High School Students Produce Award-Winning Film on Ella Baker
Teaching Activity by Teaching for Change
Two St. Paul, Minnesota high school students—Siena Leone-Getten and Paying Lor—decided to learn more about this influential woman who remains so hidden in history.
Radical Equations: The Algebra Project Drawing on the Past: The Roots of Our Movement
Reading by Charles E. Cobb and Bob Moses
The Algebra Project draws on the organizing tradition of the Civil Rights Movement to help young people find their voice and achieve math literacy.
Write That I . . . for the Civil Rights Movement
Lesson by Linda Christensen, as applied by Deborah Menkart
Students research Civil Rights Movement activists and then write poetry based on what they have learned.
Voting Rights Act: Beyond the Headlines
Reading by Emilye Crosby and Judy Richardson
Key points missing from most textbooks about the Voting Rights Act. Many textbooks approach the history of this important legislation through a top-down lens that gives most of the credit to President Lyndon Johnson, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but the VRA came into being through intensive organizing and activism spearheaded by the Black community.
Stepping into Selma: Voting Rights History and Legacy Today
Lesson by Deborah Menkart
This lesson invites students to step into the long history of the freedom struggle in Selma, introducing them to people, turning points, and issues.
A Documents-Based Lesson on the Voting Rights Act
Lesson by Emilye Crosby
This lesson uses a case study of Lowndes County, Alabama and three SNCC-related documents from the early 1960s—just before and after the Voting Rights Act—to explore the impact of the Voting Rights Act (and 1964 Civil Rights Act) on every day southern Black citizens: What did the legislation mean to them? Did they achieve their goals?
Children’s Book on Ella Baker: A SNCC Veteran’s Review
Reading by Judy Richardson
A critical review of the picture book, Lift as You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker.
Reinventing My Teaching about the Civil Rights Movement
Teaching Reflection by Alana D. Murray
Murray describes how she rethought her teaching about the Civil Rights movement to align pedagogically with Ella Baker's ideals, relying on the critical role of colleagues and traditional local leadership in creating and sustaining change.
Key Dates in Voting Rights History
Timeline by Emilye Crosby
This timeline of key dates in the struggle for voting rights is provided as background information for “A Documents-Based Lesson on the Voting Rights Act: A Case Study of SNCC’s work in Lowndes County and the Emergence of Black Power” by Emilye Crosby.
Freedom Fighter: The Life and Legacy of Ms. Dorie Ladner
Interview by Maestra Productions
Dorie Ladner was a passionate civil rights activist and leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. This interview about her life was conducted in 2017 by Maestra Productions in collaboration with Bowie State University Department of Fine and Performing Arts and Teaching for Change.
Bigger than a Hamburger
Lesson by Maggie Donovan
An activity for young students to understand and visualize the various goals of lunch counter sit-ins inspired by Ella Baker's words, "current demonstrations are concerned with something much bigger than a hamburger."