Reflecting on the time periods and historical materials you have studied this semester, write a 500-600 word essay (approximately two double-spaced pages). Your essay must utilize content from at least HIS 315L Units 1-3 (post-Civil War through World War II), although material from Units 4 and 5 is also very welcome. In your essay, explore significant changes related to one of following Big Ideas:

1. America and the World: America's role in the world began on the periphery and has moved to take a central place.

2. Reform and Renewal: The Puritan mission to create a City on a Hill has been adopted in many forms throughout America's history, resulting in social and political movements that reinvigorate and often challenge Americans to reflect on their future.

Identify the Big Idea you have chosen to examine.
Write a paragraph that explains what the Big Idea means.
In your first paragraph, also list three major changes, events, “moments” or specific time periods from the course as a whole that demonstrate, and connect to, the Big Idea.
Write a paragraph for each of the three changes, events, “moments” or specific time periods and connect each one to the Big Idea. Each paragraph should explain the status or conditions at the time of your Big Idea and show how it reveals historical change. Be sure to use specific evidence

“American history,” wrote James Baldwin,

“is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and

more terrible than anything anyone has said about it.”

In these two sequential first-year college American

history courses, students study significant themes

in US history to uncover the range and depth of the

American story. Using lectures, primary and secondary

readings, videos, maps, and other graphics, students

work both independently and collaboratively to develop

the critical thinking skills to evaluate the historical record.

History 315K surveys from the colonial beginnings

through the Civil War, and History 315L considers

the post-Civil War era to the end of the 20th century.

Exams include essay questions that require students

to craft well-written narratives and arguments that set

events in historical context, engage the complexity

of cause and consequence, and make connections

that reveal the dynamic of change over time.

Explanation:

regarding the law, the 15th amendment was specifically designed thinking in the rights of black free men.

even though ratified on february 3, 1870, the promise of the 15th amendment would not be fully applied for a long time.poll taxes and literacy tests would allow southern states disenfranchise african americans. only in 1965 the voting rights for african americans would be actually able to vote in the south.

in 1965, president johnson signed the voting rights act, which aimed to overcome legal barriers that prevented african americans from voting as it was guaranteed by the 15th amendment to the u.s. constitution.