Choices in Little Rock
Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 1, 2/12/2016
Clear Standards
PDE 8.1 Historical Analysis and Skills Development
A: Explain continuity and change over time using sequential order and context of events.
B: Differentiate between fact and opinion, multiple points of view, and primary and secondary
sources to explain historical events.
C: Identify a thesis statement using appropriate primary and secondary sources.
8.1.7
A: Demonstrate continuity and change over time using sequential order and context of events.
B: Identify and use primary and secondary sources to analyze multiple points of view for
historical events.
C: Form a thesis statement on an assigned topic using appropriate primary and secondary
sources.
8.1.8
A: Compare and contrast events over time and how continuity and change over time influenced
those events.
B: Compare and contrast a historical event, using multiple points of view from primary and
secondary sources.
C: Produce an organized product on an assigned historical topic that presents and reflects on a
thesis statement
8.3 United States History
8.3.7. A: Classify the social, political, cultural, and economic contributions of individuals and
groups throughout US history.
8.3.7. B: Examine the importance of significant historical documents, artifacts, and places
critical to US history.
8.3.7. C: Compare how continuity and change have impacted US history.
8.3.7. D: Examine conflict and cooperation among groups and organizations in US history.
8.3.8: A: Examine the role groups and individuals played in the social, political, cultural, and
economic development of the US.
8.3.8. B: Evaluate the importance of historical documents, artifacts and places critical to US
history.
8.3.8. C: Summarize how continuity and change have impacted US history.
8.3.8. D: Examine how conflict and cooperation among groups and cooperation among groups and
organizations have impacted the growth and development of the US
8.4 World History
8.4.8. A: Compare the role groups and individuals played in the social, political, cultural, and
economic development throughout world history.
Choices, 2, 2/12/2016
8.4.8. B: Illustrate how historical documents, artifacts, and sites are critical to world history.
8.4.8. C: Illustrate how continuity and change have impacted world history.
8.4.8. D: Compare conflict and cooperation among groups and organizations which have impacted
the history and development of the world.
Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening
1.1.7 A: Apply appropriate strategies to interpret and analyze author’s purpose, using grade level
text.
1.1.7 B: Use word analysis skills, context clues, knowledge of root words as well as a
dictionary/thesaurus or glossary to decode and understand specialized vocabulary in content
areas during reading.
1.1.7 C: Use meaning and knowledge of words to expand reading vocabulary.
1.1.7 D: Demonstrate comprehension/understanding before reading, during reading, and after
reading on grade level texts through strategies such as comparing and contrasting texts,
identifying context, and interpreting positions and arguments, distinguishing fact from opinion,
and citing evidence from the text to support conclusions.
1.1.7 E: Demonstrate an appropriate rate of silent reading based upon grade level texts.
1.2.7 A: Evaluate text organization and content to determine author’s purpose, point of view,
and effectiveness according to the author’s position, accuracy, thoroughness, and use of logic
1.2.7 B: Differentiate fact from opinion utilizing resources that go beyond traditional texts
1.2.7 C: Distinguish between essential and nonessential information; identify bias and
propaganda where present
1.2.7 D: Draw inferences and conclusions based on a variety of information sources citing
evidence from multiple texts to support responses.
1.2.7 D: Read, understand, and respond to essential content of text and documents in all
academic areas.
1.3.7 C: Interpret the use of literary elements within and among texts including
characterization, setting, plot, theme, point of view, and tone.
1.4.7 B: Write multi-paragraph informational pieces
1.4.7 C: Write persuasive pieces
1.5.7 A: write with a clear focus, identifying topic, task, and audience and establishing a single
point of view.
1.5.7 B: Develop content appropriate for the topic
1.5.7 C: Write with controlled and/or subtle organization.
1.5.7 D: Write with an understanding of style, using a variety of sentence structures and an
appropriate array of descriptive word choices.
1.5.7 E: Revise writing after rethinking logic of organization
and rechecking central idea, content, paragraph development, level of detail, style, tone, and
word choice
1.5.7 F: Use grade appropriate conventions of language when writing and editing
1.6.7 A: Listen critically and respond to others in small and large group situations
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1.6.7 B: Demonstrate awareness of audience using appropriate volume and clarity in formal
speaking presentations
1.7.7 A: Identify and interpret differences in formal and informal language used in speech,
writing, and literature
1.8.7 A: Develop, with teacher guidance, and inquiry-based process in seeking knowledge
1.8.7 B: Conduct inquiry and research on self-selected or assigned topics, issues, or problems
using a variety of appropriate media sources and strategies with teacher support
1.8.7 C: Produce an organized product that presents and connects findings to support purpose,
draws reasonable conclusions, and gives proper credit to sources.
1.9.7 A: use media and technology resources for self-directed learning, support personal
productivity, group collaboration, and learning throughout the curriculum
1.9.7 B: Interpret and analyze techniques of particular media messages
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Facing History and Ourselves –
Choices in Little Rock
Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals
Global Essential Question
How can conversations about our differences help us to
make positive choices in our lives?
Teacher’s Resource Center; Harrisburg School District
FHAO website = www.anthonyspc.com/fhao
“Every human being has the moral capacity to respect one
another regardless of our differences.”
“We have an obligation, a mission and a mandate to do our
part.”
“Examine the power you have as an individual to make a
difference in our society that can create lasting change.”
“You have a mission and a mandate from the founders of
this nation and all of those who came before who
struggled and died for your freedom.”
Choices, 5, 2/12/2016
Teacher Language example regarding difficult
conversations/presence of racial slurs in curriculum materials:
“Remember last week when we started FH&O, we discussed that some
of the things we would learn and talk about may get uncomfortable. We
talked about some of the yucky vocabulary we may hear. However, we all
agreed that the lessons we learn about are far more valuable than some
of the words we may not like. The two video clips you will see today
contain up to three “n” words. However, they are not calling anyone
that, they are using the word to describe what someone may be called
because they are being judged by their color. This teacher chose to do
this “experiment” so that her students could truly know what it is like
to experience racism, prejudice, and discrimination based on
characteristics.”
(Thanks, Mel!)
Choices, 6, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices In Little Rock
Part 1 – Individual and Society
Lesson 1 – Who are We?
UEQ – How does our identity shape the way we see ourselves and others and to what extent does our identity
influence the choices we make?
Lesson Essential Question: One Day
What characteristics make our identity?
Materials/Preparation:
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active) choose:
Identity Web – Choices TE – p. 1
Creating an Identity Box/Bag – Choices TE – p. 3
Bio Poem – Developmental Designs for Middle School (DDMS) – p. 203
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
Explicit teaching: characteristics/traits, identity, ethnicity, values, beliefs
Other key words: gender, society
Lesson & Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice;
Distributed Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Orientation Day” – Choices TE – p. 4 - reproducible 1.1 – Read in collaborative pairs
or shared reading, answer discussion suggestions - p. 4, class wide discussion
Identifying Perspective in a Personal Essay – Choices TE – p. 4
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
“Writing Suggestions” – Choices TE – p. 4. Paraphrase bullets #1 and #2 into writing
prompts. Have students write their answers in their Choices in Little Rock journal.
