Like Boston Massacre, this assessment requires students to consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of a document as historical evidence. Students with a sophisticated understanding of how to source a document will be able to explain that Du Bois’s photograph is useful in that it depicts African Americans at the time. They will also note that Du Bois took this photograph to sway public opinion at the Paris Exposition, which limits its usefulness as evidence of the lives of African Americans at the time.
