Civil Rights Teaching

New Book Release: Civil Rights History from the Ground Up

by


Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, A National Movement is a collection of scholarly essays that illustrate the critical role local-level organizing  played during the civil rights movement. Edited by Emilye Crosby, the essays weave oral history and activist accounts with traditional sources to compel students and general readers to rethink who and what were important to the African American freedom struggle.

The collection covers a broad timeframe—from the movement during the 60s to the present—and examines locales, incidents, and events that remain invisible in traditional narratives on the movement. [Read more…]

Women Make History: Updated Lesson Honoring Women’s Activism

by

In honor of women’s history month, Teaching for Change updated and posted online the popular Women Make History lesson from Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching. In this interactive activity, participants are introduced to 36 women of note and the strategies they used as activists.

Women's Work

Educators use the Women Make History lesson to challenge traditional narratives that often exclude the critical role of women in movements for change. Women don’t just sit at home, but sit at counters during sit-ins, organize boycotts and protests, fight for reform, and courageously risk their lives for what they deem is right. 

Stephanie Minor-Harper, co-chair of the Dr. Betty Shabazz Delta Academy program, invited Jenice View, co-editor of Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching, to present Women Make History to youth enrolled in the program.

“The young ladies were like so many other young people today,” Minor-Harper said. “They could recite the names of a few famous persons who were a part of the civil rights movement—like Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Jesse Jackson—but they had little sense of the greater context in which they carried out their work.”

Minor-Harper was thankful that View used the activity to move the participants beyond those few icons. “I was amazed by the breadth and depth of the women’s stories,” she continued. “The youth will definitely remember a few, and that’s an excellent start.”

The updated version of Women Make History is available here.

Teaching American History Grant for McComb, Mississippi

by

 

A consortium of seven school districts, led by the McComb, Miss. school district and including Brookhaven, Claiborne, Columbia, Lamar, Marion, and Natchez-Adams districts was awarded a Teaching American History grant in August, 2010. Teaching for Change worked closely with McComb on the application thanks to the support they have received from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to deepen instruction about Civil Rights Movement and labor history in McComb. (Corinth County School District also received a TAH grant in 2010 and Jackson Public Schools received a grant a few years ago.) [Read more…]