Civil Rights in South Carolina

Day 1:

Teacher will begin the lesson by showing photos of white rallies and mobs protesting school integration. Students will be asked to explain where these photos were taken, the general time period, and what they show. Students will post their answers on Today’s Meet. After students hypothesize, teacher will facilitate discussion of the photos and use them to introduce the vocabulary word “massive resistance” which refers to the strategy adopted by large groups of white Southerners after the 1954 Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision. Students will then complete a vocabulary chart with all ten vocabulary words. Next, students will be placed into groups of 5 and will participate in a gallery walk inside the classroom. At each station, students will have 3 minutes to analyze a primary or secondary source, and answer questions about it. After rotating three times, students will return to their seats and the class will analyze one text in depth together with teacher. Following this, teacher will provide 6 minutes direct instruction with Cornell Note-taking. The closing activity for the day will ask the students to metaphorically transport themselves to South Carolina in the 1970s and to choose which person they would be and why: a freedom fighter who helps organize and participate in sit-ins, boycotts and other forms of direct action to abolish racism and classism; a bystander who does not take action to change the status quo; a part of the massive resistance to Black liberation.

Day 2

Teacher will use Nearpod.com to review the images and narrative from Day one in collaboration with the students. Teacher will pass out copies of actual news articles about the March 1970 bus incident in Lamar, SC whereby a mob of white men and women tried to turn over school buses while the buses were carrying Black children. Students will become history detectives and will have to search for answers to questions about what happened in Lamar, SC March 2, 1970. The class will reconvene and each group will present some of their answers to the questions. The class will then transition into direct instruction concerning massive resistance and Governor Robert McNair’s response to it. Following this, students will see photos of college students arrested in March 2, 1961 after an NAACP, Benedict College, Allen University anti-segregation march that began at Columbia’s Zion Baptist Church. Students will be asked questions about the photos and will need to make guesses based on what they have learned thus far. This will lead into a discussion of student protestors including Frederick Hart and the few white people who took direct action alongside Black organizers and protestors. Finally – students will create a mural-timeline showing the scenes they have learned about: Brown v. Board decision; Little Rock Nine and reaction to them in Arkansas, the direct actions of NAACP members, and students at Allen and Benedict, plus one Frederick Hart; massive resistance in the form of angry mobs in Lamar, SC and the creation of private schools for white children to avoid integration; Gov. McNair urging white South Carolinians to stop stalling on integration, and a representation of SC schools today and their hopes for the future.

Day 1: Activity #1

Photo sleuthing

Students review two photos and make guesses about what the photos show. They post their guesses on Today’s Meet.com. Student responses are displayed on the SmartBoard for the entire class to see. Following this primer, students are told that the pictures show the reactions of many white people to school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas 1957, three years after the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision. They are told that this reaction was called “massive resistance” which means millions of white Americans were actively participating in trying to prevent school integration through violent mobs attempting to physically prevent the entry of Black students into formerly all-white schools, policy change such as ending compulsory education laws, court challenges, and the creation of “white flight” private schools. This segues into students completing a vocabulary chart for ten vocabulary words.

Day 1: Activity #2

Vocabulary Chart

word and definition

Draw a picture representing this vocabulary word or write a connecting word or phrase that you think of when you think of this word

Example: compulsory – required by law

MUST DO                              

Day 1: Activity #3

Gallery walk

Directions: Students will receive an activity sheet, then be placed into groups of 5 and will rotate to designated stations. At each station, students will work together to complete the questions marked for that station. They will have three minutes only at each station and will be timed using music.

Station 1

Governor Urges South Carolina to Accept Integration Rulings January 1970

Questions

1. a) When was this article written? b) How many years after Brown v. Board was this?

2. a) Who was SC’s Governor at this time? b) What does this article suggest his main message was to the people of South Carolina about school integration?

3) Governor McNair was talking to a specific group of South Carolinians in his speech. Who was he talking to?

