Race,
Riots, and Reality
Summer Fellowship Project
2008
By: Amos Lee
Lesson 2:
Jim Crow Laws
Abstract:
In lesson 2, students will use their knowledge from
lesson 1 about race to think about the role of government and its
citizens. This lesson begins with
a whole group activity where students will think about the intent of the
founding fathers when forming a new country. They will then use these principals to examine the injustice
shown through the Jim Crow Laws.
Essential
Questions:
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What role does
government have to ensure equity and justice among its people?
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What should
citizens do when laws are unjust?
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Who is the
government accountable to?
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Why did
segregation and Jim Crow laws exist?
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Why do racism,
discrimination, and bigotry exist?
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Is the
government responsible for serving all its citizens?
Enduring
Understandings:
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Students will
understand the principles behind America including equality, freedom,
independence, and rights.
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Students will
understand the role of government in providing these rights and upholding them
for every citizen.
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Students will
understand the direct contradiction of the Jim Crow laws when compared to the
principles of equality and individual rights.
Assessment:
Pre-assessment:
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Use the Frayer Model Worksheet to
assess what students have learned about the topic of race through the video and
class discussion.
Formative
Assessment:
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Students will
fill out a Graphic Organizer ranking the principles they found in the Declaration of Independence
from most important to least important.
They will then explain their reasoning.
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Students will
use the photograph and sound
recording analysis worksheets.
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Students will
use the Group Questions Worksheet in order to learn from the group.
Procedures:
1. Students need to understand that racism cannot coexist with
the ideals that founded America.
Have students read the following excerpt from the Declaration of
Independence. As they read the excerpt, have students write down and rank the
principles that the founding fathers were fighting for such as equality, life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness using the Graphic Organizer for Lesson 2.
We hold these Truths to be
self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty,
and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such
Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
2. After completing the graphic organizer
have students get into small groups and discuss their rankings and their
rationale behind their rankings.
Then in their groups have them discuss and answer the Group
Questions Worksheet. Then, once every group is done, hold a whole class
discussion about whether students think that everyone in the U.S. have equal
rights that are defined in the Declaration excerpt from above.
3. After the whole class
discussion from the Group Questions Worksheet, as a class, define racism and ask for examples from
history.
á Possible examples: slavery, segregation, hate groups, hate crimes,
racial profiling, affirmative action, and employment discrimination.
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Racism defined:
o The prejudice that members of one race are
intrinsically superior to members of other races
o Discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of
another race
4. Explain to students that Jim Crow is
Jim Crow ruled the South from about
1890 to well into the 1960s. Four generations of African Americans endured this
system of segregation. Present day race relations in the United States continue
to be affected by this history. The Jim Crow system emerged towards the end of
the historical period called Reconstruction, during which Congress had enacted
laws designed to order relations between Southern whites and newly freed
blacks, and to bring the secessionist states back into the Union. Southern whites felt profoundly
threatened by increasing claims by African Americans for social equality and
economic opportunity. In reaction, white-controlled state legislatures passed
laws designed to rob blacks of their civil rights and prevent blacks from
mingling with their "betters" in public places.
-Adapted from http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org
5. After students understand what Jim Crow represented, have
them look at primary sources from that era (picture analysis). Go to the following Website and choose one of the
pictures to study as a class.
Using the NARA Analysis Form study the picture and fill out the
form. Ask the students the
questions from the NARA form and explain how the picture is connected to the
Jim Crow era. When students feel
comfortable with the form, show them more pictures and have them analyze them
on their own.
6. Then have students listen to sound recordings from American
Radio Works. Teach them to use the
Sound Recording Analysis Form from NARA.
After you have gone through one recording together, play different
recordings from the different sections to allow for a larger grasp of the Jim
Crow era.
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Jim Crow
Recordings
o Danger, Violence, Exploitation