of fear of the spread of Communism, to intervene in
a lot of different countries civil wars and wars against each other. The most notable of these was
the Korean war (Johnson, 882). This was one of the first times that the USA began to fight to
stop the spread of Communism. It had a huge impact on the people especially when the war
ended in a draw.
Another major event was the Vietnam war. This one had even more of an impact on the
people because the people were made to think that the Americans were losing the war, but in fact
they were winning the war (lecture 11/23). It became so bad that the USA had to pull out of the
Vietnam war and let the natives finish the war. This was a huge blow to the USA’s self-esteem
and led to a much more aggressive response later in the cold war.
One of the last major events was the Afghanistan war. This war ended a little bit better The
United States actually won the war and with that they ended the Cold War. It was also thanks to
the fact that Russia was running out of money and that they got a new leader, but the fact was
America had gained back some of its former confidence.
2. Paul Johnson and Howard Zinn have different assumptions about what American
history means. How do Paul Johnson and Howard Zinn differ in their
presentations? What kinds of stories do they choose to emphasize? What kinds do
they omit? Please offer a summary (approximately 2 paragraphs) of each author’s
approach before offering any comparisons. Be generous in your use of textual
citations.
To start of let’s talk about Howard Zinn. Howard Zinn choose to focus more on the
people rather than the big events. He still mentioned all the big event he just chooses to talk
about the little people that were involved in those events more. For example, he talked about
Civil rights movements, he goes about talking about the two different extremes and he
mentions the fact of Malcolm X and he really focused on his movements and others in the
movements not just what the civil rights movement did as a whole.
For example, Zinn says this about Malcolm, “The black militant Malcolm X was
probably closer to the mood of the black community. Speaking in Detroit two months after
the march on Washington and the Birmingham bombing, Malcolm X said, in his powerful,
icy-clear, rhythmic style.” This is just one of the many many mentions of Malcolm X and his
personality and what he stood for in Zinn’s writing.
Now for Paul Johnson, He had more of a focus on the bigger picture but still wanted to
tell the story of the less known events. He had kind of a statistics or facts writing style about
him. He wouldn’t really talk much about people unless they had a huge impact on the story.
He also would mostly just tell the facts of how they went down.
For example, Johnson says this about Malcolm X, “His relations with Lyndon Johnson,
once warm, deteriorated and he went in fear of his life from black extremists (his rival,
Malcolm X, had been murdered by a black Muslim on February 21, 1965).” This is one of
only a few quotes about Malcolm X and it is just a quick little mention about him and who he
was, and to be honest it wasn’t much of that either.
So to compare the two of them I would say that they are similar in some ways, mainly
when talking about some of the less know facts of history. But they are also very different
with Zinn telling a story and not just facts as for Johnson he is telling more facts than a
flowing story.