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1619 Project The Idea of America Part 1

Nikole Hannah-Jones discusses her family's history and relationship with America. Her father proudly flew the American flag despite facing racism in the Jim Crow South. Her grandmother fled Mississippi during the Great Migration due to violence and lack of opportunities for black Americans. Hannah-Jones did not understand her father's patriotism as a black man until realizing that black Americans have made invaluable contributions to building the country, and that the US would not exist without them.

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114 views20 pages

1619 Project The Idea of America Part 1

Nikole Hannah-Jones discusses her family's history and relationship with America. Her father proudly flew the American flag despite facing racism in the Jim Crow South. Her grandmother fled Mississippi during the Great Migration due to violence and lack of opportunities for black Americans. Hannah-Jones did not understand her father's patriotism as a black man until realizing that black Americans have made invaluable contributions to building the country, and that the US would not exist without them.

Uploaded by

api-583733107
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Student Corner: Teach Like A Champion

Tools Being used:


1.Login to VA Control the Game
2.Click Section 1 Everybody Writes
Habits of Discussion
Introduction

Agenda Lesson Goals


1.Vocab Preview SW understand The Idea of America,”
2.Photo Analysis SW think about the civil rights movement and
US History
3. Class Reading Standards
4. Exit ticket/ Reflection Era9.6.USH.1nalyze the roles of individuals,
groups, and the government in securing civil
rights during the mid-20th century using a
variety of primary and secondary sources
(e.g., minorities, women, NAACP, federal court
cases, legislation, Twenty-fourth
Amendment)
Section 1: Introduction
“The Idea of America”
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
11/29/2021

Section 1: Introduction
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones
Predict

1) What does this picture make


you think of?

2) Based on this photo, what do


you think this essay will be
about? Why?
“The Idea of America”
by Nikole Hannah-Jones

Directions:
1. Read Section 1 (Intro & Personal Story)
2. Answer the questions that follow.
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones

My dad always flew an American flag in our front yard. The blue paint on our
two-story house was lasting for a long time chipping; the fence, or the rail by
the stairs, or the front door, existed in a never ending state of disrepair, but
that flag always flew in its original condition. Our corner lot, which had been
redlined by the federal government, was along the river that divided the
black side from the white side of our Iowa town. At the edge of our lawn,
high on an aluminum pole, soared the flag, which my dad would replace as
soon as it showed the slightest tatter.
1 of 9
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones

My dad was born into a family of sharecroppers on a white plantation in


Greenwood, Miss., where black people bent over cotton from
can’t-see-in-the-morning to can’t-see-at-night, just as their enslaved
ancestors had done not long before. The Mississippi of my dad’s youth was
an apartheid state that subjugated its near-majority black population
through breathtaking acts of violence.

2 of 9
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones

White residents in Mississippi lynched more black people than those in any
other state in the country, and the white people in my dad’s home county
lynched more black residents than those in any other county in Mississippi,
often for such “crimes” as entering a room occupied by white women,
bumping into a white girl or trying to start a sharecroppers union.

3 of 9
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones

My dad’s mother, like all the black people in Greenwood, could not vote, use
the public library or find work other than toiling in the cotton fields or toiling
in white people’s houses. So in the 1940s, she packed up her few
belongings and her three small children and joined the flood of black
Southerners fleeing North. She got off the Illinois Central Railroad in
Waterloo, Iowa, only to have her hopes of the mythical Promised Land
shattered when she learned that Jim Crow did not end at the Mason-Dixon
line.
4 of 9
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones
Reflect

Why did Nikole Hannah-Jones’ grandmother and father leave


Mississippi?

TLC Tool: Everybody Writes


Time: 60 Seconds
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones

Grandmama, as we called her, found a house in a segregated black


neighborhood on the city’s east side and then found the work that was
considered black women’s work no matter where black women lived —
cleaning white people’s houses. Dad, too, struggled to find promise in this
land. In 1962, at age 17, he signed up for the Army. Like many young men, he
joined in hopes of escaping poverty. But he went into the military for another
reason as well, a reason common to black men: Dad hoped that if he served
his country, his country might finally treat him as an American.
5 of 9
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones

The Army did not end up being his way out. He was passed over for
opportunities, his ambition stunted. He would be discharged under murky
circumstances and then labor in a series of service jobs for the rest of his
life. Like all the black men and women in my family, he believed in hard work,
but like all the black men and women in my family, no matter how hard he
worked, he never got ahead.

6 of 9
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones

So when I was young, that flag outside our home never made sense to me.
How could this black man, having seen firsthand the way his country abused
black Americans, how it refused to treat us as full citizens, proudly fly its
banner? I didn’t understand his patriotism. It deeply embarrassed me.

7 of 9
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones
Connect

How is the story of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ family related to the


Great Migration?

TLC Tool: Everybody


Writes
Timer: 60 Seconds
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones

I had been taught, in school, through cultural osmosis, that the flag wasn’t
really ours, that our history as a people began with enslavement and that we
had contributed little to this great nation. It seemed that the closest thing
black Americans could have to cultural pride was to be found in our vague
connection to Africa, a place we had never been. That my dad felt so much
honor in being an American felt like a marker of his degradation, his
acceptance of our subordination.

8 of 9
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones

Like most young people, I thought I understood so much, when in fact I


understood so little. My father knew exactly what he was doing when he
raised that flag. He knew that our people’s contributions to building the
richest and most powerful nation in the world were indelible, that the United
States simply would not exist without us.

9 of 9
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones
Reflect

What is one sentence from the reading that caught your


attention? Why?

TLC Tool: Everybody


Writes
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones
Analyze

What evidence from US History supports Hannah-Jones’s claim that “our


people’s contributions to building the richest and most powerful nation in the
world were indelible, that the United States simply would not exist without us?”

TLC Tool: Everybody


Writes
Section 1: Introduction; “The Idea of America” Nikole Hannah-Jones
Confirm/Challenge

Confirm: What information from this reading confirms the story of


American History that you have already learned?

Challenge: What information is new to you or challenges or


complicates the story of American History that you already know?

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