The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of the Civil Rights Movement

Introduction

Imagine sitting in classroom one day and learning that the very next day the public schools would be closed indefinitely. As a student, what would you do? How would you continue your education? Would you miss your teachers that are now disbanded or the camaraderie of your peers?

This did happen when Prince Edward County ignored the Brown verdict of 1954 and Brown II in 1955, and chose to close the schools for five years rather than integrate them. White Virginians initiated a campaign of massive resistance to the Brown mandate. At this time, seventeen states and the District of Columbia mandated separate schools. Desegregation evolved very slowly until the late 1960's, when the federal court system and the executive branch worked to forcibly implement desegregation in Southern school districts.¹

Students will begin this unit by studying one of the five cases brought collectively before the Supreme Court in 1952, Brown v. Board of Education. The case, Davis v. Prince Edward County, Virginia was argued on behalf of the students at Robert Russa Moton High School who 'believed that the deplorable conditions at the school deprived them of equal educational opportunities.'² Students will trace the major cases and legislation that prelude Brown, inclusive of the Jim Crow laws, civil rights activists and lawyers that led to this landmark decision.

The unit Civil Rights: Massive Assistance Resuscitated is designed to teach fourth and fifth grade accelerated and gifted students in Richmond, Virginia the struggle that African Americans endured to gain equality. The students will study the laws and major Supreme Court decisions that emerged from the Reconstruction Era through the 1960's. Students will use the constructivist approach to learning by using cognitive terminology such as analyze, predict, classify, reflect, synthesize. Differentiated instruction will provide avenues for the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learner. The unit follows the state's standards and guidelines in Virginia Studies and language arts. The unit could certainly be modified for use in the upper grades.