Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom's Bittersweet Song

by Armstrong,Julie Buckner

• ISBN13: 9780415932578
• ISBN10: 0415932572
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2002-10-04
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The past fifteen years have seen renewed interest in the civil rights movement. Television documentaries, films and books have brought the struggles into our homes and classrooms once again. New evidence in older criminal cases demands that the judicial system reconsider the accuracy of investigations and legal decisions. Racial profiling, affirmative action, voting districting, and school voucher programs keep civil rights on the front burner in the political arena. In light of this, there are very few resources for teaching the civil rights at the university level. This timely and invaluable book fills this gap. This book offers perspectives on presenting the movement in different classroom contexts; strategies to make the movement come alive for students; and issues highlighting topics that students will find appealing. Including sample syllabi and detailed descriptions from courses that prove effective, this work will be useful for all instructors, both college and upper level high school, for coursesin history, education, race, sociology, literature and political science.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	xi
Waldo E. Martin Jr.
Patricia A. Sullivan
Part I COURSES
Teaching Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement in High School History Courses: Rethinking Content and Pedagogy	3	(16)
Derrick P. Alridge
Infusing the African-American Freedom Struggle into a History Survey Course	19	(12)
Susan Hult Edwards
Sample Course Schedule: U.S. History Since 1877	27	(4)
Birth Too Long Delayed is Perspective Too Long Denied: The Importance of ``Before and After'' the Traditional American Civil Rights Movement	31	(16)
Houston Bryan Roberson
Sample Syllabus: The American Civil Rights Movement	45	(2)
Women and the Freedom Struggle in the Twentieth Century	47	(8)
Barbara Machtinger
Sample Syllabus: Women and the Freedom Struggle in the Twentieth Century	53	(2)
Wading in Troubled Water: ``Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement'' as Freshman Composition	55	(14)
Julie Buckner Armstrong
Sample Syllabus: Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement	65	(4)
Part II STRATEGIES
Raising the Curtain: Performance, History, and Pedagogy	69	(14)
Rhonda Y. Williams
Sample Performance Project Assignment	79	(4)
Eyewitness to the Movement: Conducting Oral History Interviews in the Classroom	83	(14)
Jack M. Bloom
Sample Syllabus: Eyewitness to the Civil Rights Movement	92	(5)
Coming of Age in the Movement: Teaching with Personal Narratives	97	(14)
Sarah E. Gardner
Your Blues Ain't Like Mine and the Civil Rights Movement	111	(14)
Charles E. Wilson Jr.
Music and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954--1968: A Classroom Approach	125	(22)
Gregory Freeland
Sample Syllabus: Music and the Civil Rights Movement	137	(10)
Part III ISSUES
All Power to the People!: Teaching Black Nationalism in the Post--Civil Rights Era	147	(12)
Peniel E. Joseph
Sample Syllabus: Black Political Thought in the Age of Civil Rights and Black Power, 1954--1975	156	(3)
``This nonviolent stuff ain't no good. It'll get ya killed.'': Teaching about Self-Defense in the African-American Freedom Struggle	159	(16)
Emilye J. Crosby
Sample Assignments: Self-Defense and the African-American Freedom Struggle	169	(6)
Dismantling the Master's Narrative: Teaching Gender, Race, and Class in the Civil Rights Movement	175	(18)
M. Bahati Kuumba
Sample Syllabus: Women and Social Resistance Movements	189	(4)
The Defiant Ones: The Civil Rights Movement and College Student Protest, 1954--1975	193	(16)
Wanda M. Davis
Sample Syllabus: The Civil Rights Movement and College Student Protest	207	(2)
Deep in Our Hearts	209	(8)
Constance Curry
Sue Thrasher
Part IV CHRONOLOGY	217	(10)
Part V RESOURCES	227	(12)
Contributors	239	(4)
Index	243