Desegregation

Explores the desegregation of public spaces, including schools, transportation, and commercial and government establishments.

Introduction

Throughout U.S. history, communities of color have fought for their right to equal access and for human dignity and equity. Desegregation in public schools, transportation, and other accommodations involved more than court cases and legal victories. Desegregation was a long (and ongoing) struggle led by students, parents, and everyday citizens who experienced or saw the injustice of U.S. segregation. Faced by indignities and violence, students and parents maintained the courage to fight for the rights of first-class citizenship.

They were not interested in integration, or the desire to mingle socially or otherwise with whites, but to break and reconstruct institutions that forced people of color into positions of poverty, illiteracy, and political powerlessness. As Charles Payne states in “‘White supremacy’ is a more accurate description of what the system was about.”

Lessons

Featured

Montgomery Bus Boycott Mythbuster Quiz

Quiz by Teaching for Change
Students are often taught the simplistic narrative that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in Montgomery, the buses were desegregated, and the Civil Rights Movement was launched. This quiz helps surface and challenge many of the myths about the boycott.

Comfort Food: A Lesson for Child of the Civil Rights Movement

Lesson by Paula Young Shelton
Food played an instrumental role during the Civil Rights Movement, bringing people together to plan, gain strength, and organize. Community members played an important role feeding volunteers. This lesson is a companion to the picture book, Child of the Civil Rights Movement.

Sit Down Marie!: Eugenia Fortes at the Hyannis Port Beach

Teaching Reflection by Maggie Donovan
Students react to a story about two young African-American girls who refused to move to the colored section of the Massachusetts beach.

Sit-Ups

Teaching Reflection by Maggie Donovan
First graders learn about sit-in strategies.

Sit-Ins: A Desegregation Role Play

Lesson by Chris Hoeh
A role play lesson for second grade on sit-ins.

Montgomery Bus Boycott: Organizing Strategies and Challenges

Teaching Activity by Alana D. Murray
In this activity for middle and high school, students act as organizers and learn about many of the challenges faced by the group who sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott for 381 days.

A School Year Like No Other, Eyes on the Prize: Fighting Back: 1957–1962

Lesson by Bill Bigelow
Students write poetry or prose in reaction to viewing "Eyes on the Prize: Fighting Back 1957-62" and two readings.

Gallery Walk on the History of Education in Mississippi Through the Lens of Race

Lesson by Julian Hipkins III and Deborah Menkart
Using textbook excerpts, data, quotes, legislation, and images, this gallery walk begins pre-Mississippi in the ancient city of Timbuktu, moves through Reconstruction and Jim Crow, and carries on to present day issues.

Teaching the 1964 New York City School Boycott

Teaching Reflection by Adam Sanchez
The largest civil rights protest wasn’t in the South, it was in New York City in 1964 when hundreds of thousands of students stayed home to protest school segregation. Here’s how today’s students reacted to a lesson about this historic boycott.

Warriors Don’t Cry: Connecting History, Literature, and Our Lives

Lesson by Linda Christensen
A unit designed to help students practice behaving as allies. Students read Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Senior High, then create and act out scenes from their own experiences where people act as allies, victims, perpetrators, and witnesses.

Children's March History Dilemma

Lesson by Chris Seeger
In this lesson, students consider whether they would join fellow Black students in protest in 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, even if they are guaranteed to be arrested?

Bravery in Little Rock History Dilemma

Lesson by Chris Seeger
In this lesson, students consider what they would do if they were a white student at at an all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas when it is ordered to desegregate and you see a Black student being harassed.

Dramatization of the Bus Boycott for First and Second Grade

Lesson by Maggie Donovan
View a video and written procedure for young students to role play the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Bigger than a Hamburger

Lesson by Maggie Donovan
An activity for young students to understand and visualize the various goals of lunch counter sit-ins inspired by Ella Baker's words, "current demonstrations are concerned with something much bigger than a hamburger."

Readings

Featured

Transportation Protests: 1841 to 1992

Reading by Julian Hipkins III and David Busch
The struggle for the desegregation of transportation has a long history in the United States. This timeline outlines some key individuals and organizations who took a stand against segregated transit.

The Role of Freedom Songs

Reading by SNCC Digital Gateway
One cannot understand the history of the Civil Rights Movement absent the role of freedom songs. Here is a description of their importance from the SNCC Digital Gateway, followed by the song “If You Miss Me from the Back of the Bus.”

Claudette Colvin Goes to Work

Reading by Rita Dove
Poem about Claudette Colvin

Desegregation

Reading by Eloise Greenfield
Poem about desegregation.

Soul Power and the People

Reading by Jenice L. View
Essay recalling memories of school desegregation in 1968 Washington, D.C.

Teaching the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Reading by Teaching for Change
Students learn that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in Montgomery, the buses were desegregated, and the Civil Rights Movement was launched. The disconnect between Parks’ arrest and the 381-day boycott creates the illusion that it was a spontaneous response to her civil disobedience. This, however, discounts the strategic brilliance and courage of the African American community in Montgomery.

Desegregation Court Cases Before and After Brown v. Board of Education

Reading from the Brown Foundation or Educational Equity, Excellence, and Research with additions from Teaching for Change
Selected school desegregation court cases before and after Brown v. Board of Education 1849-1969.

Teaching Segregation and Inequality in Housing and Education

Reading by Emilye Crosby
In recent years, there has been an outpouring of wonderful work documenting the structural basis of housing and educational segregation and inequality. This list of materials supplements the resources provided as part of Emilye Crosby’s “A Documents-Based Lesson on the Voting Rights Act: A Case Study of SNCC’s Work in Lowndes County and the Emergence of Black Power.”

Sarah Louise Keys

Reading by Deborah Menkart
The story of Pfc. Sarah Louise Keys, who refused to relinquish her seat to a white Marine and move to the back of the bus as she traveled from Fort Dix, N.J. to her family’s home in Washington, NC. The driver emptied the bus, directed the other passengers to another vehicle, and barred Keys from boarding it.

Freedom’s Main Line: Louisville, Kentucky 1870-1871

Reading by Maria Fleming
An 1870 protest against transportation segregation in Louisville, KY.

Blackwell v. Issaquena Board of Education

Reading by Dawn Keene
A civil rights suit filed on behalf of 300 African-American students from several schools across Issaquena County in Mississippi.