“You read about it and you have it for a minute and then you lose it. When you experience it hands-on it stays with you forever,” said sophomore Sabrina Mays about the 3-day Civil Rights Movement tour in May of 2011 for 44 middle and high school students from McComb, Miss. Watch the video to see highlights of the tour and hear from the students themselves about what they learned.

Students spent the first day in Jackson, Miss., at the Freedom Riders' Reunion where they met many veterans including Hollis Watkins (in photo below). Watkins was one of the central figures in the Civil Rights Movement in McComb and continues to be very active today throughout the state in his work with Southern Echo. On the second day in Philadelphia, Miss. they met the town’s first black mayor, James Young (in photo with students) and visited historic sites. On the last day they toured the National Civil Rights Museum and the Cotton Museum in Memphis, Tenn.

By exploring the historical connections between the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the Occupy (We are the 99%) movements nationwide, educators can create an important teachable moment to paint a more holistic picture of King's legacy in terms of his fight for economic justice in America.

The original August 28 date for the Memorial's dedication commemorated the famous 1963 "March on Washington." The official name, "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," is often forgotten amid the celebration of the phrase "I Have a Dream" from his famed speech.

Similarly, textbooks and media often skim over the Poor People’s Campaign, organized by King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference  beginning in 1967. The Poor People’s Campaign culminated after King’s death when demonstrators set up a shantytown called “Resurrection City” in DC for two weeks to protest for an economic bill of rights focusing on jobs, income and housing. 

Students at the McComb School District Business and Technology Complex (B&T) have launched the McCombLegacies.org website. As it states on the homepage, the website is “designed to share the history of McComb, Miss., with an emphasis on the stories of working people of all races, women, and young people and how they have strived for equity in labor, civics, education, economics, and the arts.”

The site is designed by high school students with an emphasis on oral histories conducted by students in an effort to understand, preserve, and share their local history. Note that the website has launched with a focus on the Burglund Walkout in time for the 50^th anniversary of this historic event.

More local history will be added by students and staff in collaboration with community members. The website also includes a mini-documentary about the Burglund High School walkout created by students at the B&T, based on interviews conducted by students in the Local Culture class at McComb High School.  

In addition to the interviews and mini-documentary, there are key books and films for learning about the Burglund Walkout. These include two downloadable chapters that are available on the website courtesy of the publishers for educational purposes. The chapters are: "Mississippi 1: McComb" in SNCC: The New Abolitionists by Howard Zinn (South End Press, 2002) and "Murder and Mayhem in McComb" from The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement by Bob Zellner with Constance Curry (NewSouth Books, 2008). These and more are listed on the additional resources page. The McComb Legacies website was originally hosted by the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation.

Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement, a month-long symposium on four Utah college campuses, will conclude October 3-4 at the University of Utah with the theme, Teaching the Movement.

Monday, October 3: Keynote address by Dr. Clayborne Carson, professor of history at Stanford University and director of Stanford’s Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute.

Tuesday, October 4: a panel discussion moderated by Robert Goldberg, director of the Tanner Humanities Center. The panel will include Clayborne Carson; Jon Else, a documentary filmmaker who served as producer and cinematographer for the PBS series, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years; Vincent Harding, a Civil Rights Movement veteran, professor of Religion and Social Transformation at Iliff School of Theology, and author of many books including Hope and History; and Judy Richardson, a movement veteran, early staff worker with SNCC, associate producer of Eyes on the Prize, and author of the recently published, Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC.

Wednesday, October 5: Judy Richardson will conduct a workshop on teaching with Eyes on the Prize with the Salt Lake City School District. Workshop description. [PDF]

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching was chosen by Teaching Tolerance as one of the best professional development resources for teachers wishing to introduce students to a more accurate portrayal of the Civil Rights Movement. 

For 20 years, the Teaching Tolerance staff have reviewed and recommended culturally aware literature and anti-bias resources to educators.

We are deeply honored that Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching (published by Teaching for Change and PRRAC) was selected by Teaching Tolerance staff as one of the top 20 titles from the last two decades that is an "enduring classic."

The Young People's Project (YPP) is now working with students in McComb, Mississippi. The Young People's Project's mission is to "develop students aged 8-22 from traditionally marginalized populations as learners, teachers, leaders, and organizers through math and media literacy, community-building, and advocacy in order to build a unique network of young people who are better equipped to navigate life’s circumstances, are active in their communities, and advocate for education reform in America."

Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, A National Movement is a collection of scholarly essays that illustrate the critical role local-level organizing  played during the civil rights movement. Edited by Emilye Crosby, the essays weave oral history and activist accounts with traditional sources to compel students and general readers to rethink who and what were important to the African American freedom struggle.

The collection covers a broad timeframe—from the movement during the 60s to the present—and examines locales, incidents, and events that remain invisible in traditional narratives on the movement. 

In honor of women's history, Teaching for Change has updated and posted online the popular Women's Work lesson from Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching. Educators in middle and high school classrooms and teacher workshops have found the lesson to be a great tool for improving the visibility of women in social justice movements. In a fun role-playing activity, participants are introduced to 36 women and the strategies they used as activists.

Educators are using the Women's Work lesson to challenge traditional narratives that often exclude the critical role of women in movements for change. Women don't just sit at home, but sit at counters during sit-ins, organize boycotts and protests, fight for reform, and courageously risk their lives for what they deem is right.

A consortium of seven school districts, led by the McComb, Miss. school district and including Brookhaven, Claiborne, Columbia, Lamar, Marion, and Natchez-Adams districts was awarded a Teaching American History grant in August, 2010. Teaching for Change worked closely with McComb on the application thanks to the support they have received from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to deepen instruction about Civil Rights Movement and labor history in McComb. (Corinth County School District also received a TAH grant in 2010 and Jackson Public Schools received a grant a few years ago.)

Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC has just been released. As the editors write in the introduction, "Though the voices are different, they all tell the same story--of women bursting out of constraints, leaving school, leaving their hometowns, meeting new people, talking into the night, laughing, going to jail, being afraid, teaching in Freedom Schools, working in the field, dancing at the Elks Hall, working the WATS line to relay horror story after horror story, telling the press, telling the story, telling the word. And making a difference in this world."

"This amazing book rethreads the needle of memory with a stronger cord woven of the testimonies of sisters who never gave up or in." -- Darlene Clark Hine, coauthor of The African American Odyssey