This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision. Too often marked as the launch of the Civil Rights Movement, it is important to teach about the Supreme Court ruling in the context of the decades long struggle by people across the United States. This anniversary is also a key time to look at the progress that has been made and the inequities that continue today. Here are some lessons (three from Rethinking Schools), books, films, and articles that can be used to teach about Brown v. Board in grades 4-12. 

ACTIONS

Fulfilling the Promise of Brown v. Board May 13-17, 2014 To mark the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, parents, students, educators and community residents are organizing actions across the country to continue the struggle for racial and educational justice and win the public schools all our children deserve. Teaching for Change is pleased co-sponsor the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools event in Washington, D.C. at Sousa Middle School.

LESSONS AND TEACHING STORIES

	The March on John Philip Sousa: A Social Action Project by Elizabeth A. Davis A D.C. public school teacher and her students learn about and fight to preserve the historic role of one of the schools in the Brown v. Board case.
	Warriors Don’t Cry: Brown Comes to Little Rock by Linda Christensen A role play exercise brings Melba Pattillo Beals’ classic book about the Little Rock Nine to life for students.
	Teaching Brown in Tuscaloosa by Alison Schmitke Learning about their community’s civil rights history inspires students to action.
	Our Grandparents’ Civil Rights Era by Willow McCormick Second graders ask grandparents to write about their experience during the Civil Rights Movement. The letters bring surprising wisdom—and some thought-provoking issues—to the classroom.

 BOOKS AND FILMS

Book Landmark Cases Left Out of Your Textbooks	Book Mendez v. Westminster: School Desegregation and Mexican-American Rights	Book Separate is Never Equal	Book Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality	Book Students on Strike: Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Brown, and Me.
Book Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Senior High	Book Remember: The Journey to School Integration	Book Sylvia & Aki	Film The Lemon Grove Incident	Film The Road to Brown
Book Fire from the Rock	Book The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement	Article Segregation Now: The Resegregation of America’s Schools	Article Brown 50 Years Later

There will be an historic convening at Tougaloo College from June 25-29, 2014 on the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer. Here is a description from the conference website:

In the summer of 1964, hundreds of summer volunteers from across America convened in Mississippi to put an end to the system of rigid segregation. The civil rights workers and the summer volunteers successfully challenged the denial by the state of Mississippi to keep Blacks from voting, getting a decent education, and holding elected offices.

As a result of the Freedom Summer of 1964, some of the barriers to voting have been eliminated and Mississippi has close to 1000 Black state and local elected officials. In fact, Mississippi has more Black elected officials than any other state in the union. While the Freedom Summer of ’64 made profound changes in the state of Mississippi and the country, much remains to be accomplished.

The Mississippi Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary Conference will convene in Jackson, Mississippi both to recognize the accomplishments of those who worked for changes to the politically segregated Mississippi and to discuss how to continue the struggle toward Mississippi reaching its full potential for all of its citizens.

The Library of Congress has launched an online collection of oral history interviews with Civil Rights Movement veterans. The interviews were collected and compiled under the Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-19). It was a collaborative effort of the Library of Congress (LOC) and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).

As is explained on the Library of Congress website, “The activists interviewed for this project belong to a wide range of occupations, including lawyers, judges, doctors, farmers, journalists, professors, and musicians, among others. The video recordings of their recollections cover a wide variety of topics within the civil rights movement, such as the influence of the labor movement, nonviolence and self-defense, religious faith, music, and the experiences of young activists. Actions and events discussed in the interviews include the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), the Albany Movement (1961), the Freedom Rides (1961), the Selma to Montgomery Rights March (1965), the Orangeburg Massacre (1968), sit-ins, voter registration drives in the South, and the murder of fourteen year old Emmett Till in 1955, a horrific event that galvanized many young people into joining the freedom movement.

“Many interviewees were active in national organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Other interviewees were key members of specialized and local groups including the Medical Committee for Human Rights, the Deacons for Defense and Justice, the Cambridge (Maryland) Nonviolent Action Committee, and the Newark Community Union Project. Several interviews include men and women who were on the front lines of the struggle in places not well-known for their civil rights movement activity such as Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Saint Augustine, Florida; and Bogalusa, Louisiana.”

Visit the Civil Rights History Project to see the interviews and learn more.

On February 5, 2014, your class can join students across the country for a virtual National Youth Summit on Freedom Summer and civic engagement. Civil rights activists, students, and historians will participate in a panel discussion about the 1964 youth-led effort to end the political disenfranchisement and educational inequality of African Americans in the Deep South, and discuss the role of young people in shaping America’s past and future. The webcast will be hosted from the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson, Mississippi; young people from across the country will participate in the Summit through an online chat. Participating students will be encouraged to think of themselves as makers of history and asked to consider their ability to be active and engaged citizens.

To register and view the program, visit: http://americanhistory.si.edu/nys/freedom-summer