Introduction
This unit will focus on the struggles African Americans faced after the Civil War, during Reconstruction and the Progressive Era. The curriculum attempts to reveal the true challenges faced by African Americans, especially after emancipation and Reconstruction. Often in the primary grades, the focus is on a more simplistic series of events: slavery, emancipation, and the Civil Rights Movement. This focus diminishes the political struggles that are so vital to understanding historical complexity. The lessons and activities in this unit are for fourth grade students but could be adapted to any upper elementary grade.
I am a fourth year teacher at Bellevue Elementary School in Richmond, Virginia. Currently, I am teaching fourth graders Virginia Studies, Language Arts, Science and Mathematics. Our Social Studies focus has been on Virginia Studies because our students take the Virginia Studies Standards of Learning (SOL) test in fourth grade. The fourth grade Virginia Studies curriculum starts with the settlement of the Jamestown colony and travels through present-day Virginia. Bellevue Elementary School is a small model school with classes from Pre-K through Fifth grade. Bellevue houses a Head Start program and special needs classes for students ages 3-5 and grades K-2 and 3-5. There are approximately 324 students in our school and ninety-nine percent of the population is African-American. Eighty-three percent of Bellevue's students receive free or reduced lunch (www.richmond.k12.va.us accessed July 27, 2005). Most students live with a single parent, usually the mother, and have very difficult home lives. We are greatly affected by the No Child Left Behind Act, pulling in a great number of students each year.
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