As students in grades 5 – 8 advance their knowledge, the tours strive to develop students’ critical thinking skills and their knowledge of true history. In so doing, the efforts to devalue the ‘African American psyche’ and to ‘marginalize African Americans’ are repelled.
1. Critical Thinking Skills
a. Describing the newly freed and former oppressor relationships, particularly the political and economic relationships.
b. Analyzing the impact of the Black Reconstruction government on the newly freed.
c. Analyzing the impact that the doctrine of ‘white supremacy’ had on the former enslaved population, including specific individuals, events and decisions.
d. Analyzing the impact that the Catholic Church had on the newly freed.
e. Analyzing historical data using primary and secondary sources.
f. Demonstrating what triggered resistance, protests, revolts and the aims of the newly free.
2. Knowledge of and history of Louisiana
a. Explaining the role of the Louisiana Black troops who fought for freedom in the Civil War; the largest number came from Louisiana.
b. Illustrating the battles of the Civil War including the forced surrender of General Robert E. Lee by Black troops.
c. Demonstrating the fight by the newly freed to rearrange society into a democratic and fairer society by highlighting the first daily Black newspaper in the United States, i.e., the New Orleans Tribune.