Media and Book Reviews

“This compelling collection of lessons, essays, interviews, poems, and art takes the educator—and their student—inside the stories of the ordinary people who sustained the movement.”

—NEA Today, May 2004

“While the boycott has the capacity to connect Black students with their history and learn that you do not have to be a hero to change the world, Menkart says there are a lot of myths that have circulated in classrooms for years…the mythbusters quiz is based on the award winning book “Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching.” The goal of this book is to move beyond heroes and holidays to uncover and humanize the stories of the many people who, like Rosa Parks, challenged the government in the name of justice.”

—Regan Toomer, Civil Rights ‘Myths’ Exposed by D.C. Group, December 2005

“Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching takes an important first step at making recent trends in civil rights historiography useful to K-12 teachers. These trends include a turn toward the local and grassroots, the role of women in movement-building, multiracial components of civil rights history, and the importance of political culture. It also includes provocative personal stories about the sometimes controversial nature of different types of civil rights teaching, which may include uneasy role-playing simulations, taking students to protests, and struggling with images of the brutal violence many civil rights activists faced.”

—Trevor Griffey, Humanities and Social Sciences Online, September 2005

“..she [Alana Murray] says heroes are not born extraordinary, but are ordinary people who learn to do great things as they confront problems. Murray tries to get that point across daily, teaching from the instructional and community resource guide she contributed to and co-edited Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching.”

—Warren Parish, Rethinking History’s Heroes, May 2005

“It is overdue, then, that a publication examine the contemporary black struggle’s literary history and the often uncredited intellectuals who applied literature to activism. Billed as a resource guide for classrooms and communities, ‘Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching’ makes a significant contribution toward updating the body of writing on black political movements…‘Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching offers promise for classroom learning that, for far too long, ended — literally and figuratively — with the death of Martin Luther King Jr.”

—Eddie B. Allen, Book Review, April 2005

“Barlev, Faus and other educators credited a textbook written by three local educators – ‘Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching‘ – with providing original ideas and instruction material.

‘I wept when I found this book,’ Barlev said. ‘Until I saw it, I thought I was the only one teaching about the civil rights movement’” —Avis Thomas-Lester, The Washington Post, February 2005

“‘Too often, the teaching of the Civil Rights Movement — as a spontaneous, emotional eruption of angry but saintly African-Americans led by two or three inspired orators — discounts the origins, the intellect, and the breadth that guided this complex social movement,’ writes Jenice L. View, a co-author of “Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching” a new book designed to destroy those myths… The story of the civil rights movement in America isn’t a black-white story. It’s not a story that ended when King was killed. It’s a story that has relevance today, a movement whose lessons can be applied globally.”

—Wendi C. Thomas, Civil Rights Movement’s History’s One of Hit and Myth, The Commercial Appeal, February 17, 2005

“I’m sympathetic to the view that teaching African-American history in February has become an exercise in celebrating a few and ignoring the many. Now, to the rescue of parents and teachers who are similarly concerned about how poorly and simplistically black history is taught comes a book, Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching: A Resource Guide for K-12 Classrooms. The editors—Deborah Menkart, Alana D. Murray and Jenice L. View…[have] produced a guide that encourages critical teaching as well as critical thinking.”

—Baye Betty Winston, Black History Month Needs Constant Renewal to Remain Relevant, February 2005

“Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching encourages critical teaching and learning. Lessons are based on the philosophy that the purpose of education is to create equality and justice. It teaches how to take the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement and let it guide our lives to better our communities and our world.”

—Molly Cooney-Mesker, Resources for Teaching, Spring 2005

“Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching published by Teaching for Change and Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC)…has given us an incredible treasure trove of stories, exercises, poetry, primary source materials in lesson plan form in many cases that broaden individual and group understanding of what to takes to make change. The book clearly demonstrates the multiracial involvement and impact of the efforts for freedom in the mid-twentieth century. Those readers who are not teachers can find in the book excellent materials for newsletters and handouts at meeting.”

—Message to Teachers, Winter 2004

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching has also been featured in the Washington Times, Education Week, CBS, News Channel 8, Worlds Apart TV, Evening Exchange, WPFW (Pacifica), and WAMU (NPR).