Notes Packet ASE SS 02:
Modern U.S. History
Steve Schmidt
Today’s Inspiring Quote
“One person can make a difference and every person should try.”
- President John F. Kennedy
You Can Write on the Packet!
You can find everything from this workshop at: abspd.appstate.edu Look under: Teaching Resources, Adult Secondary Resources, Social Studies, ASE SS 02: Modern U.S. History.
Workshop Schedule
8:30 - 10:00 Welcome and Introductions
Sharecropping, Jim Crow, Segregation and Voting Rights
10:00 – 10:15 Break
10:15 – 11:45 Suffering for Suffrage
11:45 – 12:45 Lunch
12:45 – 2:00 Japanese Internment
2:00 – 2:15 Break
2:15 – 4:00 History as Story
History is Visual
Workshop Goals
· Understand how to create units of study using U.S. History content from 1877 to the present
· Learn ways to teach students to integrate information from multiple sources
· Use multi-media resources and stories to make history come alive
· Understand and apply the College and Career Readiness standards for historical literacy and the North Carolina Essential Standards
Lesson 1: Sharecropping, Jim Crow, and Voting Rights
This lesson focuses on life in the South from 1865 until the 1960s. It describes what life was like for many African Americans and poor Whites during this period (the majority of the population). It may take several class periods to complete.Materials Needed:
- Sharecropper Simulation worksheet
- Bags with 50 beans
- 2 cups (or bags) – 1 labeled “Landlord” and the other “Furnishing Merchant”
- 6 IOU slips / - YouTube Video: Oral Histories from Segregated Greenwood Mississippi
- 1965 Alabama Literacy Test
- Registering to Vote in Jim Crow Alabama
article
- Extended Response Prompt materials
Directions:
1. Explain the background to this unit. At the close of the Civil War, plantations were given back to their owners. (Many plantations had been confiscated by Union troops during the war.) Plantation owners had land but with their slaves freed, no labor force. After four years of war, the plantation owners had little money to pay for labor. Freed slaves and many Whites had labor but no land and little money. This provided the setting for the sharecropper system where laborers were provided with housing and the materials to plant crops with the understanding that the profits from the harvest would be divided between the landowner and the tenant famer (the sharecropper).
2. Do the Sharecropper Simulation with students. At the close of the simulation, have students complete the Talk, then Write activity. (Students should see that for many sharecroppers, they were caught in a cycle of debt always hoping that the next year’s crop would provide enough money to pay all their debts. For many, it was almost as if they were slaves again.)
3. Talk about the Election of 1876. Rutherford Hayes (Republican) and Samuel Tilden (Democrat) had a very close election. There were disputed electoral votes in three states. A deal was made to decide the election where the disputed votes were given to Hayes in exchange for a pledge that once he became President that he would remove Union troops from the South. (Union troops had been stationed in the South since the end of the Civil War ensuring the rights of former slaves.) After Union troops left and over the next 25 years, the Jim Crow South began where Blacks lost their civil rights and a segregated society was formed by law.
4. Play the video Oral Histories from Segregated Greenwood Mississippi and have students list and discuss five ways segregation would have affected their lives if they had lived during this time period.
5. Give students the 1965 Alabama Literacy Test but do not tell them what it is at first. Tell them it is an important test and that they will need to make a passing score (by the instructor’s judgment) in order to remain in class. After students have taken the test, go over the answers with them. Ask students if they consider it fair that they had to pass the test in order to remain in class. Explain to students that this was a Literacy Test given to discourage Blacks from voting (and that they can remain in class!). Tell students that this test was changed four times between 1964 and 1965 to confuse potential voters as voting rights advocates came from the North and set up Citizenship Schools to help people pass the literacy tests.
6. Have students read and discuss the Registering to Vote in Jim Crow Alabama article. Ask them if they were a Black voter if they would have gone through all they read about in order to vote. Discuss the various methods used to stop people from voting including the literacy test and poll tax.
Sharecropping Simulation
Directions:
Hand out the following to students:
• Cups (or plastic bags) labeled “Landlord” and “Furnishing Merchant”
• 50 beans in a plastic bag
• 6 printed IOU slips.
Make sure everyone has a pen/pencil. Have students open their bags and place the two cups on their desk. Tell the students that they are going to play a simulation game to help understand a sharecropper’s life. The beans are currency that they will earn or lose according to the situations that happen in the game.
Explain to students that sharecropping began at the end of the Civil War as plantation owners had land but little money and no labor after their slaves were freed. Freed slaves and poor whites had labor but no land and little money. Sharecropping developed as way to help both groups survive.
The dialogue (spoken by teacher):
“Congratulations! You have just signed a contract to be a sharecropper on my land. I will provide you with living quarters for you and your family and land on which to work. You will pay me 50% of the money from your crop, plus a small supervisory fee. I will provide you with a mule, but you are responsible for his upkeep. I am your landlord and what I say goes. There will be no negotiations or arguments. You should consider yourself lucky to have this opportunity to make a living.
1. You came here with 10 beans in cash. Students take 10 beans from the bag and place them on their
desks.