Allow time for students to complete. If classtime permits, ask for volunteers to share
their writing.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Give back students their identity bags. Have them share one or two items/words that
they would want others to use to define their identity. Optional: other students can do
thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs neutral if they agree with what was said.
Choices, 7, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Date
Reproducible 1.1
Page 1 of 2
“Orientation Day”
At the age of seven, Jennifer Wang came to the United States from Beijing, China, with her family. At
seventeen, she wrote an essay entitled “Orientation Day” in response to a familiar experience:
introducing oneself to a group of strangers. Wang writes in part:
Something about myself? How do I summarize, in thirty seconds,
everything, which adds up and equals a neat little bundle called Me? How
do I present myself in a user-friendly format, complete with “Help” buttons
and batteries? Who am I, and why do I matter to any of you?
First of all, I am a girl who wandered the aisles of Toys “R” Us for
two hours, hunting in vain for a doll with a yellowish skin tone. I am a girl
who sat on the cold bathroom floor at seven in the morning, cutting out the
eyes of Caucasian models in magazines, trying to fit them on my face. I
am the girl who loved [newscaster] Connie Chung because she was
Asian, and I’m also the girl who hated Connie Chung because she wasn’t
Asian enough…
During that time I also first heard the term chink, and I wondered
why people were calling me “a narrow opening, usually in a wall.” People
expected me to love studying and to enjoy sitting in my room memorizing
facts for days and days.
While I was growing up, I did not understand what it meant to be
“Chinese” or “American.” Do these terms link only to citizenship? Do they
suggest that people fit the profile of either “typical” Chinese or “typical”
Americans? And who or what determines when a person starts feeling
American, and stops feeling Chinese? …
I am still not a citizen of the United States of America, this great
nation, which is hailed as the destination for generations of people, the
promised land for millions. I flee at the mere hint of teenybopper music. I
stare blankly at my friends when they mention the 1980s or share stories
of their parents as hippies. And I hate baseball.
The question lingers: Am I Chinese? Am I American? Or am I some
unholy mixture of both, doomed to stay torn between the two?
I don’t know if I’ll ever find the answers. Meanwhile, it’s my turn to
introduce myself…I stand up and say, “My name is Jennifer Wang,” and
then I sit back down. There are no other words that define me as well as
those do. No others show me being stretched between two very different
cultures and places — the “Jennifer” clashing with the “Wang,” the “Wang”
fighting with the “Jennifer.*
CONTINUED
* “Orientation Day” by Jennifer Wang [pp.199-200] from Yell-Oh Girls! by Vickie Nam. Copyright © 2001 by Vickie Nam.
Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 8, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Reproducible 1.1
Questions from “Orientation Day”
Date
Page 2 of 2
1. Underline the words and phrases that Jennifer uses to describe herself.
2. Based on her description of herself, what words or phrases would you use to
describe Jennifer?
3. How does being Chinese shape Jennifer’s identity?
4. How does being American shape her identity?
5. What experiences does Jennifer identify as important to who she is and how she sees herself?
Which of those experiences do you think has had the greatest impact on her identity?
6. What experiences are important to who you are and how you see yourself?
Which of those experiences has had the greatest impact on your identity?
Choices, 9, 2/12/2016
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 1 - Individual and Society
Lesson 2 – Why “Little Things are Big”
UEQ – How does our identity shape the way we see ourselves and others and to what extent does our identity
influence the choices we make?
Lesson Essential Question: One Day + homework
What is a stereotype and how does it affect a first impression?
Materials/Preparation:
Gary Trudeau cartoon, various media for activating strategy, read background
information and getting started – Choices TE – p.7, sign that reads “help”, sign that
reads “don’t help”, LCD projector
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Use the overhead version of the Gary Trudeau cartoon. Ask students, “What do you
notice?”
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
Explicit: impression  judgment  generalize stereotype prejudiceracism
Lesson & Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice;
Distributed Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
Teach background information on Jesus Colon.
Colon’s “Little Things are Big”
LINK provides the audio of Jesus
“Taking a Stand” – Choices TE – p. 7 - Reproducible 1.2. Follow activity as listed in
TE. You will need to have enough room for students to line up. Take two minutes to
talk to those closest to you on the line about your decision to stand where you are.
*** If you are using the audio version of the story, make sure that you stop it before
Colon explains that he walked past her and did not offer assistance***
“Evaluating a Decision” – Choices TE – p. 8 – Read as a shared reading. You can use
the T-chart idea or use as a pair-share to answer the questions in paragraph 2 of this
section. Evaluate Colon’s decision.
Lesson plan continued on next page
Choices, 10, 2/12/2016
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Gary Trudeau – Street Calculus cartoon. Use on LCD or overhead. Teacher
discussion on “subtly” of cartoon. Explain “mitigating factors”.
Homework activity: Blank out the top section of the cartoon (the text) and allow the
students to fill it in representing themselves and another person.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
In a five-minute journal activity, share a connection between the cartoon or story and
something that has happened to you or someone you know. If time, provide for some
group share-outs.
Choices, 11, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Reproducible 1.2
Date
Page 1 of 2
“Little Things Are Big”
In the 1950s, Jesus Colon had an unsettling experience during a late-night subway ride in
New York City.
It was very late at night on the eve of Memorial Day. She came into the subway at
the 34th Street Pennsylvania Station. I am still trying to remember how she managed to
push herself in with a baby on her right arm, a [suitcase] in her left hand and two children,
a boy and girl about three and five years old, trailing after her. She was a nice-looking
white lady in her early twenties.
At Nevins Street, Brooklyn, we saw her preparing to get off at the next station —
Atlantic Avenue — which happened to be the place where I too had to get off. Just as it
was a problem for her to get on, it was going to a problem for her to get off the subway
with two small children to be taken care of, a baby on her right arm, and a medium-sized
[suitcase] in her left hand.
And there I was, also preparing to get off at Atlantic Avenue, with no bundles to
take care of — not even the customary book under my arm, without which I feel that I am
not completely dressed.
As the train was entering the Atlantic Avenue station, some white man stood up
from his seat and helped her out, placing the children on the long, deserted platform.
There were only two adult persons on the long platform some time after midnight on the
evening of last Memorial Lesson.
I could perceive the steep, long concrete stairs going down to the Long Island
Railroad or into the street. Should I offer my help as the American white man did at the
subway door, placing the two children outside the subway car? Should I take care of the
girl and the boy, take them by their hands until they reached the end of the steep, long
concrete stairs of the Atlantic Avenue station?