Station 2

New School Threatens Plan in Society Hill February 1970 (this article is a PDF and is in the lesson folder)

1. Where was Rosenwald High School? Before the Brown v. Board decision, who attended this school?

2. What does the picture and caption “Classes Resume” show?

3. What happened to the 79 white students who were supposed to start attending Rosenwald High School?

Extension: have students research the start dates of South Carolina private schools to see how many were begun post 1954, and during times where federal court orders were mandating districts to desegregate as was the case in Society Hill/Darlington County in 1970.

Station 3

Evil that once drove angry whites to overturn school buses is stirred again August 2016 Letter to the Editor (this letter is a PDF and is in the lesson folder)

1. Who wrote this letter to the editor?

2. What does he remember?

3. What current events is he connecting the incidents of March 1970 in Lamar, SC to, today?

The Gallery Walk closes with all class discussion about the three secondary sources. The teacher uses this to facilitate 6 minutes of direct instruction regarding massive resistance to Brown v. Board and Black liberation/civil rights. For this, the Cornell Note-taking process is used.

Day 1: Activity # 4

Exit Slip: Close your eyes. You’re transported to Lamar, SC in 1970. It’s been 16 years since the US Supreme Court said that segregated schools are illegal, yet the schools in Lamar remain segregated, and white people continue to interact with Black people in ways that are dehumanizing and deny their human rights to education, high wages, quality healthcare, housing and protection from police brutality and vigilante violence from groups like the KKK. Who are you in this landscape – a silent bystander to white supremacy who allows it to happen; a white supremacist who tries to prevent school integration and related actions; a freedom fighter who joins the work for Black liberation and thus human liberation overall?  

Day 2: Activity #1

Whole Group Discussion

Teacher will review highlights from Day one with students. As part of this, teacher will ask students what massive resistance was, who participated in it, and what its goals were. To answer this, students will visit the Columbia SC ’63 website and will review the section on massive resistance, and additional sections. Students will complete a vocabulary activity where they match pictures of the ten vocabulary words to the actual words.

Day 2: Activity #2

Read, summarize, notes

Students will be charged with becoming history detectives, and with close reading a page from a 1970 issue of The State, following an event in Lamar, SC where approx. 200 men and women tried to overturn a school bus carrying Black children after desegregation orders triggered by federal mandate. Students will receive copies of the news page, will work in pairs, and must answer the question: What happened in Lamar, SC March 2, 1970?

Day 2: Activity #3

Teacher will show students photos from the 1961 march from Columbia’s Zion Baptist church to the Statehouse. Students will hear a recorded interview with James Edwards, who was one of the students who participated in the march. The teacher will also ask them if there’s anything about any of the photos that stands out to them. This will be an opportunity to discuss the prevalence of youth protestors, the fact that most protestors were Black, and the presence of a single white person, a USC student named Frederick Hart. Students will learn about both James Edwards, the Supreme Court case this protest spawned, and Frederick Hart. All students will be asked to return to the question of the role they want to play in social justice work – someone who is not actively involved, someone who works against justice, someone who actively works for it. Discussions of Frederick Hart are a chance to explore the historical reality that most white people worked against racial justice or allowed it to persist through inaction, and the chance all people have to become active participants in justice work.

Day 2: Activity #4

Students will receive a large piece of white mural paper, large grip pencils, paint and paint brushes. They will be charged with painting a mural timeline that places the scenes studied in order: from Brown v. Board, to the Little Rock Nine, Edwards v. SC, to the creation of all white private schools, and the mob violence in Lamar, SC. The students must incorporate the ten vocabulary words, Thurgood Marshall, Kenneth and Mamie Clark, the Little Rock Nine and the mobs who threatened them; James Edwards, Frederick Hart and the 187 fellow protestors; the mob of white men and women in Lamar, SC. Students will be asked to create artistic representations of where we are today in terms of racial and social justice in SC schools. Finally, the last portion of the mural will be student visions for the future.  

Day 2: Activity #5

Exit slip- students will answer the Essential Question with an extension:    Based on evidence provided, how did most white South Carolinians react to the 1954 Brown v. Board decision and school integration? How does this make you feel, and what role do you want to play in social justice struggles today?