9th grade Black History Month Project

Here is a link to the article I distributed for you in class on February 14:

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/21/nyregion/082191CROWN.html?ex=1203483600&en=9067cea643a68bca&ei=5070

You will have to copy and paste it into your browser in order to view it. It is the same article that I handed out in class, I am simply including it here in case you did not receive it, or lost it.

Your assignment, due February 29, is to write a three page paper, using this article as a starting point, to research race relations in Brooklyn, or New York City as a whole.

You can discuss the period of time leading up to the riots, for as far back as you can find information. So, one possibility could be slave trading in New York, and how it contributed to the feelings that African-Americans had in Brooklyn in August of 1991. Or you could think about the broken dreams of the David Dinkins administration in New York. I am leaving it up to you what to choose -- anything that interests you.

Alternatively, you may also discuss New York in the aftermath of the Crown Heights riots. What lessons were learned? How have things changed? How could it be only 17 years later, and most of you don't even know this happened? Has New York City overcome racism? Or are we sitting on a racial time-bomb once again?

No matter which approach you take, you need to have researched two other magazine or newspaper articles to discuss in your paper. Your paper should consider a conflict, meaning a disagreement, confrontation, or debate, surrounding race relations in New York (for example, the Crown Heights riots), and a compromise made as the result of that conflict. You should take it in any direction that interests you.

Your paper must be double-spaced, in Times New Roman 12pt font. It mus be three pages long, and its fourth page must be an APA-style bibliography, citing at least three newspaper articles, one of which will be the one we discussed in class. So you need two newspaper articles in addition to the one I gave you.