Courtesy is a characteristic of the Puerto Rican. And here I was — a Puerto Rican
hours past midnight, a valise, two white children and a white lady with a baby on her arm
badly needing somebody to help her, at least until she descended the long concrete
stairs.
But how could I, a Negro* and a Puerto Rican, approach this white lady, who very
likely might have preconceived prejudices about Negroes and everybody with foreign
accents, in a deserted subway station very late at night?
What would she say? What would be the first reaction of this white American woman perhaps
coming from a small town with a [suitcase], two children and a baby on her right arm? Would she say:
Yes, of course, you may help me. Or would she think that I was just trying to get too familiar? Or
would she think worse than that perhaps? What would I do if she let out a scream as I went forward to
offer my help?
Was I misjudging her? So many slanders are written every day in the daily press against the
Negroes and Puerto Ricans. I hesitated for a long, long minute.*
Choices, 12, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 1.2
Questions from “Little Things are Big”
1. Underline the words or phrases that Jesus Colon uses to define his identity.
2. If you were to create an identity box for Colon, what words would you place on the inside of the
box?
3. What words or phrases would you place outside the box?
4. What do you think Jesus Colon should do? Be sure to list the reasons you think he should make
that choice.
* A Puerto Rican in New York by Jesus Colon. Mainstream, 1961
Choices, 13, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 1 - Individual and Society
Lesson 3 – Why Differences Matter
UEQ – How does our identity shape the way we see ourselves and others and to what extent does our identity
influence the choices we make?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested time = 90 minutes
How do beliefs about differences in our society shape the way we see ourselves and
others?
Materials/Preparation:
Index cards, picture of cartoon, video Eye of the Storm,
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Imagine it is the first day of school and your teacher tells you to check the information
on your emergency card. You discover that your emergency card had the wrong race
on it. In your journal, write what thoughts were swirling around in your head.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
prejudice, discrimination, point of view, race
Lesson & Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice;
Distributed Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Comparing and Contrasting Points of View” - Choices TE – p. 13 “Things are not
Always What They Seem” – Reproducible 1.3. Use as a shared reading. Follow with
questions used as a class discussion.
“Analyzing an Experiment” – Choices TE – p. 12. Show Video The Eye of the Storm
(section Tuesday Morning to end). Journal what they learned, what surprised them
and what disturbed them. Discuss in small groups questions (placed on 3x5 cards) at
the top of Choices TE – p. 13.
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
You are part of an experiment in which you will become a person of another race. We
are sending you to the mall. Journal what your experiences would be like interacting
with security guards, store clerks, mall walkers, spending too much time in the food
court, spending too much time in the arcades, in this new identity. Include what race
you became, encounters (both positive and negative), where your difference in race
mattered, and how you felt as you left the mall. What labels do you think people
placed on you?
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Group share one moment that stood out from your day at the mall. Use a 3-2-1
Choices, 14, 2/12/2016
strategy. Write three feelings or ideas swirling through your head. Two things you
learned from the study or the reading. One thing you are still wondering about.
Choices, 15, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Date
Reproducible 1.3
Things Are Not Always What They Seem
Sociologist Allan G. Johnson writes:
Imagine that you apply for a copy of your birth certificate one day,
and when you receive it, you discover that it lists your “race” as something
other than what you and everyone else always considered it to be. You are
black, and the certificate says you are white; or you are white, and it says
you are black. How would you feel?
This is exactly what happened in 1977 to Susie Guillory Phipps – a
New Orleans resident who had always been white, both to herself and to
everyone who encountered her. She had twice married white men, and her
family album was filled with pictures of blue-eyed, white ancestors. The
state of Louisiana, however, defined her as “colored.”
When she protested to state authorities, they carefully traced her
ancestry back 222 years, and found that [one of her 64 great-great-greatgreat grandparents] was black. Under Louisiana law, anyone whose
ancestry was at least 3 percent black was considered black. Thus, even
with an ancestry 97 percent white, the state defined her as black.
Susie Phipps spent $20,000 to force Louisiana to change her birth
certificate, and in 1983 Louisiana repealed the law.*
1. How did Susie Phipps see herself? How did the state of Louisiana see her?
2. Who should decide whether Susie Phipps or anyone else is African American or white?
3. Why did Phipps go to court to change her birth certificate?
(Discussion questions: What is the point of a birth certificate? Why is it important?
Choices, 16, 2/12/2016
SUSIE GUILLORY PHIPPS CASE
In 1977, at the age of 43, Susie Guillory Phipps applied for a passport. She hadn't needed one
before, and she needed a copy of her birth certificate to obtain one. Susie Phipps went to New
Orleans to obtain a copy of her birth certificate from the Division of Vital Records. The clerk took
Mrs. Phipps aside and showed her that
her birth certificate showed the race of both parents as "Col." - colored. Mrs. Phipps responded
with disbelief, shock and later said that "she was sick for 3 days."
Susie Guillory Phipps insisted that an error had been made and wanted
the birth certificate corrected. She contacted Jack Westholz Jr., state official, chief of the New
Orleans section of the Office of the General Counsel of the Louisiana Department of Health and
Human Resources.
This Division is the only office which is capable of correcting errors or changing a birth
certificate.
Mr. Westholz asked Susie Guillory Phipps to provide the following information: Complete names
of her parents; Place of birth of her brothers and sisters. After checking the records, Mr.
Westholz informed
Mrs. Phipps that no errors had been made on her birth certificate.
The racial designations on her birth certificate were consistent with the information on the birth
certificates of her brothers and sisters. None showed signs of tampering.
The State of Louisiana conclusion: Susie Guillory was correctly identified on her birth certificate
as the child of two colored people.
Mrs. Phipps could have obtained her passport, which does not show racial designation.
After all, the legal separation of races system had been dismantled. The racial designations on
her birth certificate hadn't affected her life for the previous 43 years. Susie Guillory Phipps had
lived as a white woman, was recorded as white on her children's birth certificates and when her
parents died, she had identified them as white on the death certificates. She had brothers,
sisters, nieces and nephews who lived as white people. No one had challenged any of that.
Virtually nobody even knew what her birth certificate said.
Instead, Mrs. Phipps refused to accept a copy of any birth certificate that identified her as black.
She insisted that her birth certificate be changed to identify her as white.
In some people's view, and the view of Mr. Westholz, Mrs. Phipps was very insistent to the point
of obsession to change her birth certificate thereby receiving official blessing of her color.
Mrs. Phipps maintains it's wasn't because she has anything against black people, she simply felt
she had to stand up for what she believed in, that being that "she was white." She also stated
that "if her birth certificate didn't get corrected, her descendants might come across it and think
she was somebody she wasn't."
Choices, 17, 2/12/2016
Mr. Westholz might have followed the course of least resistance and allowed her to change her
birth certificate to whatever race she wanted. He could have fulfilled the obligations of his office
in following the law by advising Mrs. Phipps to seek a court order to change the birth certificate,
then opposing the order in only a token manner, which would allow Mrs. Phipps to achieve her
goal of changing the certificate.