2. You will need to have some supplies to farm the land. You can purchase them from the furnishing
merchant at the store on my plantation. You will need:
seed – 1 bean goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
plow – 2 beans goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
cart – 2 beans goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
fertilizer – 1 bean goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
3. The planting of cotton is going along fine, but your family needs food to eat. Go to the furnishing
merchant and buy yourself some:
flour – 1 bean goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
meat – 2 beans goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
vegetables – 1 bean goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
sugar – 1 bean goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
lard – 1 bean goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
milk – 1 bean goes into the furnishing merchant’s cup
If you have run out of beans you can make the purchase on credit. Simply write the number of beans you owe (3 beans) on a small slip of paper and put it in the furnishing merchant’s cup. Don’t worry! You can pay him back after the crop comes in!
4. A tree fell on the fence, allowing your mule to roam free. You must purchase supplies from the furnishing merchant to repair the fence. Three rails cost 5 beans. Fill out a credit slip (5 beans) and place it in the furnishing merchant’s cup.
5. Your mule is successfully contained but is now in need of food. You need to buy 5 bales of hay at the furnishing merchant which cost 5 beans. Fill out a credit slip (5 beans) and place it in the furnishing merchant’s cup.
6. It has been a rough winter and you wife needs medication and your 3 children need clothes and shoes. I happen to have some shoes and clothes to supply you (for a small fee), but you need to purchase the medication at the furnishing merchant.
Clothes and shoes – 4 beans
Fill out a credit slip (4 beans) and place it in the landlord’s cup.
Medication – 1 bean
Fill out a credit slip (1 bean) and place it in the furnishing merchant’s cup.
7. Congratulations! After a year of hard work the crop has finally come in and I am selling it! Unfortunately, the price of cotton has gone down significantly and only got 40 beans at the market. Have students count out 40 beans and place them on their desks.
8. Today is ‘settlement day’ where you settle your debts to the landlord and the furnishing merchant.
Whatever is left is yours to keep!
a. According to our contract, ½ of the crop money (20 beans) comes to me, the landlord, so put 20
beans in the landlord’s cup.
b. As you remember, I also required 3 beans for a ‘supervisory’ fee, so put 3 more beans in the
landlord’s cup.
c. You have some credit slips in the furnishing merchant’s cup, so count up what you owe (14 beans)
and place those beans in the furnishing merchant’s cup.
d. Oh, and there’s a credit slip in the landlord’s cup, too—4 beans for clothes and shoes—so place 4
beans into the landlord’s cup.
9. Oh, wait…you only had 3 beans left. Well, here’s what we’ll do. Put 3 beans into the landlord’s cup
along with a credit slip of 1 bean. You can work another year and pay off your debt when next year’s
crop comes in!”
Adapted from Upcountry History Museum Sharecrop-Opoly simulation
Talk, then write
What would your life be like as a sharecropper? Explain
Who had the power in the sharecropping arrangement? Why?
Do you think you will ever earn enough money to buy land and a house of your own? Why or why not?
How is sharecropping the same/different from slavery? Why?
YouTube Video: Oral Histories from Segregated Greenwood, MS in the 1960s
As you watch the video, list at least five ways segregation would have affected your life during this time period:
Text Marking
Text marking is a way for students to actively engage reading. Research shows that underlining does little good. Text marking helps students think about what they are reading while they are reading. If students cannot write on a text, use a clear overlay or a sticky note. Here are some symbols to use:
? – Not sure what this means
! – This is new to me
ü - I knew this before
Registering to Vote in Jim Crow AlabamaIn the rural counties where most folk lived, you had to go down to the courthouse to register. The voting registration office was only open every other Monday for a couple of hours, usually in the morning or afternoon. You had to take off work — with or without your employer's permission — to register. And if a white employer gave such permission, or failed to fire a black who tried to vote, he could be driven out of business by economic retaliation from the Citizens Council (groups of whites in the 1950s and 60s that used economic pressure against blacks including boycotts of black businesses and denial of credit and loans.)
On the occasional registration day, the county Sheriff and his deputies made it their business to hang around the courthouse to discourage "undesirables" from trying to register. This meant that black women and men had to run a gauntlet of intimidation, insults, threats, and sometimes arrest on phony charges, just to get to the Registration Office.
The Alabama Application Form and oaths you had to take were four pages long. It was designed to intimidate and threaten. You had to swear that your answers to every single question were true under penalty of perjury. You knew that the information you entered on the form would be passed on to the Citizens Council and KKK.
Many counties used what they called the "voucher system." This meant that you had to have someone who was already a registered voter "vouch" for you — under oath and penalty of perjury — that you met the qualification to vote. Some counties limited to two or three the number of new applicants a registered voter could vouch for in a given year. Since no white voter would dare vouch for a black applicant, in counties where only a handful of blacks already registered only a few more could be added to the rolls each year even if they passed the "test." In counties were no blacks were registered, none ever could be registered because they had no one to vouch for them.
Of course, any of these rules or requirements, including the so-called "literacy test" itself, could be ignored or altered at any time by whim of the Registrar. So most whites were not subject to this onerous process, and on occasion a Registrar might allow one or two blacks to register as a way of feigning compliance with some Federal court order diverting the attention of reporters.
In addition to completing the application and swearing the oaths, you had to pass the actual "Literacy Test" itself. Because the Freedom Movement was running "Citizenship Schools" to help people learn how to fill out the forms and pass the test, Alabama changed the test 4 times in less than two years (1964-1965). At the time of the Selma Voting Rights campaign there were many different tests in use across the state. In theory, each applicant was supposed to be given one at random from a big loose-leaf binder. In real life, some individual tests were easier than others and the registrar made sure that black applicants got the hardest ones.