School Colors
Podacast by Mark Winston Griffith and Max Freedman
Season one of the School Colors podcast covers the history of Ocean Hill-Brownsville in Brooklyn where Black and Puerto Rican parents tried to exercise power over their schools and they collided head first with the teachers’ union — leading to the longest teachers’ strike in U.S. history in 1968.
Introduction: Desegregation
Introduction
Throughout U.S. history, communities of color fought for their right to equal access and for human dignity and equity. Desegregation in public schools, transportation, and other accommodations was more than court cases and legal victories. Desegregation was a long struggle led by students, parents, and every day citizens. . . . 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.
Soul Power and the People
Reading by Jenice L. View
Essay recalling memories of school desegregation in 1968 Washington, D.C.
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.
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.
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?
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.”
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.