Mr. Westholz, partly out of a belief that a rare opportunity for a test case, which might result in
needed administrative reforms regarding racial designation which the legislature was extremely
reluctant to deal with. Mr. Westholz hoped a court might provide guidelines to his Department
for settlement of disputed racial designations without the need for litigation. He even hoped that
a court would get rid of the 1970 on-thirty-second law, which his Department considered
unworkable and unconstitutional.
Mr. Westholz was also defending the integrity of his Department. The Department was in charge
of the gathering and preserving of records.
The Dept. is also charged with prevention of anyone tampering with those records.
Mr. Westholz believed that the information on Mrs. Phipps birth certificate was correct. Of Mrs.
Phipps certificate he stated "Mrs. Phipps birth certificate is a historical record. Let it be. We can't
go back and change history."
The documents, which were available, were extensive and unaltered. Mr. Westholz
commissioned a Genealogist, Ruth Robertson Fontenot to trace the Guillory family tree. Dozens
of birth certificates, baptismal records, marriage contracts and other historical documents were
gathered together. Documents such as "Copy of the Inventory from the 1764 Succession of
Manon LaCaze," a copy of an "Agreement between Pierre Ricard and Francois Allain with Louis
(Ricard) regarding renumeration for caring for cattle, dated November 8, 1762" were among
those researched. Westholz tracked down people who were related to Susie Guillory Phipps. Two
large cardboard boxes full of exhibits, depositions, a Genealogy going back to the Eighteenth
Century, and a chart depicting the race of the Guillory family according to the "Robertson
Fontenot System of Visual Percentage Analysis" were accumulated.
Susie Guillory Phipps most significant ancestor, Marguerite, was her great-great-great-great
grandmother, a former slave.
Marguerite was a historical figure of prominence. In Spanish legal records the Spanish records
always refers to Marguerite as "Margarita."
In the early 1780s when the Spanish controlled Louisiana, a noted legal battle took place in the
Court of Alcalde Panis.
Marguerite was seeking to ensure the freedom of herself and her children.
Joseph Gregoire Guillory, known in the records as a French Planter, had a family of eight
children by his white wife, Marie Jeanne LaCasse.
Marguerite had been his wife's slave. Just before Joseph Gregoire was to move his family and
possessions to Old Opelousas Post, (what is now Opelousas, located in what is now Acadian
Parish, Louisiana) Marie Jeanne LaCasse died.
Choices, 18, 2/12/2016
Joseph Gregoire Guillory moved his family and their possessions to Old Opelousas Post in
Louisiana. There he had four children by Marguerite.
Shortly after, his son-in-laws from Old Mobile filed suit in Dupont vs Guillory for their (their
wives) share of Marie Jeanne LaCasse's property. This legal dispute resulted in a valuation of
property assets of Joseph Gregoire Guillory, which were owned by Marie LaCasse Guillory.
Marguerite and her children are listed in the valuation as property.
Joseph Gregoire Guillory was forced to turn over Marguerite and her children to his white
children as their share of their mother's property.
Joseph Gregoire Guillory went to his eldest son's home (Jean Baptiste Guillory) with a knife and
kidnapped Marguerite from his children.
Joseph Gregoire Guillory accomplished for Marguerite and her children, a manumission freeing
them on condition Marguerite stayed with him until his death. Marguerite did so.
After Joseph Gregoire Guillory's death, his white children disputed Marguerite and her children's
freedom and filed in court to have them returned to their control.
Marguerite sued in court, presenting her case and won. Although her children would have to
work for their half-siblings for a period of time to pay back a certain amount of money, they
indeed had their freedom.
One son of Joseph Gregoire Guillory & Marguerite married a Free Person of Color, named Eloise
Meuillon. This Guillory genealogical tree was studded with people described in various
documents with words such
as "quadroon" and "marabout" and the line led straight down to Susie Guillory's birth in 1934.
Mr. Westholz went to the area where Joseph Gregoire Guillory had settled over a hundred and
fifty years before. Elderly people who still living in the old Frey Community where Susie Guillory
Phipps grew up remembered the Guillory family. Many in nearby towns were related in one way
or another to Susie Guillory Phipps. He obtained school records, census field reports. Documents
and interviews were all consistent. The Guillorys in the area were known as mulattoes.
All of the documents amassed showed that Susie Guillory Phipps racial designation on the birth
certificate was indeed correct.
Mr. Westholz showed the information to Mrs. Phipps New Orleans lawyer, Brian Begue, expecting
him to drop the case. The alternative was a major challenge in court of state law.
By this time, the Department of Health and human Resources had passed new regulations which
would have allowed Susie Phipps to acquire a copy of the birth certificate in short form, which
included nothing about race.
Mrs. Phipps belief that she was white didn't seem to be affected by the information presented
about her family genealogy. She continued to insist that her racial designation was a mistake.
Although Mrs. Phipps continued to insist that she was white, she stated in a 1983 interview "she
came to believe that Margarita had been dark rather than black." Rarely did she acknowledge
the existence of the tri-racial society that existed during Marguerite's time.
Choices, 19, 2/12/2016
After many delays, Mrs. Phipps case came to trial in New Orleans District Court, 5 years after
she had applied for her birth certificate. Although some of her relatives joined her suit, many
others dropped out of the suit.
Throughout the legal wrangling, the issue of race, or designation of race, how a person was
designated as a certain race by "traceable amount of black ancestry" dominated the trial.
Mrs. Phipps lawyer Brian Begue tried the case in the court of public opinion, through the
newspapers. Articles appeared which tended to leave an impression that the state was trying to
designate a white person as black via a bizarre 1970s law.
Mr. Westholz insisted that the State merely preserves information by its residents. He further
insisted that his Department had been hoping to get rid of the 1970 law for years.
Louisiana had adopted the policy that other states follow in determining racial designations on
birth certificates - "the race is whatever the new born baby's parents say it is." The blank is filled
in with the cooperation of the parents.
In the trial, it was stated "Race information is needed on birth certificates, for example, sickle
cell anemia is found almost exclusively among blacks, while phenlketonuria, a genetic defect
that can cause mental retardation unless treated early, is found almost exclusively in whites. A
person seeking their birth certificate in order to find their parents for medical purposes would
need racial designation in order to determine possible medical history or potential problems.
Scientists testified by deposition and on the witness stand that modern science didn't offer any
better way than that of determining race - the child is the race of whatever the parents say.
Mr. Westholz stated "I know you can't scientifically ascertain race, I knew that before the trial."
Mr. Westholz view was that the Judge had to decide whether Susie Guillory Phipps could prove
beyond any doubt that the information on her birth certificate was incorrect.
Mr. Begue tried to demonstrate that partly because of imprecise use of terms inherited from
Colonial days, genealogical records could not reflect racial ancestry with mathematical certainty.
