Unit 2: Civil Rights and African Americans

Questions:

What are some of the most important things to learn beyond the often-used elementary school “heroes and holidays” approach to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s?

Keywords: Montgomery bus boycott, March on Washington, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Montgomery bus boycott, Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act), Emmett Till, Claudette Colvin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Selma

Materials:

“Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1985” (Documentary history of the Civil Rights Movement, 14 hours total)
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/eyes-on-the-prize-1954-1985

Episodes available for streaming for students
https://www.facinghistory.org/books-borrowing/eyes-prize-americas-civil-rights-movement

Episode 1 of “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement”
Focuses on the early years of struggle for black freedom, including the lynching of Emmett Till, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the formation of the SCLC.

Comic book: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Montgomery Story
(10 page comic book on the Montgomery Bus Boycott)
https://www.crmvet.org/docs/ms_for_comic.pdf

Podcast, “Intersectionality Matters!,” Kimberlé Crenshaw

13th OR Selma (documentaries on Netflix by Ava DuVernay)

“What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement After 1965? Don’t Ask Your Textbook”
(online article, Zinn Education Project)
https://www.zinnedproject.org/if-we-knew-our-history/civil-rights-movement-after-1965-not-in-textbooks/

“The Hidden Life of Rosa Parks” (5 minute video, TEDEd)
https://youtu.be/tLfbmepDd4c

Artistic responses:

Chapter from The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
“Emmett Till,” film by Studio Revolt and avery r. young
The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas (YA novel)