Approaches to Teaching U.S. Civil Rights History

1
Approaches to Teaching U.S. Civil Rights History

• Dr. Suzanne Smith
• Dept. of History and Art History
• George Mason University

2
Part ICivil Rights and Citizenship
inTwentieth-Century America
3
Major Themes

• What are a citizens rights and obligations?
• In the United States, who is granted citizenship
  and why?
• Historically, who gets excluded from full
  citizenship and why?
• If majority rules in a democratic society, what
  recourse does the minority have? How do minority
  groups get heard?
• How does discrimination manifest itself? (E.g.
  the right to drink from a fountain, to vote, to
  handicapped access to a building)

4
Civil Rights Constituencies

• African American
• Arab American
• Asian American
• Disabled American
• Gays and Lesbians
• Hispanic/Latino
• Native American
• Prison Rights
• Womens Rights

5
Rights vs. Obligations

• Have students explore what it means to be a full
  citizen of the United States.
• What are some of our rights? To free speech, to
  bear arms, to vote
• What are the obligations of citizenship? To serve
  in the military, to serve on a jury
• Can some aspects of citizenship be both a right
  and an obligation?

6
Civic Nationalism

• Civic Nationalism a belief in the fundamental
  equality of human beings, in every individuals
  inalienable right to life, liberty, and the
  pursuit of happiness, and in a democratic
  government that derives its legitimacy from the
  peoples consent.

7
Racial Nationalism

• Racial Nationalism a belief that conceives of
  America in ethnoracial terms, as a people held
  together by common blood and skin color and by an
  inherited fitness for self-government. From the
  perspective of this racialized ideal, Africans,
  Asians, nonwhite Latin Americans, and, in the
  1920s, southern and eastern Europeans did not
  belong to the republic and could never be
  accepted as full-fledged members.

8
Civic vs. Racial Nationalism

• In his book, American CrucibleRace and Nation in
  the Twentieth Century, historian Gary Gerstle
  argues that the pursuit of these two
  contradictory ideals--the civic and the
  racial--has decisively shaped the history of the
  American nation in the twentieth century.
• Moreover, Gerstle argues that at times of war,
  racial nationalism often takes precedence over
  civic nationalism.

9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
Part II Civil Rights and Collective Memory
15
African-American Civil Rights History Moving
Beyond the Myths

• How do we teach students about the complexities
  of civil rights history in light of the powerful
  collective memories about it?
• How can we teach students to see themselves in
  the history of the civil rights struggle? In
  other words, as a movement that succeeded as the
  result of courageous, ordinary Americans who
  worked at the grassroots level--rather than just
  the efforts of mythic leaders like Martin Luther
  King Jr.

16
A Marble House DividedUnderstanding the Power
of Collective Memory

• What is the central argument of Scott Sandages
  article, A Marble House Divided?
• How could his main points be used to help
  students think about the importance of symbolism
  in political and social movements?

17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
(No Transcript)
24
Forms of Civil Rights Activism

• Direct Action sit-ins, boycotts, and picket
  lines
• Legal Action discrimination lawsuits, Supreme
  Court rulings (Brown decision)
• Legislative/Political Action voting, running for
  office, legislative rulings (e.g. Civil Rights
  Act of 1964)
• Cultural Expression freedom songs, plays,
  poetry, film, and visual arts

25
Major Strategies of African American Movement

• Social Justice Non-violent struggle for
  desegregation of public facilities and schools.
  (1955-1964)
• Voting Rights--Political Empowerment (1963-1965)
• Economic Justice Shift to Militancy and Racial
  Separatism (1965-1970 to Present)

26
Social Justice 1954-1963

• 1954 Brown v. Board of Education
• 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott
• 1957 Little Rock High School Case
• 1960-1963 Sit-Ins and Freedom Rides
• 1963 The March on Washington
• Biggest Victory Civil Rights Act of 1964

27
Voting Rights 1964-1965

• 1964 Freedom Summer and founding of Mississippi
  Freedom Democratic Party
• 1965 The Selma Campaign
• Biggest Victory The Voting Rights Act of 1965

28
Economic Justice 1965-early 1970s

• 1966 Southern Christian Leadership Conferences
  Chicago Campaign
• 1968 The Poor Peoples Campaign
• Late 1960s The Rise of the Black Panther Party
• Biggest victory Affirmative Action policies

29
(No Transcript)