THE CHOICES PROGRAM BROWN UNIVERSITY
Video still of Michael Vorenberg

Michael Vorenberg

Brown University

Michael Vorenberg is an associate professor of history at Brown University. He received his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D., all in history, from Harvard University. Vorenberg’s first book, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (Cambridge, 2001), deals with the making and meaning of the Thirteenth Amendment. He has written a number of articles as well as a book on the Emancipation Proclamation, The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010). Before becoming a professor, Vorenberg was a secondary school teacher. He has received numerous awards and fellowships for his writing and teaching.

Vorenberg’s videos are used in these Choices Program curriculum units:
The Civil War and the Meaning of Liberty
Freedom Now: The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi
Racial Slavery in the Americas: Resistance, Freedom, and Legacies
We the People: A New Nation

VIDEOS
Why is it important for high school students to learn about the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution?
Why were state constitutions inadequate after the American Revolution?
What did James Madison hope would happen at the Constitutional Convention?
What crises led to the Constitutional Convention?
How were issues of representation addressed at the Constitutional Convention?
Who were the Federalists and who were the Anti-Federalists?
What were the Federalist Papers?
Why did the federal government “reconstruct” the South?
What were the limitations of the Thirteenth Amendment?
Who are you and what do you do?
Was the American Civil War a war over slavery?
What role did enslaved Black people play in the American Civil War?
Why did the federal government eventually abandon Reconstruction?
How did Reconstruction transform Black life in the South?
How did white people in the South resist Reconstruction?
In what ways was Black life under Jim Crow similar to life under slavery?
Why is the civil rights movement sometimes called the “second Reconstruction”?
Why is it important for high school students to learn about Reconstruction?
Freedom Now: The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi
What was the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution?
What is the basic principle of American democracy?
Why did the Constitution have to be amended to abolish slavery?
What is the role of the Constitutional amendment?
Why has the U.S. Constitution endured for more than 200 years?
Why should high school students learn about the Constitution?
How did the U.S. Constitution exclude certain groups?
A New Nation: Introduction
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