|
|
|
|
|
Justice and the Citizen:
"A Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." Vol. II
Teacher's Student Activities
|
History, Citizenship, Government
Students study and evaluate the impact of civil rights in the postwar era.
Students examine the impact of Dr. King's life and his belief in non-violent protest
Students examine how the U.S. Constitution has been instrumental in civil rights for all Americans
Hand out student materials and discuss them with students. Encourage students to complete their pre-program activities so they will be ready and able to participate in discussions regarding the program.
Discuss the "Issue Question" and poll your students.
Originated from Winston-Salem, North Carolina
MAYA ANGELOU
Maya Angelou is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She is one of the great voices of contemporary literature. Professor Angelou is a poet, educator, historian, best-selling author, actress, playwright, civil rights activist, and the first black woman director in Hollywood. She is best known for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first book in her highly acclaimed five-volume autobiography, which was praised for its lyrical prose and powerful descriptions. In the 1 960s, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she became the Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This passionate and remarkable Renaissance woman is the recipient of many honors including honorary doctorate degrees from more than 30 colleges and universities across the nation.
Regardless of what curriculum you are teaching, your students will benefit more from the program if they complete the pre-program activities. Review the books by and about the featured guest and the reasons she is on the program.
Even though black Americans had come out of slavery, which was abolished in 1863, they continued to suffer the effects of racial segregation well into the middle of the twentieth century. In every sense they were second-class citizens: they couldn't eat in the same restaurants as whites, couldn't use the same restrooms, couldn't drink water from the same fountains. They sought life's advantages from the back of the bus. Prejudice and bigotry existed throughout the country to varying degrees, especially in the South, and their effects went largely unchallenged until 1955, when the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., emerged in the quiet town of Montgomery, Alabama.
Rosa Parks, a seamstress, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat in the front of a bus to a white man. Although new to Montgomery, Martin Luther King, Jr., was made head of the Improvement League and he started rallying support for a citywide bus boycott. Fifty thousand blacks joined together to refuse to ride the Montgomery buses until their demands for desegregation had been met. The whites responded angrily to the boycott and bombed King's home. But King urged nonretaliation. His tactics led to the movement's first victory. Faced with the economic reality of empty buses for fifteen months, the courts declared Alabama's bus segregation laws unconstitutional.
At this time, segregation by race had already been ruled unconstitutional by courts in many areas, but many of these edicts were not being carried out. In cities across the South, change was not imminent, and peaceful civil rights protests were met with violence. Benjamin E. Mays, President Emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, in explaining that King was basically just following the teachings of Jesus and the Bible, said, "We preached it and we talked about it, but it was talk and no action, and he (King) made it walk on the ground."
In 1962 in Albany, Georgia, when hundreds of marchers, including ministers and rabbis from the North, were arrested for "making it walk on the ground," support began to grow in Washington from an already impatient President John Kennedy. But apparently the time for change was still not ripe.
The explosive confrontation between demonstrators and police in Birmingham, Alabama, in the spring of 1963, in which 5,000 marchers including King himself were jailed, brought the case to the attention of the "national community." Kennedy, recognizing the significance of the event, met with Congress and called for a sweeping civil rights act.
Three months after Birmingham, King arrived in Washington to lead 25,000 black and white citizens in a massive show of support for the civil rights bill before his belief that freedom for one group meant freedom for all groups
". . . . when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
After Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon Johnson continued to urge the enactment of sweeping civil rights legislation in 1964. In the same year, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace.
King returned to the South to continue to lead the movement. Up to that point, most of the issues were basically issues of human dignity; but the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 and the incident in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, began to address political questions. King's belief was that changes could also be attained through the vote, and a grass-roots campaign began primarily in the rural counties of Mississippi and Alabama to register black voters. National attention focused on Selma, Alabama, where civil rights demonstrators were brutally beaten by local police. Thousands of supporters arrived in Selma to continue King's walk to the state capitol, which was the culmination of the movement's drive for voting rights in the South. In August 1965, President Johnson signed a bill that reaffirmed the right of black Americans to vote.
The decade from 1955 to 1965 saw the accomplishment of many extraordinary changes, and with those accomplishments behind him, King turned his attention to the poverty and poor conditions in the ghettos of the North. Discrimination in the North manifested itself most notably in housing and jobs, and in the summer of 1966, when riots broke out in the northern ghettos, King brought his nonviolent movement to Chicago. But in all-white neighborhoods of Chicago and in the frustrated black ghettos across the North, his nonviolent philosophy met its greatest opposition, and even black leaders in King's movement began to question its effectiveness.
In 1967, King turned to another major issue - the war in Vietnam.
"I speak out against this war because I'm disappointed in America, and there can be no great disappointment where there is no great love. I'm disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple threats of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism."
His stand lost him the support of the Johnson administration and further damaged his leadership within the civil rights movement. But his work continued until the spring of 1968, when he interrupted his plans for a Poor People's March on Washington to return to Memphis to support striking city sanitation workers. There he was assassinated at the age of thirty-nine.
Affirmative Action plans:
Plans for government, the courts, and private companies, designed to speed the process of redressing discrimination against women and minorities
Civil liberties and rights:
The freedom and rights of citizens that cannot be infringed upon by the government
Discrimination:
The act, practice, or instance of judging categorically rather than individually
Due process of law:
Accused people must receive equal treatment under established procedures
Quota:
The share or proportion assigned to each part in a whole or to each member of a body
What do you know about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King?
Dr. King said, "One of the great glories of a democracy is the right to protest for right." Dr. King also said, "The strong man is the man who can stand up for his rights and not hit back."
Do your students agree with these statements?
Why or why not?
1. Have students examine the U.S. Constitution and report on the following:
What does the Constitution of 1887 say about who is eligible to vote in the U.S.?
How do the following amendments change this: 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, 26th? Ask student to discuss which of these amendments in their opinion redress discrimination.
2. Have students read and analyze the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision. Why was educational equality one of the first demands of the civil rights movement? You may wish to duplicate the Issue Analysis at the back of this guide as a tool for students to use in analyzing the case.
3. How did the thrust of the civil rights movement change in the mid-60's? Why was it necessary to create a bill to reaffirm the right of Black Americans to vote?
4. In order to speed the process of redressing past discrimination, the courts, government, and private companies began Affirmative Action plans. These plans, in turn, have often been the target of litigation brought by those who feel they are being discriminated against in favor of a minority. Have students research the issues involved in some of these cases (e.g., Regents of University of California v. Bakke.)
5. Encourage students to read and report on writings by Dr. King and other civil rights leaders. Readings might include:
Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech
Dr. King's Letter From a Birmingham Jail
Dr. King's "Why We Can't Wait"
Dr. King's "Stride Toward Freedom"
6. What is the psychological impact of nonviolent protest? Have students, working with partners, research passive resistance in other times and in other places. How effective have such movements been?
7. Encourage students to read books written by the program guest.
|
| |
|
