School Integration-Just a
Southern Problem?
Christine Adrian
Summer Fellowship, 2007
Lesson 2:
Student Reactions to Integration
To download this lesson in PDF format, click here.
Abstract:
In this four-part lesson, students evaluate pictures,
newspaper articles, and documentaries concerning student reactions to initial
school integration efforts during the Civil Rights Era.
Essential
questions/enduring understandings:
- How can media change history?
- Why and how do people protest
laws?
- Is protest effective?
- Are rights guaranteed?
- How does place affect how
history is written?
Assessment:
The
teacher will evaluate student understanding through completed handouts and
classroom discussion.
Setting the Purpose:
Students
will evaluate both pictures and written sources in order to examine student
reactions to initial integration efforts as well as predict whether the
reactions were regional or widespread across both the North and South.
Duration: 1-5 days, depending on how many parts of the lesson are
chosen for completion.
Procedure:
Part 1:
- Starter: Students write down answer to
following: What are the
different ways people react to rules they might not want to follow? Discuss answers as a class.
- Display the pictures of
classroom integration Integrated classroom in Nashville, School integration, Barnard School,
Washington, D.C. and An integrated classroom at Anacostia High
School, Washington, DC. Have
students analyze pictures by using NARA’s Photographic Document Analysis
Worksheet.
- Have students turn over their
worksheets. Pick a student in
one of the pictures to reflect on, and have the children write down what
the student in the picture is thinking and feeling.
- Discuss: Why do you think the pictures do
not show much emotion?
(Surely, this must be an emotional event for all students).
- Now, below the reflection,
have students predict what other pictures will show as to reaction to
Supreme Court mandated integration.
Will people react as in the two pictures we just examined, or will
the reactions you see be different?
Explain how they will be different and why you think so.
- Distribute the other Civil
Rights pictures: University of Alabama Students burn
desegregation literature, Clinton, Tennessee, school integration
conflict, 1956, School Dilemma--Youths taunt Dorothy Geraldine
Counts in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. Troops escort African American students
from Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas, and The Birmingham News. Ask
students to examine the pictures individually or in small groups and
complete the School Desegregation Photo Analysis worksheet.
- Discuss
findings in small or large group.
Wrap up part one by telling students that they will next look at
how some reacted to school integration in Champaign, Illinois.
Part
2:
- Starter: Explain to students that
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois is a large twin city university town
(University of Illinois) populated by both working class citizens and
academics from the University.
The University has drawn students from all over the world. It is located in Central Illinois,
2 and ½ hours from Chicago, Illinois. How do you expect their public school district
(Champaign Unit 4) students to react to integration? You might also refer back to the
article from lesson 1: Housing Report Here Worst In Illinois, October
20, 1961
- Explain to students that
today they will be developing a timeline using actual newspaper articles
regarding events that happened in two Champaign schools in 1971.
- Have students get into groups
of 4. Distribute a copy set of
the following articles to each group:
1. “Racial
Tension Explodes at CHS: 3 Fights
Break Out”
Page 2
2. ”Racial Violence Closes Centennial”
3. “Cease Fire Sought at Centennial”
4. “Centennial Staff Blames ‘Community’ for Violence”
5.
“Timetable Says Group of Whites Started Melee”
6.
“Police Patrol Halls After Fights at Centennial”
7.
“Centennial High Quiets as Police Watch Halls”
8.
“No Comment at Centennial”
9.
“Oust Longenecker and Fight Averted at Franklin”
10.“Five Youths Arrested At Franklin”
11.“Davis Details Changes He’s Planned at Centennial”
12.“Suspended Students Return”
13.“Centennial Teachers Protest as Students Escape
Expulsion”
- Distribute 3 copies of NARA’s Written Document Analysis Worksheet to each student (copy front
to back to conserve paper, or have students fill out online if you are
having students evaluate articles online).
- Distribute BROWN V. BOARD: Timeline of School Integration
in the U.S., one per group. Have students plot (by number assigned to article)
Champaign events on the timeline.
- Ask group-Do you
think these are the only conflicts that happened in the Champaign school
district? Do you think they
were all reported in the paper?
Why or why not?
Part 3:
- Starter: Brainstorm-What forms can protest
take? Discuss as a group
which methods they think are used most often and why. Students might say picket,
petition, complain, riot, boycott, etc.
- Play the
documentary film This Bus Stops. For time’s sake, focus in on the
first 25 minutes of the film, which focuses on a Decatur school
walkout. (If film not
available, use transcription of the
roundtable talk.) Students
should complete Nara’s Motion Picture Analysis Worksheet before,
during and after the film.
Tell students to use parts A and B of the worksheet to document the
events of the walkout.
- After
the film, have students also look at “Negroes Boycott Four Decatur High Schools”
- Redistribute
Champaign unrest articles from Part 2. Review the findings of these articles by reviewing NARA’s Written Document Analysis Worksheet completed
yesterday.
- Have
students compare the two events using Comparing Reactions to School Integration.
- Extension: Use the sites listed below to
study other student reactions, including the Chicago and New York School
boycotts, Little Rock Crisis and Ruby Bridges school experiences.
- Discuss
student findings. Tell
students they will expand upon this activity for their final project.
Analysis of local primary
sources:
Students
will gather information through newspaper clippings regarding violent unrest at
a local Champaign high school and middle school as well as a public television
documentary produced in 1969 that profiles Decatur teens that formed a walkout.
Ties to national primary
sources:
Students
will evaluate national primary source pictures in order to connect the visual
information regarding school desegregation to local events.
Annotated list of
materials and resources
Attachments:
Ties to Illinois State
Learning Standards
Return to School Integration Overview
