Unit 1: Civil Rights, Race (including Whiteness) and Intersectionality 

Questions:

• What are civil rights?
• What are civil liberties?
• What’s the difference ?
• Why do we need to understand race in order to understand the history of civil rights in the US?
• How does race intersect with other aspects of social identities in the United States?

Goal this week: to have a toolbox of basic terms to use and examine for the rest of the course.

Reading:

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
Jason Reynolds and Ibram Kendi. Try to read this book over the first three weeks of the course (it’s about 300 pages).

“Intersectionality 101,” Teaching Tolerance
https://youtu.be/9-XB6tuhK3Q

Civil Rights
“Civil Rights” (Cornell Law School)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/civil_rights

Civil Liberties
ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/

Race
**The National Museum of African American History and Culture, ‘Talking About Race”
https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/audiences
Read all of the basic material, including the material on Whiteness, privilege, etc.

Race and the Constitution
“Race and the American Constitution: A Struggle Toward National Ideals”
James Oliver Horton, Gilder Lehrman
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/race-and-american-constitution-struggle-toward-national-ideals

Civil Rights Act of 1866: guaranteeing equal protection to all citizens under the law
http://www.african-american-civil-rights.org/civil-rights-act-of-1866/
https://thegrio.com/2019/09/12/civil-rights-act-of-1886-facts/

Civil Rights Act of 1875: guaranteeing equal access to public accommodations. (Overturned in 1883 by the Supreme Court, declared unconstitutional)
http://www.african-american-civil-rights.org/civil-rights-act-of-1875/

Plessy v. Ferguson: 1896 Supreme Court case declaring “separate but equal” public facilities constitutional
http://www.african-american-civil-rights.org/plessy-ferguson/

Brown vs Board of Education: 1954 Supreme Court case overturning Plessy v Ferguson
http://www.african-american-civil-rights.org/brown-v-board-of-education/

Voting Rights
How have voting rights changed in the past 50 years? (PBS, video, 3 mins)
https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/ae930e89-f794-44e6-bcca-61fdf0cce671/how-have-voting-rights-changed-in-the-past-50-years/support-materials/
Student hand out with discussion questions
https://d43fweuh3sg51.cloudfront.net/media/media_files/How_Have_Voting_Rights_Changed_in_the_Past_50_Years__Student_Handout_GZl4IBU.pdf

Ida B. Wells, The Advocate (2 minute video, PBS)
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/vote-ida-b-wells-advocate/

Black Women and the 200-Year Fight For The Vote (article, 2020, PBS)
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/vote-black-women-200-year-fight-for-vote/

Activities:

Implicit Bias Test, Harvard (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/)

Intersectionality

Our Place

“How We Got Here: A Reckoning with U.S. and Tacoma History”
(1 hr, City of Tacoma video for City employees on race, laws, history in Tacoma)
https://youtu.be/bsRW81F_zR0