Racism and the Civil Rights Movement

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Racism and the Civil Rights Movement
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Objectives

• The student will be able to
• Use a variety of primary sources to clarify,
  elaborate, and understand a historical period.
  
• Analyze primary documents closely
• Research documents specific to the history of
  race relations in the mid-20th century United
  States.
  
• Draw conclusions moving from the specific
  documents to the broader society and test them
  for validity.
  

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• Racism is the belief that one ethnic group is
  superior to others. Throughout United States
  history, the racism of some white people has led
  to tragic suffering and loss for members of other
  groups, including African Americans, Asian
  Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. For
  about 100 years after the end of the Civil War,
  the legacy of African American slavery in the
  South was a segregated society in which black
  people and white people lived side-by-side but
  virtually in separate worlds. Public drinking
  facilities such as drinking fountains, bathrooms,
  restaurants, motels and schools were designated
  for either blacks or whites, and the facilities
  for blacks were invariably poorer in quality.
  Jim Crow was the nickname given to the laws
  introduced into the South during the 19th and
  20th centuries to enforce racial segregation. The
  name stuck during the civil rights era.

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Jim Crow

• Jim Crow was a minstrel character from the
  1830s.He was portrayed as an elderly, crippled
  and clumsy African American slave and his
  portrayal showed all the negative stereotypes of
  African Americans. Such stereotyping caused huge
  resentment to African Americans during the civil
  rights era.

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Jim Crow America
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• In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled, in a case known
  as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas,
  that public schools could no longer be
  segregated. White racist did not accept this
  ruling without a fight, and some turned out to
  jeer and threaten black students who attended
  schools that had formerly been for whites only.
  The most famous and extreme confrontation broke
  out at Central High School in Little Rock,
  Arkansas, in 1957. President Eisenhower had to
  take control of the Arkansas National Guard and
  order them to protect the black students.

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Tides of
Change
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• In the 1960s, the movement for racial equality
  known as the civil rights movement began to have
  a strong and very visible impact on national
  events. Black leaders including Dr. Martin Luther
  King, Jr., advocated nonviolent confrontation as
  a way to fight injustice. Groups of black and
  white activists rode together on interstate buses
  and sat together at whites- only lunch counters,
  and they endured the violent abuse of racists who
  wanted blacks to stay in their place. The
  growth and success of the civil rights movement
  only infuriated such people, who in some cases
  resorted to intimidation tactics and even murder
  to try to stem the tide of change.

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WE SHALL OVERCOME
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Introduction

• In the novel The Watsons Go to Birmingham, the
  Watsons are African American and the seemingly
  carefree 1950s era of Leave it to Beaver has been
  replaced by the turbulent 1960s. Told from the
  viewpoint of 12 year old Kenny, the story takes
  readers from a safe-haven in Flint, Michigan to a
  world turned inside out in race torn Birmingham,
  Alabama. It is important for you to understand
  the life and time of the South during the 1960s.
  This was a time when racism and prejudice were
  prevalent. Life was hard for the African
  American.In order to show you these life and
  times, you are to follow the task and steps .

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Task

• To submit a Viewers Literacy Guide answering
  questions after viewing the slides.

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Process

• After reading Ch. 9 in The Watsons Go to
  Birmingham and viewing the pictures from Racism
  and the Civil Rights Movement complete the
  Viewers Literacy Guide.
• The guide tells you what to do. Please read it
  carefully and complete it then turn it in to me.

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Evaluations

• Viewers Literacy Guide make sure this is
  detailed and in complete sentences.

Conclusions

• These activities were designed to help you
• To determine what life was like in the South
  during the 1960s
  
• To examine prejudice, stereotypes, and racism
  within society
  
• To question our treatment of others

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