The State had the burden of proving that it could legally classify Mrs. Phipps as black because of
the one-thirty-second law.
Begue didn't refute the genealogical evidence, but argued that if any racial classification had to
be done, it should be based on the "self image" of the classified.
Begue maintained that people who think of themselves as white, their neighbors think they are
white, should not have to prove in court that they are white.
Colored relatives disputed Mrs. Phipps claim that "she was raised white. I am white. I am all
white. I was raised as a white child. I went to a white school. I married white twice."
May 1983, the Court found that the State Vital Statistics Law
"clearly places the burden of proving the propriety of an alteration on the person seeking to
have it made. The plaintiff's contention that because they appear to be white, the State must
prove otherwise was without legal foundation."
Choices, 20, 2/12/2016
In his decision, the Judge stated "it was clear that the plaintiff's have the appearance of "white
people", having fair skins and in some cases blue eyes and blond hair. It is also entirely clear
that they are of mixed white and Negro blood."
Mrs. Westholz considered the verdict a bittersweet victory, since the court did not alter the
burden of proof and did not offer any guidelines for the future. He stated, "he hoped Mrs. Phipps
would appeal."
June 1983, a month after the Phipps case, the legislature repealed the 1970 one-thirty-second
law and established a preponderance of the evidence as the burden of proof borne by someone
who wanted to argue that information on a vital record should be changed.
Mrs. Phipps appealed the verdict in her case. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the
original verdict.
The Court pointing out that it was Mrs. Phipps parents racial designations that Mrs. Phipps would
have to change, stated "We do not believe that an individual may change the racial designation
of another person, whether his parent or anyone else. That appellants might today describe
themselves as white does not prove error in a document, which designates their parents as
colored. This anomaly shows the subjective
nature of racial perceptions but does not give appellants a cause of action to alter it."
The Appeals Court further stated" Individual racial designations are purely social and cultural
perceptions, and the evidence conclusively proves those subjective perceptions were correctly
recorded at the time appellants' birth certificates were issued."
Mrs. Phipps lawyer, Begue applied for a hearing before the Louisiana Supreme Court. By a vote
of 5 to 2, the Supreme Court of Louisiana denied the application.
Begue argues that when it comes to racial designation, "Susie Guillory Phipps should not be
bound by the racist notions of 1934, but by the same policy that is in effect for someone today
in filling out a birth certificate application in a New Orleans Hospital, you are whatever race you
think you are."
Mr. Westholz argues "history is history; he doesn't quarrel with Mrs. Phipps calling her children
white, but he doesn't think there is anything she can do about her parents' being colored. The
birth certificates were filled out by the plaintiff's parents, who apparently listed their children's
race as black because that is what the parents' own birth certificates read. It's our position that
the plaintiffs are asserting that there's something wrong with records that their parents
submitted, in which case the burden of proof is upon them."
Mrs. Phipps after the original court verdict stated, "if she lost in Louisiana, she would go to the
Supreme Court of the United States. If she lost there, she would go to the President. She would
ask him if he thought she was colored."
RESOURCES:
Lake Charles American Press Sept 15, 1982 , Lake Charles American Press Sept. 16, 1982
Monroe Newspaper Oct 19, 1985 , The New Yorker Magazine Article "American Chronicles Black
or White"
1986
Choices, 21, 2/12/2016
The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States that holds that a person with
any trace of African ancestry (however small or invisible) cannot be considered white[1] and so,
unless the person has an alternative non-white ancestry that he or she can claim, such as Native
American, Asian, Arab, Australian aboriginal, the person must be considered black.
This notion of invisible/intangible membership in a "racial" group has seldom been applied to
people of Native American ancestry (see Race in the United States for details). The concept has
been largely applied to those of black African ancestry. As Langston Hughes wrote, "You see,
unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in
the United States, the word 'Negro' is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his
veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown." [2]
During the Black Pride era of the Civil Rights Movement, the stigma associated with sub-Saharan
ancestry was claimed as a socio-political advantage.[3]
Choices, 22, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 1 - Individual and Society
Lesson 4 – Race and Identity
UEQ – How does our identity shape the way we see ourselves and others and to what extent does our identity
influence the choices we make?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 75-90 minutes
What is race and how is it important to your identity?
Materials/Preparation:
Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Race Handout
http://www.pbs.org/race/images/race-guide-lores.pdf (you will need to copy and paste
into your web browser), LCD projector
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Must read “Getting Started” – Choices TE – p. 15 for teacher background knowledge
and then share information with class.
Have the students discuss the importance of their race to their identity. To stimulate
discussion, read the children’s book Let’s Talk about Race by Julius Lester.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
race, human species, homo sapiens
Lessons & Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice;
Distributed Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Analyzing Ideas about Race and Racism” – Choices TE – p. 16
Follow the lesson as written, however; We highly recommend using the handout
“Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Race” instead of reproducible 1.4
Revisit the book Lets Talk About Race, using ¶2 of “Analyzing Ideas about Race and
Racism” – Choices TE – p.16
** Remind students that this is a picture book but the content is worthy of using **
“Those Who Don’t” – Choices TE – p. 20, reproducible 1.5 - Use as a read aloud the
excerpt from “House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros. Follow with discussion
questions [Sally Hall has a CD copy of this read by the author].
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Write a paragraph in their student journals explaining what they can do or what can be
done to stop stereotyping. Give their opinion in the first sentence. The sentences that
follow should provide an argument in support of your opinion. Make sure students cite
at least three reasons to support their opinion.
Choices, 23, 2/12/2016
Create group/pair posters about “race” to share information learned about the concept
of “race”.
Laura Zugay’s Balloon activity – might be a preferred activity. Prior to class: Blow up
25 balloons and mount on bulletin board. Have class brainstorm aloud examples of
familiar stereotypes. Recorders scribe examples on note cards. Post each note card
near a balloon. Let each student choose a stereotype they would like to see eliminated
and in turn, let them burst the corresponding balloon with a pin. [Be sure this is
modeled and only ONE pin is used.]
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Have the students share one argument that they cited for above during the
summarizing activity.
Journal feelings about the stereotype balloon activity. Pick one or two stereotypes they
felt were important to eliminate. Which stereotype was most relieving for you to see
destroyed?
Choices, 24, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Date
Reproducible 1.5
“Those Who Don’t”
In House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros writes:
Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood
scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with
shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.
But we aren’t afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davy
the Baby’s brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that’s
Rosa’s Eddie V. and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he’s Fat
Boy, though he’s not fat anymore nor a boy.
All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a
neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car
windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it
goes and goes.
1. List the stereotypes that they have of us.
2. List the stereotypes that we have of them.
3. Where does the author think the stereotypes she describes come from?
Where do you think they come from?
Write a paragraph explaining what can be done to stop stereotyping.
