Objectives
I plan to teach this unit over the course of the year with the intent of having students invest in their own learning, allowing them to understand how truly fortunate they are to be the recipients of a free public education. It is essential that they can connect to the material studied and not as a distant spectator. This is why I have decided to start with a case close to home, Prince Edward County. Students will specifically focus in on one of the five cases consolidated in the Brown verdict of 1954, the case of Davis v. Prince Edward Board of Education.
To understand where we are going, we have to understand where we have been. Students will construct a timeline and retrace through history how the Supreme Court's landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka affects their lives today. Students will interpret the Thirteenth Amendment, 1865 (abolition of slavery), Fourteenth Amendment, 1868, (all citizens equal protection of the law), the Civil Rights Acts of 1875 and 1964 (right to public accommodations, outlawed discrimination). Students will identify the effects of segregation and "Jim Crow" had on life in Virginia for African Americans and whites. They will identify events in Virginia linked to desegregation, Southern Manifesto, Massive Resistance and their relationship to national history. The students will also recognize the political and social impact of: Oliver Hill, Thurgood Marshall, Spottswood Robinson, Harry F. Byrd, Sr. Barbara Johns, and Reverend L. Francis Griffin.
Students will examine the Supreme Court decisions of Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka and the people that led the African-American struggle for equality. We will also look at the impact Brown had on Richmond Public Schools and chart the history of our school. This unit will incorporate Virginia Studies and reading objectives from Virginia's Standards of Learning. Teachers from other states could use this unit while charting the history on segregated schools within their own state or may choose one of the four other Brown v. Board of Education cases; Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas), Belton v. Gebhart (Delaware), Briggs v. Elliott (South Carolina), Bolling v. Sharpe (District of Columbia).
Comments: