ETHN100 – Paper 1
This primary purpose of this paper is write a response to the film Rosewood. Based on a true story, the film intermingles fiction and non-fiction as it tells the story of the day in 1923 when the white residents of Sumner, Florida, brutalized the black residents of Rosewood, killing residents and setting the town ablaze.
The authors of your text include a short discussion of a similar event in 1921 where whites in Tulsa, Oklahoma, attacked a neighborhood known as Greenwood and where blacks lived. More 30 blocks of Greenwood were set afire, and in the aftermath more than 250 blacks were killed and nearly 10,000 were left homeless.
Before watching Rosewood, be sure to watch the documentary Don’t Shout Too Soon, which chronicles the Jim Crow period and its powerful effects on the lived experiences of African Americans.
While writing about the film, you might want to focus your discussion on main characters (as in the case of Aunt Sarah, Sylvester Carrier, John Wright, etc.) or specific scenes that illustrate important events, circumstances, or statements made that reveal some aspect of the Jim Crow period. It helps to take notes and pay attention to specific scenes while watching as you might want to go back to review them again when it comes to writing your paper.
What are some of your impressions about the town of Rosewood? How would you characterize the relations between blacks and whites? How did blacks and whites strategically negotiate the rules of Jim Crow? How did whites justify their actions? Are the lessons from this story relevant to the contemporary world? Why or why not?
You paper should be in the range of 3 to 4 pages. In writing your paper on Rosewood you should make connections to the your textbook (American Ethnicity) and the documentary (Don’t Shout Too Soon). It is a good idea to make your connections to the text and the documentary, as they should help is supporting main points and/or themes. Overall, you paper should demonstrate critical thinking where you develop and support an argument.
Give your paper a title, and post it on Canvas by the due date listed below. Be sure to give yourself time to proofread and to catch typos, problems with sentence structure, etc.
Due by 11:59 PM on Sunday, July 25.
This assignment is available until 11:59 PM on Sunday, July 25.
Plagarism free with report pls