Civil Rights Teaching

Southern Freedom Movement Workshop at NCSS Conference

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Anthony Golding and Julian Hipkins III.

At the 2015 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference in New Orleans, Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and Labor History Teacher fellow Anthony Golding and fellowship director Julian Hipkins III presented a workshop on the freedom movement in Mississippi.

Hipkins began the session session by engaging participants in a critique of the traditional textbook narrative on the Civil Rights Movement. For example, textbooks mark the launch of the Civil Rights Movement in 1954 with the Brown v. Board ruling, but the struggle began long before that moment. One participant said “No, it started back in Jamestown in 1619.” The participants then worked in pairs to correct other textbook disinformation about the role of the federal government, youth, women, leadership, goals, and the north, in the Civil Rights Movement. (Here is the activity handout from Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching.)

IMG_7028The rest of the workshop was devoted to a lesson that can be used to teach the historically accurate narrative of the Civil Rights Movement. Golding introduced the southern freedom movement lesson. He said,

I’m a middle school teacher. If you’ve taught middle school you know engagement is key. So, this lesson requires that everyone get up and move around.

Each participant was given the name and bio of someone who had played a role in the Mississippi southern freedom movement. The bios included civil rights activists such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, and Medgar Evers to opponents such as representatives of the Sovereignty Commission and the White Citizens Council.

The history was brought to life as participants donned name tags with images of their historical figure and met others involved in the freedom struggle and it quickly became clear that this lesson helps fill the gaps in the traditional textbook narrative of the movement by introducing individuals that aren’t usually mentioned in mainstream history textbooks.

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In their closing evaluations, participants noted that they looked forward to using the lesson themselves since “Interactive lessons tend to be more meaningful than merely a teacher lecturing on subject matter” and “role playing opens the door to help students learn about the unknown people that assisted the movement.”

Not only did NCSS workshop participants walk away with a new lesson they could use, but this was also the first time that Mississippi middle school teacher Golding had presented a professional development workshop. One of our goals for the Mississippi fellowship program is to support the teachers in their effort to introduce the grassroots history of the Civil Rights Movement to their peers. Even though this was Golding’s first time presenting at a conference, his careful preparation of the session with Hipkins and his experience having taught the lesson himself to middle school students made his facilitation a big success.

Teacher Fellows Plan for Future

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The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and Labor History Teacher Fellows came from across the state for our mid-fall convening in Jackson from October 18-20, 2015. In just two short days, the fellows explored new lessons for the classroom, learned about opportunities for students to showcase their work, heard from inspiring guest speakers, wrote stories from their own classrooms, and planned the future of the fellowship. Throughout, they deepened their teacher community, truly sharing and building a sustaining fellowship. These sentiments were shared in the closing reflection:

Thank you again for allowing me to be a part of this fellowship. I have always felt as though I wanted to be an agent for change but was lost on how to do it, especially in a place like Mississippi. This organization and fellowship has helped me find a place where I can feel as though I have a greater purpose. It has literally brought me “fellowship.” I can’t wait to see what the future holds for us.

I am so proud to be a part of this! It is making me a better and a happier teacher.

Here are some of the highlights from the two days, participants:

  • Wrote about their classrooms. A story from Rethinking Schools served as the prompt for writing about their own teaching and they had dedicated quiet time to write, get peer feedback, and revise. The stories will be shared in upcoming Mississippi e-newsletters.
  • Met with Jacqueline Dace, project manager of the upcoming Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson and Chauncey Spears from the Mississippi Department of Education.
  • Heard an informative and moving presentation by award-winning investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell of The Clarion Ledger. Mitchell’s work has helped put numerous criminals behind bars including Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers. When speaking about the racism that led to the murder of Civil Rights workers in the 60’s and the murder of nine people in Emmanuel AME in Charleston, SC, Mitchell stated “When people dehumanize, they give themselves the right to hate.” During his talk, Mitchell spoke of the courage civil rights workers in the face of state sponsored terrorism. He opened and closed his presentation with the inscription on the gravestone of Civil Rights Movement martyr James Chaney, “There are those who are alive, yet never live. There are those who are dead, yet will live forever. Great deeds inspire and encourage the living.” The teachers wrote to Mitchell about the impact of his presentation. One said,

Thank you so much for taking the time to sit and talk with us teachers. As someone who admires your work and has taught about the difference you have made in history and in people’s lives, it was an honor to meet you and hear your stories.

  • Learned more about National History Day in Mississippi from the new state co-coordinator, Alan Wheat. His presentation, based on his own experience as a classroom teacher, was inspiring. All the fellows agreed to either work with students on a project to enter for this year or to serve as a judge.
  • Reflected on the impact of the sessions they hosted in September and October with Julian Hipkins to introduce more teachers and students to resources for teaching about Mississippi’s Civil Rights Movement history.
  • Designed plans for the year ahead to deepen their own education and to engage others. Key ideas were a summer bus tour of Mississippi historical sites for teachers and a video to show policy makers how excited students are when they engage in interactive lessons based on grassroots Mississippi history.
  • Discussed a name for the fellowship. After much consideration of various options, they settled on Mississippi Teachers for Change. The next step is getting a logo and posters for outreach.

Thanks to the support of Cynthia Palmer, executive director of the Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, Inc., we were able to convene at the historic Woodworth Chapel on the campus of Tougaloo College.