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Tactics for Justice

School Desegregation

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RESOURCE GRADE LEVEL MEDIA TYPE
Analyzing Primary Source Media

Analyzing Primary Source Media

In this media-rich, self-paced lesson, students analyze primary source news footage to gain insights into public sentiment toward historical figures, issues, and events of the past 50 years.

6-12

Self-paced Lesson

Boston Desegregation

Boston Desegregation

This excerpt from WGBH's Evening Compass news program summarizes events of the first year of the 1974 Boston school desegregation plan.

6-12

Video

Boston Desegregation Controversy, 1974

Boston Desegregation Controversy, 1974

In this 1974 television news footage from WGBH: "Evening Compass", citizens stage a protest in response to mandatory busing to desegregate the Boston Public Schools.

6-12

Video

Brown: A Landmark Case

Brown: A Landmark Case

This video segment describes the players and events of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and how it galvanized the Civil Rights movement as well as white resistance.

6-12

Video

Burke Marshall

Burke Marshall

Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall, in this transcript of an interview for Eyes on the Prize, remembers mediating the 1962 desegregation of the University of Mississippi.

9-12

Document

Bus to the Burbs

Bus to the Burbs

This video excerpt from La Plaza: "Bus to the Burbs" looks at METCO, a voluntary busing program in Boston.

6-12

Video

The Civil Rights Movement in America, 1945-1975

The Civil Rights Movement in America, 1945-1975

This interactive timeline provides a chronological and geographic view of the events of the Civil Rights era and its aftermath.

K-12

Interactive

A Class Divided 1: The Daring Lesson

A Class Divided 1: The Daring Lesson

This segment from FRONTLINE: "A Class Divided" profiles an experiment in discrimination based on eye color that took place in a third-grade class in 1970.

3-12

Video

A Class Divided 2: Day Two

A Class Divided 2: Day Two

This segment from FRONTLINE: "A Class Divided" profiles the second day of an experiment in discrimination based on eye color that took place in a third-grade class in 1970.

3-12

Video

A Class Divided 3: An Interview with Jane Elliott

A Class Divided 3: An Interview with Jane Elliott

In this Web-exclusive interview for FRONTLINE, Jane Elliott discusses her abiding sense that her lesson on bigotry is as necessary today as it was in 1968.

6-12

Document

Constance Baker Motley

Constance Baker Motley

In this transcript of an interview for Eyes on the Prize, Justice Constance Baker Motley recalls her role as an NAACP attorney in landmark school desegregation cases.

9-12

Document

Desegregation in San Francisco

Desegregation in San Francisco

This audio excerpt from National Public Radio's All Things Considered examines policies designed to achieve racial diversity in San Francisco's schools and their impact on Chinese Americans.

6-12

Audio

Desegregation Mandate: Jefferson County, AL

Desegregation Mandate: Jefferson County, AL

A 1967 federal court order resulted in this document, which mandated school desegregation in Birmingham.

6-12

Document

Documenting <i>Brown</i> 1: The Fourteenth Amendment

Documenting Brown 1: The Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment established the equal protection clause, later used in key desegregation cases.

6-12

Document

Documenting <i>Brown</i> 2: <i>Plessy v. Ferguson</i>

Documenting Brown 2: Plessy v. Ferguson

The Supreme Court's 1896 ruling legalized the "separate but equal" doctrine that sanctioned segregation.

6-12

Document

Documenting <i>Brown</i> 3: <i>Gong Lum v. Rice</i>

Documenting Brown 3: Gong Lum v. Rice

The Supreme Court's 1927 opinion in Gong Lum v. Rice affirmed legalized school segregation.

6-12

Document

Documenting <i>Brown</i> 4: <i>Mendez v. Westminster</i>

Documenting Brown 4: Mendez v. Westminster

This 1946 federal court ruling marked a victory for Mexican Americans and chipped away at the "separate but equal" doctrine, declaring segregated schools based on national origin unconstitutional.

6-12

Document

Documenting <i>Brown</i> 5: <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i>, 1954

Documenting Brown 5: Brown v. Board of Education, 1954

The Supreme Court's landmark opinion overturned its earlier ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson and declared segregated schools unconstitutional.

6-12

Document

Documenting <i>Brown</i> 6: <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i>, 1955

Documenting Brown 6: Brown v. Board of Education, 1955

The Supreme Court's opinion in Brown II reflects the struggle between federal and state governments on how and when school desegregation would occur.

6-12

Document

Documenting <i>Brown</i> 7: Civil Rights Act of 1964

Documenting Brown 7: Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 helped enforce the Brown ruling, a decade later.

6-12

Document

Documenting <i>Brown</i>: Collected Excerpts

Documenting Brown: Collected Excerpts

This collection of excerpts from legislation and court decisions documents key phases of the legal struggle to gain and implement equal education.

6-12

Document

Getting an Education

Getting an Education

This video segment, adapted from NOVA, chronicles the education of leading chemist Percy Julian. Although Julian began his elementary school years in the Deep South under Jim Crow laws, he became one of the few African Americans of his time to earn a Ph.D. OER Level

6-12

Video

Harry Briggs, Sr. and Eliza Briggs

Harry Briggs, Sr. and Eliza Briggs

In this transcript of an interview for Eyes on the Prize, Harry and Eliza Briggs describe their experience in the first school desegregation case, Briggs v. Elliott.

6-12

Document

Hyde County School Boycott

Hyde County School Boycott

This slide show tells the story of a yearlong boycott to protest the closing of historically black schools in Hyde County, North Carolina.

3-12

Image

<i>Brown</i> Reactions: Black Educators

Brown Reactions: Black Educators

This 1954 statement, issued by a group of black educators, strongly endorses the Supreme Court's Brown ruling.

