CURRICULUM

“THE SOUTHERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT:

THE PIVOTAL ROLE OF YOUNG PEOPLE”

Session One

Monday, July 23, 2007

“This Little Light of Mine”

9:00 – Noon: Introduction to the Civil Rights Movement and the Seminar Framework

Dr. Michelle D. Deardorff, JacksonStateUniversity

Dr. Jeff Kolnick, SouthwestMinnesotaStateUniversity

Dr. Leslie Burl McLemore, JacksonStateUniversity

Dr. Tiyi Morris, OhioStateUniversity at Newark

Noon – 1:15:Lunch (provided)

1:30 – 4:00:A Portrait of Fannie Lou Hamer—Charles McLaurin

This session provides an introduction to Mrs. Hamer through lecture, film, and discussion. Fannie Lou Hamer, sharecropper, spiritual leader and one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, was instrumental in changing the rules of the National Democratic Party. She was actively engaged in working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, which tried to change the economic landscape for people in the Mississippi Delta and beyond.

Session Two

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

“Oh, Freedom”

9:00 – Noon:Biography - Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Racial Violence & Economic Sufficiency
(Dr. Michelle Deardorff)

Teaching Documents: Deardorff, Michelle D. "Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Racial Violence and Economic Self-

Sufficiency," prepared for Summer Institute.

Video:IDA B. WELLS: CRUSADER FOR JUSTICE

At the age of sixteen, Ida B. Wells became politically active and influential in her community. To understand how she challenged lynching and segregation and worked to institute lasting change, we will use a video of her life interspersed with lecture and discussion. Her use of the press to draw attention to the wide-spread problem of lynching was compelling in that she convincingly demonstrated that root cause of lynching was not the criminal behavior of Blacks, but the White fear of Black economic, political, and social success. She convinced many that the use of such economic strategies as workforce mobility and international boycotts would successfully pressure Whites to examine the threadbare justifications for racial violence.

Noon – 1:15:Lunch (provided); Speaker: Jerry Mitchell, Investigative Reporter, The Clarion-Ledger
1:30 – 4:00: Oral History - Women in the Movement (Dr. Tiyi Morris)

Oral History Panel: Euvester Simpson, Jacqueline Martin, Judge Mamie Chinn, Joan Browning

The afternoon session is a series of oral histories by women who have been active in the Civil Rights. Past participants have included the daughter of a sharecropper who is now a university professor, a former freedom rider, and a former schoolteacher who helped integrate her school system. All participants emphasize how they were able to help make change as young people.

4:00 – 5:30: Walking Tour – From JacksonStateUniversity, we will visit the MasonicTemple, Pratt United

MethodistChurch and Parsonage, the Council of Federated Organizations office, and a Freedom

House.

SESSION THREE

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

“Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around”

9:00 - Noon:Biography – A. Phillip Randolph: Labor and Citizenship (Dr. Leslie McLemore)

Readings: "Biographical Notes on A. Philip Randolph 1889-1979," A Philip Randolph Institute,

Video: A. PHILIP RANDOLPH: JOBS AND FREEDOM

Asa Philip Randolph represented the historic organizing tradition. Randolph fully understood the struggle for human and civil rights should involve all of the tools and resources that we had at our disposal. Indeed, Mr. Randolph was the conscience of organized labor in that he sought to get the trade union movement to set its own house in order. He urged and challenged organized labor to join in the struggle of African Americans for freedom and equality. A. Philip Randolph helped to draft the "strongest statement of labor's position on civil rights ever to come before a convention of the AFL-CIO." Randolph, the labor leader and civil rights leader was also called a dreamer of dreams.

Noon – 1:15:Lunch (provided); Speaker: Hollis Watkins, Founder and President, Southern Echo, Inc.

1:30 – 4:00: Biography—Ella Baker: Intergenerational Organizer and Leader (Dr. Tiyi Morris)

Readings:Biographies of Ella Baker, and

Suggested Readings: Grant, JoAnne. Ella Baker: Freedom Bound, 1996.

Video:FUNDI

Ella Baker was a national organizer of the NAACP and provided leadership for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was the first temporary executive director of that organization. She was one of the founding members and adult advisor of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She was instrumental in helping SNCC to fashion its national agenda at the founding meeting of the organization in 1960. Miss Baker was the mentor to such women as Fannie Lou Hamer, Unita Blackwell, Victoria Gray Adams, and Annie Devine.

Session Four

Thursday, July 26, 2007

“Wade in the Water”

9:00 - Noon: Biography –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: American Liberalism (Dr. Jeff Kolnick)

Readings:Kolnick, Jeff. “Walter Reuther and the Limits of American Liberalism,” prepared for the

Summer Institute.

Reuther, Walter. "Notes for LABOR AND THE COMMUNITY," speech notes, 1947.

Walter Reuther Archives, Detroit, Michigan.

Walter Reuther began his political involvement and organizing work in his late teens/early twenties. As a young man, he helped build the UAW and CIO into powerful engines of change for American workers. From his role in early sit-down strikes, to his demand for labor's just rights to the benefits of improved productivity, Reuther played a key role in turning America's industrial working class into a middle class. Reuther also played an important role in U.S. Civil Rights history, not only through helping integrate segregated institutions as a college student in the 1930s and by helping fund student activity in the 1960s.

Noon – 1:15:Lunch (provided)

1:30 – 4:00: Oral History – Young People in the Movement (Dr. Rickey Hill)

Rims Barber, Dave Dennis, Frankye Adams-Johnson

We will be joined for the afternoon by a group of students from Operation Understanding who will be visiting Mississippi from Washington, D.C.

Session Five

Friday, July 27, 2007

“The Ballad of Medgar Evers”

9:00 - Noon: Biography –Medgar Evers: Engaging Youth in the Movement (Dr. Leslie McLemore)

Readings: Davis, Dernoral. "Medgar Wiley Evers and the Origin of the Civil Rights Movement in

Mississippi," Mississippi History Now, Mississippi

Historical Society, October 2003.

Davis, Dernoral. "When Youth Protest: The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, 1955-

1970," Mississippi History Now, Mississippi

Historical Society, August 2001.

Video: Testament of a Murdered Man: Medgar Evers

Medgar Wiley Evers was the first permanent field secretary of the Mississippi National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Evers served in this position from 1954 until his assassination in 1963. He was the major force behind the Jackson Movement and worked very closely with young people across the state. Evers was a major “bridge builder” in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, reaching out to the other major Civil Rights organizations active in the state in order to better coordinate efforts and activities.

Noon – 1:15:Lunch (provided)

1:30 – 4:00:Preparing presentations

Students will work on preparing their projects for presentations this evening at family night.

5:00 – 6:30: Jackson, Mississippi Civil Rights Driving Tour (The Hamer Institute)

Sites to be explored in the Jackson Civil Rights tour include: Medgar Evers home and museum, PearlStreetAMEChurch and FarishStreetBaptistChurch.

7:30 – 9:00 Family Night and Receptions

Students’ familiesare invited to see the work of the students and be introduced to the topics studied during the week.

FIELD TRIP

Saturday, July 28, 2007

9:00 a.m. Leave from JSU (The Hamer Institute)

The group will meet Ms. Jacqueline Byrd-Martin for a tour of historic civil rights landmarks in McComb, Mississippi.

We will return to JSU at approximately 3:30 p.m.

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