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Which U.S. President did the most to promote civil rights?

Introduction

A group of civil rights organizations recently met to establish an award to be presented in honor of the United States President who made the greatest contribution to promoting civil rights in our country. Congratulations! Believe it or not, they have selected our class to help. Your charge is to research and present the cases for the most worthy candidates. You are responsible for presenting the credentials of one worthy president to representatives of the committee.

Task

Your group's tasks:

1. Select three possible presidents and explore their worthiness for this award. Use the organizer to help you collect and examine primary and secondary source evidence relating to the three presidents you select.
2. Select one president on which your group will focus their research. Use the second organizer to help you examine specific evidence relating to this president's worthiness.
3. Create a multimedia presentation comprised of at least 10, but no more than 20 slides, which will persuade the committee of the worthiness of your president for the new Civil Rights award.

   Your slides should include the following:

   • Opening Card stating the name of your president and the names of the group members
   • Statement of thesis. Briefly state why the President you selected is most worthy for the award
   • Select at least three pieces of evidence, using at least two cards to develop each point. Include primary sources to support this evidence.
   • You conclusion slide should clinch it for the committee; your president is the most worthy!
   • You last card(s) must be a works cited card and must note the Web sites and other sources from which both textual information and images were gathered

Resources

You may find these Web sites helpful in your research. Please remember to also use print sources, including biographies!

American Presidency (Grolier) http://www.grolier.com/presidents/preshome.html

American Experience:The Presidents http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/presidents/indexjs.html

Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/inaugural/

American Presidents: Life Portraits http://www.americanpresidents.org/

POTUS (Presidents of the United States) http://www.ipl.org/ref/POTUS

Speeches of United States Presidents http://www.ocean.ic.net/rafiles/pres/thelist.html

Presidents of the United States http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/presidents.html

Presidents Index http://odur.let.rug/nl/~usa/P/

Celebrating Democracy: The Presidential Inauguration http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/celeb/celeb.html

Presidential Debates http://www.debates.org

Presidents of the United States http://www.presidentsusa.net/

Presidential Libraries IDEA Network http://metalab.unc.edu/lia/president/

Public Papers of the Presidents http://www.gpo.gov/nara/pubpaps/hints_pp.html

US Presidents Lists http://www.fujisan.demon.co.uk/USPresidents/preslist.htm

Evaluation

As you work refer to the rubrics for each task to make sure you meeting the requirements of the project.

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