6-12

Document

<i>Brown</i> Reactions: Editorials

Brown Reactions: Editorials

This sampling of newspaper editorials from the mid-1950s reflects the range of public opinion and responses to the Brown decision.

6-12

Document

<i>Brown</i> Reactions: Judge Brady

Brown Reactions: Judge Brady

This 1954 statement from Tom Brady, a founder of the White Citizens' Council movement, expresses opposition to the Brown decision.

6-12

Document

<i>Brown</i> Reactions: Zora Neale Hurston

Brown Reactions: Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston's 1955 letter to the editor expresses her belief that the Brown decision would prove detrimental to the educational interests of black students.

6-12

Document

Ike and Little Rock

Ike and Little Rock

This video segment, adapted from American Experience: "Ike", profiles the president's controversial response to the Little Rock school desegregation crisis in 1957.

6-12

Video

<i>Mendez v. Westminster</i>: Desegregating California's Schools

Mendez v. Westminster: Desegregating California's Schools

Sylvia Mendez recalls the conditions that led Mexican Americans to sue for desegregation in the 1940s in this segment from Mendez vs. Westminster: Para Todos los Niños/For All the Children, from KOCE-TV.

3-12

Video

Implementing Brown

Implementing Brown

Point/counterpoint commentary on the president's actions after the Brown ruling; from American Experience: "Eisenhower."

6-12

Video

Little Rock Nine

Little Rock Nine

This collection of photos shows scenes from the controversial desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.

6-12

Image

Melba Pattillo Beals

Melba Pattillo Beals

Melba Patillo Beals was one of nine black students who desegregated Little Rock's Central High School in 1957. In this interview, recorded for Eyes on the Prize, Beals describes her tumultuous experience.

9-12

Video

Reconsidering <i>Brown</i>

Reconsidering Brown

In the video segments presented in this activity, leading historians and legal scholars reflect on the promise of the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, and why it remains unfulfilled.

9-12

Self-paced Lesson

Reconstruction and Black Education

Reconstruction and Black Education

This mini-documentary from the American Experience: "Reconstruction" Web site follows post-Civil War development of public education for African Americans in the South and the resistance it sparked.

3-12

Video

Re-Examining <i>Brown</i>

Re-Examining Brown

This lesson explores the historical complexity of the struggle to desegregate schools, the geographic scope of racism, conditions that prompted activism and litigation, and how laws have changed over time.

9-12

Lesson Plan

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

This oral history transcript from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute documents the tumultuous life and leadership of the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, who survived a bomb attack that destroyed his home.

6-12

Document

The Road to Brown

The Road to Brown

This video segment looks at the history of the NAACP's efforts to convince the Supreme Court that segregated schools were unconstitutional, leading up to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education cases.

9-12

Video

Segregated Schooling in Alabama

Segregated Schooling in Alabama

This scrapbook documents conditions in Birmingham's segregated schools in 1963, as well as white resistance to integration.

3-5

Image

Segregated Schooling in South Carolina

Segregated Schooling in South Carolina

In this video segment, produced for the Levine Museum of the New South, Joseph De Laine Jr. and Ophelia De Laine Gona describe conditions in segregated South Carolina schools.

3-12

Video

Segregation Ordinances: Birmingham, AL

Segregation Ordinances: Birmingham, AL

This document from 1951 spells out Birmingham's segregation ordinances, the laws requiring the separation of the races.

6-12

Document

Sherman Oaks, a Model for Integration

Sherman Oaks, a Model for Integration

This audio segment from National Public Radio's All Things Considered tells the story of a California school designed to end segregation.

6-12

Audio

Simple Justice 1: A Handful of Lawyers

Simple Justice 1: A Handful of Lawyers

This segment from American Experience: "Simple Justice" profiles Charles Houston's strategy for attacking segregation and how he trained the legal team that eventually argued the Brown case.

6-12

Video

Simple Justice 2: Social Science Evidence

Simple Justice 2: Social Science Evidence

This segment from American Experience: "Simple Justice" documents Dr. Kenneth Clark's "doll test," which became important social science evidence in the Brown case.

6-12

Video

Simple Justice 3: The Trial Begins

Simple Justice 3: The Trial Begins

This segment from American Experience: "Simple Justice" captures the legal issues and opening arguments in Brown v. Board of Education.

6-12

Video

Simple Justice 4: Arguing the Fourteenth Amendment

Simple Justice 4: Arguing the Fourteenth Amendment

This segment from American Experience: "Simple Justice" explores the issue at the heart of Brown v. Board of Education: whether the Fourteenth Amendment applied to segregated schools.

6-12

Video

Simple Justice 5: Marshall's Closing Statement

Simple Justice 5: Marshall's Closing Statement

This segment from American Experience: "Simple Justice" reenacts Thurgood Marshall's closing statement in Brown v. Board of Education.

6-12

Video

Simple Justice 6: Justice Warren Reads the Decision

Simple Justice 6: Justice Warren Reads the Decision

This segment from American Experience: "Simple Justice" explores the dynamics and arguments among the Supreme Court justices who ruled in Brown v. Board of Education.

6-12

Video

Strategies for an Equal Education

Strategies for an Equal Education

Students examine the inequality in education faced by African Americans in the 20th century. They review the Fourteenth Amendment, identify and examine strategies used to overcome discrimination, and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each.

6-12

Lesson Plan

Taking a Stand

Taking a Stand

This lesson provides an introduction to the discrimination and segregation that triggered the Civil Rights movement, through the eyes of some of the youngest activists at the time.

3-5

Lesson Plan

Vanessa Venable

Vanessa Venable

In this transcript of an interview for Eyes on the Prize, Vanessa Venable describes the impact of school closings in Prince Edward County, Virginia from 1959-1964.

6-12

Document