Give your opinion in the first sentence. The sentences that follow should provide an argument in
support of your opinion.
From House on Mango Street. Copyright © Sandra Cisneros, 1984. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of
Random House, Inc. New York. Reprinted by persion of Susan Bergholz Literary Series, New York
*
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 25, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 2 – Dividing a Nation: Segregation & Its Consequences
Lesson 1 – The Legacies of Segregation
UEQ – What are the consequences of dividing people by race? How can individuals and groups in a
democracy organize to correct injustice?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 60 minutes
What is segregation and how is it related to race and racism?
Materials/Preparation:
photo of segregation, students copies of reproducible 2.1 and 2.2, 2 different colored
highlighters per student, summarizing points questions on notecards, edited rap song,
student copies of Frayer Diagram, student copies of graphic organizer, chart paper,
possible transparency of graphic organizer
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Show students the picture of segregation. Ask students if there has ever been a time
in their life where they have felt they were being discriminated against, or felt
uncomfortable, felt unwelcome due to their race. They can choose a family event, a
school event or when they are out with friends. Teacher should share a personal story
first (field trip, etc.) to help stimulate students.
Show History Channel clip (from silent film produced for NAACP in 1930s) about two
schools in one county in S. Carolina – one is white and one is African American to
demonstrate the differences in resources provided to each school. The film clip
includes statistics about the amount of dollars, time, and other resources spent in each
area. This is a picture of segregation.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
segregation, myth, reality, racist
Lesson & Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice;
Distributed Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Defining Segregation” – Choices TE – p. 24 – reproducible 2.1 & 2.2. Read each
story as a shared reading on the overhead. Give a copy to each student and a
highlighter. As you are reading, ask the students to raise their hands when you get to
part that they feel shows segregation. Have the students highlight that sentence on
their papers (teaches them to learn how to cite information). Make sure students
understand that one story is from a Black viewpoint and one is from a White viewpoint.
Next, as a class, come up with a working definition of the word segregation (use a
Frayer Diagram). Teacher should be modeling for class. Follow this by choosing a
type of graphic organizer to list or compare/contrast - Lisa Delpit’s point of view and
Choices, 26, 2/12/2016
Daniel Dyer’s point of view. Post webs and working definition in the classroom or in
the hallway.
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
In small groups of approximately 4 students, discuss the following. Back in 1958 the
lines of segregation were very clear (signs, laws, separate schools) but ”in many ways
now is a more confusing time to live.” What do you think Lisa Delpit means by that?
Why do you think it would be more confusing today? What words do you use that
some people consider racist but you do not? Why? Are the words you use ok for
others to use? Are they offensive? How have the lyrics to music shaped the way that
young African Americans view themselves? Allow the students to discuss in their
groups for 10+ minutes and then share out while the teacher charts some of the
responses.
OPTIONAL: Play an edited, “controversial” song (racial connotations). Have the
words copied out for the students to see. Discuss how it makes women, men, or
certain races view themselves.
OPTIONAL #2: See Mel Bannister’s Childline activity provided here at the end of this
lesson.
OPTIONAL #3: using highlighter to note anything about segregation during read-aloud
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Share out summarizing points. Post chart paper in classroom or hallway.
Choices, 27, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Reproducible 2.1
Date
Page 1 of 2
Growing Up with Segregation
Lisa Delpit is an educator who grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at a time when police officers
patrolled the street that separated the city’s black and white residents. Although that time in history
has passed, her experiences continue to shape Delpit’s views, including her hopes and fears for her
child. In a letter to her daughter Maya, Delpit writes:
As much as I think of you as my gift to the world, I am constantly made aware that there are
those who see you otherwise.
Although you don’t realize it yet, it is solely because of your color that the police officers in our
predominantly white neighborhood stop you to “talk” when you walk our dog. You think they’re being
friendly, but when you tell me that one of their first questions is always, “Do you live around here?” I
know that they question your right to be here, that somehow your being here threatens their sense of
security. …
I did not have to be told much when I was your age. When I was growing up in
Louisiana in the 1950s and 1960s, the color lines were very clearly drawn. I followed my mother to
the back entrance of the doctor’s office, marked “colored.” I knew which water fountain I was
supposed to drink from. On the bus ride to my all-black school, I watched white children walk to
schools just two or three blocks from my house.
In large part, my childhood years were wrapped in the warm cocoon of family and community
who all knew each other and looked out for one another. However, I remember clearly my racing
heart, my sweaty-palmed fear of the white policemen who entered my father’s small restaurant one
night and hit him with nightsticks, the helpless terror when there were rumors in our school yard that
the Ku Klux Klan would be riding, the anxiety of knowing my college-aged foster sister had joined the
civil-rights marchers in a face-off against the white policemen and their dogs. And, I remember, my
Maya, the death of your grandfather when I was seven, who died of kidney failure because the
“colored” ward wasn’t yet allowed the use of the brand-new dialysis machine.
Your world is very different, at least on its surface. In many ways now is a more confusing time
to live. …
As any mother would, I have a great need to protect you, but it is hard to know how. My
childhood experience was different from yours. …
When I was in my segregated, all-black elementary school, we were told by teachers and parents that
we had to excel, that we had to “do better than” any white kids because the world was already on
their side. When your cousin Joey was in high school, I remember berating him for getting a “D” in
chemistry. His response was, “What do you expect of me? The white kids get ‘C’s.’” Recently a
colleague tried to help an African-American middle-schooler to learn multiplication. The student
looked up at the teacher and said, “Why are you trying to teach me this? Black people don’t multiply.
Multiplication is for white people.” You know, Maya, I think that may be the biggest challenge you and
other brown children will face — not believing the limits that others place upon you.*
Choices, 28, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 2.1
“Growing Up with Segregation” Questions
1. What adjectives does Delpit use to describe the lessons of segregation?
What are the lessons she wants her daughter to learn from her experience?
How have her experiences as a young girl shaped her attitudes today?
2. What would you like Lisa Delpit and her daughter to know about your experiences
with race and racism? How have those experiences shaped your identity?
3. Why do you think Lisa Delpit believes that “in many ways now is a more confusing
time to live”? In what sense is it more confusing? In her view, how does that
confusion shape the way young African Americans view their identity?
Do you agree with her assessment?
Choices, 29, 2/12/2016
Lisa Delpit, “Explaining Racism.” Harvard Graduate School of Education, (Spring, 2000), 15-17.
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Reproducible 2.2
Page 1 of 2
“That Was the Way It Was Supposed to Be”
Segregation shaped the attitudes and values of both white and African Americans. Like Lisa
Delpit, Daniel Dyer is an educator who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. He writes:
I was nearly 20 years old before I spoke to a black person.
