Reading Post Week Seven

  • Due May 14, 2021 by 11:59pm
  • Points 5
  • Submitting a text entry box or a file upload

Please post a 500-700 word response to this week's reading assignment. Below are some questions I pose as prompts for this reflection; you do not need to answer all of them, but may choose one as a starting point for your post. This is more than merely a reading summary, but should be a substantive, thought-provoking comment that considers and cites specific examples from the reading to make your point.  You may also use your post to home in on other issues in the reading that you find particularly interesting and provocative.

READING:

1) Elizabeth Hinton, “The War on Black Poverty”
2) Thomas Jackson, “Power to Poor People”
3) Pamela Walker Laird, “Entangled: Civil Rights in Corporate America Since 1964”
4) Melvin Small, “ ‘Hey, Hey, LBJ!’ American Domestic Politics and the Vietnam War”
5) The Fog of War (2003)

QUESTIONS:

In addition to thinking about what these readings tell us about the 1960s, think about what they tell us about how the history of the decade and its key figures--for example, Martin Luther King Jr.--are remembered, and how historical memory contrasts with historical truth? How are reputations made and rehabilitated (or attempted to be rehabilitated, as Robert McNamara seeks to do in The Fog of War)? Why are some things emphasized and others obscured? how do we overcome "the fog of historical memory" and assess historical truths?

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