My Great Birmingham Experience

Jackson Pearson

    My experience in Birmingham was great. We went to the 16th Street Baptist Church and visited the Civil Rights Institute. Out of the whole day the best and most funny experience was in the church when the man that was telling us about the bombing, and about the church was cracking some pretty good jokes. I learned that the Civil Rights was something that was fought for, and was a struggle to press through for the black people of Birmingham. I also learned about the bombing that occurred at the church killing a few little girls.
    There was a huge difference to me when learning about the civil rights through the movie we watched before we went, and the hands on experience I had in Birmingham. There was a difference because when seeing and feeling the places and things were the events occurred is very different than just seeing it on a screen. Also when a man tells you about something in person, and does it with passion it is a very different experience. It changed my view on Civil Rights by providing me a perspective that I had not previously had.
    If I were to be faced with an arguer that wanted to say the trip was pointless it would be a very short argument. For someone to say that without backing it up would be ridiculous; It would not happen because they would have accepted the experience was very worth it. It was a very different experience than just watching a screen or browsing the internet.

This image is very impacting because the bus is what I remember seeing the most.



World War One: Fast Facts

WWI:Fast Facts

By:Jackson Pearson

When did World War I begin, and Why?

The Great War began in July 28, 1914, because of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, the assassin was a Serbian and the victim was an Austria-Hungarian. The countries that first went to war were Serbia and Austria-Hungary.

When and why did the United States enter the war?

The U.S. entered the war on April 6, 1917. Many Americans were not in favor of the war. The U.S. was a part of WWI because of the support that they had to provide to their allies, America was essentially fighting to preserve democracy.

When and why did World War I come to an end? 

WWI came to an end on November 11, 1918 when Germany formally surrendered. It came to an end because of the allies defeating the central powers.

 What were the terms of the major agreement ending the war?  Why did the United States not ratify this treaty, even though President Wilson had played such a major role in negotiating it?

The Treaty of Versailles put all of the blame for the war on Germany. The treaty would put Germany in massive debt and surely cause another reason for them to go to war. The United States did not ratify the treaty because they could tell that the punishment that Germany had from it was too great and would cause later problems; even though President Wilson wanted to very badly the U.S. did not ratify the treaty.

Come up with a question of your own.

Why did the U.S. not enter the war on the side of the Allies earlier?

Was this war preventable?

Why was WWI as long as it was?

Casualty chart for all countries associated with WWI

Prohibition

Prohibition

By: Jackson Pearson

    In 1920, the United States, after the 18th amendment was passed, prohibited the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. This era in United States history is referred to as Prohibition. The drinking of alcohol had been looked down upon ever since the colonies had settled. The consumption of alcohol was, in many American eyes, a sin. Leading up to the passing of the amendment, there was even a tax on alcohol referred to as a “sin tax”. Obviously, the drinking of alcohol had caused many problems in society, but many Americans were outraged over the ban. However, there was a large percentage of the U.S. population supporting the amendment and doing many things to raise awareness of the dangers of alcohol.
    The American Temperance Society (or ATS for short), helped initiate the first temperance movement. This movement was essentially trying to create a “dry” United States; to make the U.S. how this early group wanted to it took a little less than a century(94 years) after its creation. The ATS was the first group to be created for this movement and had many members (by 1835, 1.5million). The ATS group was largely composed of religious members, with a motive to rid the U.S. of alcohol because of it being a sin to drink.
    With many organizations encouraging the ban of alcohol, Kansas was the first state to make the consumption of alcohol illegal. Kansas outlawed alcohol in 1881 and created the first somewhat gateway to the creation of the 18th amendment 39 years later. Between the years 1881 and 1920, there was much debate on the subject of banning alcohol. Many court cases took place that favored the prohibition of alcohol; but there was also many that did not support the ban. Richmond P. Hobson was a representative from Alabama supporting the ban of alcohol. In 1914, Hobson showed support for the prohibition amendment but with only the majority vote and not 2/3 of the votes, the amendment did not pass congress. But in 1920 congress had a majority rule in favor of amendment, which passed the amendment to ban the sale, importation, transportation, and production of alcoholic drinks.
    The scramble to stock up on beer, whiskey, and other alcoholic beverages happened in 1919. Many Americans stockpiled themselves with alcohol, because the amendment did not ban the consumption of alcohol, many saw the ban coming and prepared themselves for when things went “dry”. After the amendment had passed some resorted to smuggling, illegally making, and bootlegging alcohol. Many wealthy men had a steady supply of alcohol and the passing of the amendment did not affect anything to them besides the cost of a drink.
    Once the amendment was passed it did not work nearly as well as the supporters of the amendment had hoped. The Prohibition Era was not very successful in the fact that many people still consumed alcohol. There was crime produced by the amendment and many people lost jobs (bootlegging, making alcohol illegally, and shootings over alcohol). Saying the amendment made the nation clear of liquor and beer would be a very false statement. It did diminish the amount of alcohol consumed overall but did not affect the nation how it was supposed to. The 21st amendment to the constitution took place in 1933; this amendment removed prohibition from the nation. After the 21st amendment, the nation was back to what it was before. The saloons were back, and stores sold and factories created alcoholic beverages once again.

    In 1920 the United States conducted a nationwide experiment: stop the consumption of alcohol. The experiment looked as if it would work but after 13 years the experiment met an end and alcohol was once again back. The goal to remove alcohol was a less realistic than the goal to find bigfoot; there was no way that it would work

Many people wanted prohibition to happen.

Lots of events took place trying to overturn Prohibition.

Many women were strongly against men drinking.

This image shows barrels of beer being emptied into the streets.

A newspaper when the amendment was ratified.

Sources

1.  https://prohibition.osu.edu/hobson#main-content

This source was a great source about Richmond P. Hobson. It showed how he supported a prohibition amendment and how he voiced his support for it. It is a credible source because it is on The Ohio State University website.

2.  http://www.history.com/topics/prohibition

This source provided a great deal of information all about the process of how Prohibition happened. It is credible because it is the History website. It was written by the History.com Staff. Using this website required me to find the facts on my other sources to check that the facts are true, but it allowed me an insight of what Prohibition was like. This source also had great pictures that had great captions to explain the pictures.

3.  http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/about/

This source was great because of the great video; the video created a larger understanding of Prohibition. The site also had many facts on it that was backed up by many historians. This source proved great to me because of how many facts it had and the videos that explained a great deal to me on the site.

4.  http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/Funfacts/Prohibition.html#.VOznwPnF8np

This site provided many interesting facts about prohibition. The author, David J. Hanson, Ph.D., is a very intelligent historian and professor from Professor Emeritus of Sociology of the State University of New York at Potsdam. This is a very credible source that had many great facts.

5.  http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1054.html

This site provided a decent amount of information about the American Temperance Society. Even though it is not a very big site it provided the information that was needed for the topic I needed to know about.

6.  http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/volstead-act/

This was a primary source of the Volstead act. It also had a description of what was being said in the act. This source was excellent in providing the original information, and an easier to read version. This source also provided a huge understanding in the language used in the document that prohibited alcohol in the United States.