Objective: The purpose of this book is to reevaluate our understanding of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and assist in establishing a new personal viewpoint on the movement through a national and international lens and a new personal viewpoint on the national identity of the United States.

Task: Jill Lepore in her article A New Americanism, states that America is in a time of great political divide. With a government so deeply partisan, it is clear that this level of a divide is problematic when a compromise can take up to a month to be agreed upon when making political decisions. This divide has served to deepen hatred and separation between social, political and economic groups, increasing racism and xenophobia. Lepore argues that in order to repair this divide, the US nation needs a common history that is accurate in order to form a national identity that is representative of the diversity of our nation. One important first step into creating this common history is through a reteaching of the Civil Rights Movement that encompasses all of the involved members and political groups involved. This task will seek to provide that reteaching.
 

Step 1: Read the title of Path 1 and the read through the path. While reading through the path, take note of the main ideas of each page and the relationship between the main ideas and the order in which they were presented, and how this relates to the naming of the path. Why is this order important, what themes and ideas connected the pages within the path? How does it aid in presenting the main ideas of each page and the overall argument?

Step 2: Repeat step 1 for Path 2.

Step 3: Compare and contrast the organization between Path 1 and Path 2 and how it impacted your understanding of the argument presented in the book. In what ways did the organization of each path improve or worsen your understanding of the argument? Think about how cohesive the argument was, how easily the topics flowed between each other and how easy it was to figure out how each path was organized. Which path do you feel is better in getting the argument across?

Step 4: Come up with your own path through the book, what other connections can you make between these documents? How will the path you created help future readers understand the argument?