Well, this is my last fall semester, and in order to graduate from BYU on time I had to take a ton of classes that I should have taken my freshman year. These ridiculous classes were Biology 100, Physical Science 100, Music 202 and American Heritage. At the beginning of the semester I was not excited about these classes, but I have been pleasantly surprised by two of them. Music 202 has been amazing, and a great class, I would recommend it to anyone. In this post however, I want to talk about one of my favorite classes at BYU, American Heritage. I know this may be surprising because there are so many terrible stories about the same class but I disagree with this stereotype. I think this is because many of the students who take the class are freshman and college is simply different from High School and likely surprises many people.
I have loved the class and have learned tons about the history of America. Now American Heritage is not a typical American History class. It focuses less on dates, and more of the unique structure of the American political system. We talk constantly about the social contract, which is an unwritten agreement between the citizens and their government, and how it is constantly changing.
Today we talked about the Civil Rights Movement and how it was the last major reconstruction of the social contract. The lecture was great and the discussions of the details were moving. I am not going to go into the horrid situations which surrounded the country during these times, but we were shown a film that was moving. I know there are numerous details about the Civil Rights Movement that I do not understand, but this tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. really struck me and I wanted to share it with you. Although this was not the exact movie we were shown,it is a similar video.
[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2200231629186981454&q=Name+of+Love+Civil+Rights&total=44&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0[/googlevideo]