The Supreme Court in American Political History

Lesson 2: Brown v. Board of Education: Justice in Action

Part 1: Plessy v. Ferguson: Understanding the Status Quo of Race Segregation

Guiding Questions: What does it mean to segregate?

Objectives: Students will learn about the social attitudes towards free blacks after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln. Students will be able to describe and discuss the role of government and the relationship between the three branches.

Procedure:

For this lesson I will provide a list of terms and their definitions for students to refer to throughout the activities. I will review these terms with the students and ensure their understanding of them prior to beginning the lesson. Here is the list of terms:

Emancipation Proclamation

Slavery

Abolition

Segregation

Prejudice

Minority

Discrimination

Thirteenth Amendment

Fourteenth Amendment

This lesson begins with a talk about the status of blacks in the United States post Civil War. The goal is to get students to understand that although blacks were free people according to the law, they were not treated as such by many people especially those people in the South. This talk will focus on segregation and how it became part of people's daily existence at that time in our history. Following this background talk I will introduce the case of Plessy v. Ferguson and speak to the fact that this case established and reinforced the status quo of separate but equal. It will be important for students to understand the significance of the court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson so that they can understand the outcome of Brown v. Board.

Assessment: Students will be asked to re-read the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments and write a response whether they agree with the court ruling or not.

Part 2: Brown v. Board of Education and life in the South during the 1950's

Guiding Question: Why aren't all people treated equally?

Objective: Students will become familiar with the Civil Rights Movement and be able to describe how it came about and the major players involved in the struggle. Students will be able to describe the cause and effect surrounding the Supreme Court's decision on the Brown v. Board decision.

Procedure:

The overall goal of this lesson is to provide a wealth of primary sources so that students can read and study about the conditions of segregation that existed in the United States prior to the ruling of Brown v. Board. I will distribute photographic images, reproductions of newspaper headings. I will put students into small groups and provide each group with a packet of images that explicitly illustrate segregation and white supremacist attitudes. Each group will be given a set of questions to discuss while viewing the images. I will hold up a photograph and model responses to the guiding questions that each group will be asked to respond to.

Each group will respond to the following questions:

1. What do you see going on in the image? Are there people in the image? Who? What kind of emotions do you feel each person in the image is experiencing, describe these emotions?
2. What do you think took place right before this picture was taken? What happened right after this picture was taken?
3. Are people being treated fairly?
4. How does this image make you feel and why?

This activity will last fifteen minutes and I will travel between groups to listen to their responses. I will ask the students to pick out one image that they find especially moving or disturbing and ask them to share with the large group. They will describe what they think is going on in the photograph.

Next, I will ask someone to tell me the outcome of the Plessy v. Ferguson court case and remind students that separate but equal was the accepted norm for the nation at that time. I will then inform the students about the Brown case and give the background on this case. Students will learn the Supreme Court's decision and be able to define desegregation and give reasons why separate was no longer accepted as equal. This information is located in the background section of this unit.

Assessment: Students will be asked to give two examples of how blacks were treated unjustly by the separate but equal attitudes of the times. Students may illustrate their examples or write a narrative.