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.
“Is This America?” 50 Years Ago Sharecroppers Challenged Mississippi Apartheid, LBJ, and the Nation
Reading by Julian Hipkins III and Deborah Menkart
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party arrived at the 1965 Democratic Party Convention in Atlantic City on a bus with more than 60 sharecroppers, farmers, housewives, teachers, maids, deacons, ministers, factory workers, and small-business owners. Students can learn from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party about how to take on the Goliaths in politics.
Advanced Ideas About Democracy
Reading by Vincent Harding
Excerpts from Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement, a well-annotated list of historic events for teaching the full story of the Civil Rights Movement.
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.
Sharecroppers Challenge U.S. Apartheid
Lesson by Sara Evers, Julian Hipkins III, Deborah Menkart, and Jenice L. View
This lesson explores one of the most important events in the fight for true democracy in the U.S., when a coalition of grassroots activists challenged the Mississippi political system, the federal government, and the national Democratic Party to abide by the U.S. Constitution.
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.
Mississippi at Atlantic City
Reading by Charles M. Sherrod
In 1964, a year after Birmingham’s fire hoses were unleashed on Black children and a year before the March from Selma to Montgomery, SNCC decided to upgrade their protracted work in Mississippi.
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.
From Civil Rights to Black Power: The Significance of the 1965-66 Alabama Freedom Movement
Reading by Abayomi Azikiwe
The application of independent politics transformed the African American struggle in Selma, Alabama.