How did we get to where we are today? This page centers on specific teaching resources for a wide swath of topics to be found within the big idea of Social Justice. Be sure to combine these guide links with those found in the U.S. History / perspectives tab as well as within culture, video and audio sections of this guide.
All of these contain resources that can be put together as rich research sets to help students gain a context. Let this jumpstart your thinking!
AFRICAN-AMERICAN RIGHTS MOVEMENTS
GUIDE
This Guide from South Portland High School Library
Plenty of excellent resources right here!
Here's the story: BLACK WALL STREET
Take your students through the timeline story of events here. Meet Ottowa W. Gurley and J.B. Stratford and others who accomplished the American Dream; only to have it squashed because of racial tensions and fears.
""Greenwood shows that when we are left to our own devices and don't have a knee to our neck, we can achieve extraordinary things," John W. Rogers
FORBES magazine article shares some excellent primary source images.
ORAL HISTORY! Listen to these speakers recount what they know/heard about the Massacre.
DOCS TEACH gives sample pages from the American Red Cross report of the aftermath. There are links to the a photo album of the events.
How the L.A. Times covered 1965 Watts
Watch this documentary of the LAPD and National Guard covering August 11-17, 1965.
USC Digital Collections
This video includes teaching strategies, historical perspective, and plenty of primary sources to help you include this important story as we discuss Civil Rights; and especially the Farmworker's Movement.
There are links here to curriculum and to people, history, and events. Check the short links taken from the book: "Untold Civil Rights Stories" ... then set your students off to explore!
Until we check our perspective and prejudices, we have this.
This video, featuring John Lewis, shows many instances where we fought for freedoms and rights. Watch with students and then have them identify the rights, the struggle, the time periods covered. Together you can create a timeline, wage discussions, and put it all together with suggestions / plans for looking closely at how we might right wrongs without the massive struggles. Is this possible? What would that look like? These primary source images, taken together, tell a story.
"Over the course of seven decades, tens of thousands of Black men and women from different walks of life traveled to attend meetings publicly advertised as “Colored Conventions.” Held throughout the antebellum period and continuing for 30 years beyond the Civil War, these political gatherings offered opportunities for free-born and formerly enslaved African Americans to organize and strategize for racial justice".
Check out their digital collections of images and more: https://omeka.coloredconventions.org