In 1944, I was born in Enid, Oklahoma…In my boyhood I never
questioned segregation, it was merely a fact of my existence…
At the time, I saw nothing immoral, or even extraordinary, about the
divided city I lived in. If the backs of the city buses bore painted signs that
said COLORED ONLY; if the department stores featured separate drinking
fountains and restrooms (WHITE and COLORED); if black citizens of Enid
swam in different pools, played in different parks, attended different
churches and schools (whites went to Enid High School, blacks to Booker
T. Washington); well, that was the way it was supposed to be. That’s all…
My racial beliefs were confirmed by everything I read, saw, and
heard. Comic books contained racial stereotypes; movies and cartoons
featured black characters who were superstitious, cowardly, dirty, ignorant,
and incapable of speaking “real” English. …
My father joined the faculty of Hiram College in 1956, and I entered
the seventh grade at the Hiram [Ohio] Local Schools. Racially, things were
not all that different from Enid. There were no black students in the school
system, not during the entire six years I attended it.
But for the first time in my life, I did participate in an activity with
blacks: high-school basketball. … Although I recall no racial incidents at
those games, I do remember being frightened before tip-off. I was playing,
you see, against aliens.
Racist jokes and behavior were normal during my high school years.
… As a sophomore, I performed in blackface in the school play, enacting
crude racial caricatures to the great amusement of the all-white audience.
And it is with great embarrassment that I remember driving with my
equally brainless buddies through a black neighborhood in Ravenna, car
windows down, yelling vile insults at black pedestrians. Those moments are
the most unforgivable of my life.
My years as a student at Hiram College… changed my life. For the first time, I was
attending classes with blacks, eating with them, living with them. There were not many,
mind you, but their excellence in virtually every area of college life began quietly to
invade the roots of my racism; before long, the entire tree was sick. And dying….
I cannot claim to be free of all racism; after all, there is something unpleasantly
permanent about many experiences and lessons of our childhood.*
CONTINUED
Choices, 30, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 2.2
That Was the Way It Was Supposed to Be Questions
Page 2 of 2
1. Dyer describes two communities he lived in as a child. How did each determine who belonged and
who did not? How did those definitions shape and misshape the way he viewed the world?
2. Dyer describes the racism that marked his high school years. Why do you think he participated?
What does he suggest about the links between the racial stereotypes he encountered in books and
movies and his own behavior?
3. Dyer recalls a machine called a fluoroscope that was widely used in shoe stores in the 1950s.
Shoppers would stick their feet inside the machine to see how well their shoes fit. Dyer writes, “I
remember … sticking my feet repeatedly into that machine. I was fascinated by the X-ray image of
the bones of my feet. … . The countless doses of radiation that machine so innocently gave me …
will always be with me and may even have permanently damaged me, even though shoe-store
fluoroscopes are now as illegal as … segregation.” What point is he trying to make about the legacies
of segregation?
* Daniel Dyer, “Racial Background Is Not a Halo but an Accident,” The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 7 January, 1993. Reprinted by permission.
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 31, 2/12/2016
Worksheet: Racism scenarios [shared by Mel Bannister]
In 2000/2001 ChildLine received 525 calls and letters from children about racist bullying, and a
further 47 calls and letters from children who had encountered other forms of racism.
Here are some of them:
1. Sharon, 16, is dating a Pakistani boy. Her parents are racist, so she has to keep her
relationship a secret, which is making her feel anxious.
2. Sandra, 11, is called racist names as she is black. She is scared to tell her teacher, in case the
bullying gets worse.
3. Ravinder, 15, is being beaten up by a group of boys at school, because he is Asian.
4. Alice, 9, is being bullied at school, as she is the only white girl in her class.
5. Clive, 13, has just moved to Scotland from England. A gang of Scottish boys at school calls
him names.
6. Sunitta, 14, is being called racist names at school. Racist comments are also written about
her on the wall of the toilets. Her teacher hasn't done anything about it.
7. Dina, 12, is teased because she is Italian. She has to have extra lessons for her English
reading and writing. She feels nervous about going to school.
Activities
Imagine you are a ChildLine counsellor. What advice would you give these seven children?
1. Write down one suggestion you would give to each child.
2. Now compare it with your partner's advice.
3. In pairs, select the best piece of advice to give to each child.
Choices, 32, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 2 - Dividing a Nation: Segregation and its Consequences
Lesson 2 – The Legal Basis for Segregation: Plessy v. Ferguson
UEQ – What are the consequences of dividing people by race? How can individuals and groups in a
democracy organize to correct injustice?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 45 minutes
What is the history of segregation and how did it affect life in America?
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
“Writing Suggestion” – Choices TE – p. 32 – bullet 1 – What does “created equal”
mean to you?
AND
Define the term “color-blind” – when people can’t see colors or shades of color. Then
discuss how we can be “color-blind” by not recognizing racial distinctions.
Materials/Preparation:
Puzzle created by teacher (go to www.puzzlemaker.com for a free creation site),
overhead of reproducible 2.4, copy of reproducible 2.5
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
abolish, reconstruction, ratify, civil rights, confederacy, constitutional, 13th amendment,
14th amendment, 15th amendment, civil rights, Plessy v.Ferguson, Black Codes,
Supreme Court
Lesson & Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided
Practice; Distributed Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Summarizing the Main Idea” – Choices TE – p. 31 – reproducible 2.3
Teach glossary words – Choices TE – p. 34
In pairs or small groups, students create a cartoon, editorial, poster, comic strip, etc.
explaining each of the 3 amendments.
“Interpreting the Constitution” – Choices TE – p. 31 – reproducible 2.4 and
reproducible 2.5
Use as a shared reading. As a class, discuss Plessy v. Ferguson. Students will then
respond in their journal to the prompt: “Imagine that you were alive in 1896 and read
about the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson in your local
newspaper. Write a letter to a family member describing the impact you think the
decision will have on your family.
Choices, 33, 2/12/2016
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to
Initiate Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Create a puzzle or a word search using the terms and ideas from this lesson. Go to
www.puzzlemaker.com for a free puzzle creation site.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Supreme Court Justice Harlan said, “The Constitution is color-blind.” What does that
mean? What is important about this statement?
Choices, 34, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 2.3
Glossary – Part 2, Lesson 2
Abridge- reduce
Amend- change or add to
Amendment- a change in a constitution or other legal document
Deprive- take away
Due process- the legal protections a citizen has when a state, nation, or court makes
a decision that could affect his or her rights. The most basic rights protected under due
process are the right to know what crimes an individual has been charged with and the
right to have one’s own version of the story heard in court.
Immunity- a release from or an exception to a law. For example, a court may decide
that the testimony of a witness in one case will not be used against the witness at his
or her own trial. The witness receives immunity.
Jurisdiction- the right of a court to make decisions that must be obeyed in a particular
geographic area — a city, state, or, in the case of the U.S. Supreme Court, the nation
Naturalize- to give citizenship to someone born in another country
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 35, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Date
Reproducible 2.3
Page 1 of 2
The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
Read each amendment and decide what its purpose is. (You may want to consult the glossary of
legal terms at the bottom of page 2.) Then write a headline announcing the ratification of the
amendment. Remember that headlines summarize the main idea of a story in 12 words or less.
