Desegregation: Additional Lessons
LESSON
Bigger than a Hamburger
By Maggie Donovan
An activity for young students to understand and visualize the various goals of lunch counter sit-ins inspired by Ella Baker's words, "current demonstrations are concerned with something much bigger than a hamburger."
LESSON
Dramatization of the Bus Boycott for First and Second Grade
By Maggie Donovan
View a video and written procedure for young students to role play the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
LESSON
Acting for Justice. Warriors Don't Cry: Connecting History, Literature, and Our Lives
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.
LESSON
1963 Children's March
By Chris Seeger
In 1963, nearly 100 years after the passage of the 14th Amendment, legal segregation persists throughout much of America, including the schools. You are a Black high school student in Birmingham, Alabama; at the center of the fight for civil rights and justice. Will you join your fellow students in protest, even if you are guaranteed to be arrested?
LESSON
Bravery in Little Rock
By Chris Seeger
You are a student at an all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The government has ordered the superintendent to desegregate the schools. On the first day of classes, nine Black students are supposed to attend your school. However, the National Guard and an angry mob of white people are preventing the Black students from entering the school. You see one Black girl alone, being harassed by a group of angry white men. What can you do to help her?
Lesson
Teaching Brown in Tuscaloosa
by Alison Schmitke
Learning about their community’s civil rights history inspires students to action.
LESSON
Our Grandparents’ Civil Rights Era
by Willow McCormick
Second graders ask grandparents to write about their experience during the Civil Rights Movement. The letters bring surprising wisdom—and some thought-provoking issues—to the classroom.