The final exam will consist of ten short answer questions (4-5 sentences each, 50% of test grade) and one long essay (50%).  Be prepared to answer questions on any of the material covered in class: the readings from your texts and from handouts, as well as lecture content and film clips. 

ESSAY QUESTION 
You will receive one of three questions below on the essay section.  You will not know which one of the three will be on the exam, so study for all of them.  Some pointers: answer the question as directly and clearly as possible.  Be sure to address all the components of the question.  Remember to integrate the relevant reading and lecture material to support your argument.  Always avoid vague generalizations.  Refer to specific events, policies, groups, ideas and individuals in your answers.  Paper will be provided for your longer essay. 

1. What impact did southern progressives have on the American South?  In what ways were reformers truly “progressive,” and in what ways were they not?

2. Some observers note the power of religion in the American South.  Indeed, Flannery O’Connor commented, “in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological.”  What has been the place of religion in the 20th century South?  How has it influenced those in the region and those in the nation?   

3. Why did the civil rights movement gain national attention in the 1950s and 1960s?  What did civil rights proponents accomplish and how did southerners react to the movement?

Lillian Smith
The Lost Cause as civil religion
Samuel Hill on the “central theme”
Serpent handling
Rebecca Latimer Felton 
The WCTU in the South
Annie May Fisher
The southern women’s suffrage movement
Ted Ownby on masculinity and southern towns
Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
Huey Long
The impact of the Depression on the South
World War II and the South
Peter Applebome on “how much the country looks like the South”
World War II and southern music
Rock ‘n’ roll’s southern accent
The influence of southern music on British society
Richard Wright’s Black Boy
Brown vs. Topeka and its affect on the South
The Cold War and the civil rights movement
The Southern Manifesto
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"
SNCC
Andrew Young
Southern Baptists Apologize for Slavery and Racism, 1995
George Wallace
Dan Carter’s thesis on the Republican Party since the 1960s