Amendment XIII (Ratified December 6, 1865)
1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The headline reads….
Amendment XIV (Ratified July 9, 1868)
1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any
law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. …
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
The headline reads…
CONTINUED
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 36, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Date
Reproducible 2.3
Page 2 of 2
Amendment XV (Ratified February 3, 1870)
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The headline reads…
Choices, 37, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Date
Reproducible 2.4
The Dispute in Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy was a citizen of the United States and a resident of the state of Louisiana. On
June 7, 1892, he purchased a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railway from New Orleans to
Covington, Louisiana. He entered a passenger car and took an empty seat in a car reserved for the
whites only. The conductor demanded that he leave his seat and move to a car reserved for the
“colored race.” When Plessy refused to move, he was arrested. He was brought to trial and found
guilty of violating a state law requiring segregation on trains. Plessy appealed the decision of John
Ferguson, the judge who claimed that as long as the railroad offered “separate but equal” seating,
Plessy’s rights were protected. Plessy disagreed. He argued that the law was unconstitutional — that
is, it went against the 14th Amendment.
How the case is decided depends upon whether a law passed by the state of Louisiana in
1890 requiring separate railroad cars for black and white passengers is in keeping with the U.S.
Constitution. The first section of the law states:
All railway companies carrying passengers in their coaches in this state, shall provide separate but
equal accommodations for the white and colored races…No person or persons shall be permitted to
occupy seats in coaches, other than the ones assigned to them, on account of the race they belong
to.
1. Reread the 14th Amendment (Reproducible 2.4.) Does the amendment allow states to pass
segregation laws?
2. Discuss the case with your partner. Then briefly describe what you decided below.
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 38, 2/12/2016
Name
Class
Date
Reproducible 2.5
What the Court Decided
Mr. Justice Henry B. BROWN delivered the majority opinion of the Supreme Court on
May 18, 1896. He wrote in part:
The object of the [14th] Amendment was undoubtedly to
enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in
the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish
distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished
from political equality, or commingling [mixing] of the two races upon
terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring
their separation, in places where they are liable to be brought into
contact, do not necessary imply the inferiority of either race to the
other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within
the competency [responsibilities] of the state legislatures in the
exercise of their police power.
…If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one
cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be
inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States
cannot put them upon the same plane.
Mr. Justice John Marshall HARLAN dissented. He wrote in part:
It is said in argument that the statute of Louisiana does not
discriminate against either race, but prescribes a rule applicable alike
to white and colored citizens. But…every one knows that the statute in
question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white
persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored
people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons.…
Further, if this statute of Louisiana is consistent with the personal
liberty of citizens, why may not the state require the separation in
railroad coaches of native and naturalized citizens of the United
States, or of Protestants and Roman Catholics? …
The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this
country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in
wealth, and in power…. But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of
the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of
citizens…. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor
tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens
are equal before the law.
Imagine that you were alive in 1896 and read about the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of
Plessy v. Ferguson in your local newspaper. Write a letter to a family member describing the impact
you think the decision will have on your family and the nation.
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 39, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 2 - Dividing a Nation: Segregation and its Consequences
Lesson 3 – The Consequences of Plessy v. Ferguson
UEQ – What are the consequences of dividing people by race? How can individuals and groups in a
democracy organize to correct injustice?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 75 minutes
What is “separate but equal”, and can separate ever really be equal?
Materials/Preparation:
Begin reading Warriors Don’t Cry with students. Chapter 1 fits well with this lesson.
Section 2 of the video A Road to Brown, teacher made signs to segregate classroom,
student copies of packet A, B and C.
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Writing Suggestions – Choices TE – p. 37 – bullet 2. Teacher should model a situation
where separate but equal is not really equal. An example would be the differences
between males who play professional basketball versus female. Are these really
“separate but equal”?
*** Prepare classroom environment prior to lesson. When students enter the
classroom in the morning, they should be faced with the following environment.
Classroom should depict a segregated environment using a variety of signs. Example
– Only students who are wearing Nike sneakers can use the pencil sharpener. Only
girls can use pens. Only people who are not wearing white tshirts can use white lined
paper, etc…. *** For examples, see Choices TE – p 38 – 40. During morning meeting,
have students react to signs through journal writing.
“Getting Started” – Choices TE – p. 37. *** Be sure to preview *** – Show students
section 2 of the video A Road to Brown. This video shows a graphic lynching scene
that SHOULD NOT be shown. Video should run only approximately 3 minutes 30
seconds. Video should be stopped on photo of young boy.
DO NOT SHOW BODY LYING IN FIRE OR LYNCHING SCENES.
Vocabulary:
Jim Crow laws, racial barriers, era
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Analyzing Primary Sources” – Choices TE – p. 37 – Follow directions and share out at
the end of the activity. Be sure to thoroughly explain each set of materials –
specifically
Choices, 40, 2/12/2016
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Journal reflection on your responses to the video. Predict where we are headed after considering
what information the video provides.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Whip share: What do you think is going to happen next in regard to Brown v Board?
Choices, 41, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices In Little Rock
Part 2 - Dividing a Nation: Segregation and its Consequences
Lesson 4 – The Road to Brown v. Board of Education
UEQ – What are the consequences of dividing people by race? How can individuals and groups in a
democracy organize to correct injustice?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 90 minutes
What were the steps in the struggle to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson?
Materials/Preparation:
Read chapters 2 & 3 from Warriors Don’t Cry.
Using “Background Information” – Choices TE – p. 50, prepare a flowchart using dates
and court cases located in background information section – Choices TE –p.50 & 51,
transparency of final completed flow chart, video clip of A Girl Like Me (see Activating
Strategies section for location), LCD projector, reproducible 2.6 & 2.7, blank student
copies of the flow chart. The original “Doll Study” was used in the challenge case
against Plessy v Ferguson.
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Watch the video “A Girl Like Me”. The video can be found at:
http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/6/index.php?id=2
Discuss and/or have the students journal about how they felt watching the video.
Note: Explain to students that a group of NAACP lawyers used the original doll study
(which they just saw) to challenge Plessy v. Ferguson. Also explain that the lawyers
used past cases as precedents (define word for students) to challenge Plessy.
The flowchart created from the background information represents the past cases.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
precedent ( A judicial decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute
before a court), NAACP, Brown v. Board of Education, et. al., constitutionality,
unconstitutional, good faith
Lesson & Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice;
Distributed) Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
Using prepared flowchart, have the students fill in their copy as teacher explains the
importance of each case. Teacher may use own discretion as to how this is completed
as a class. The purpose is to get an understanding of how past court cases relate to
the Brown v. Board of Education case.
“Analyzing a Supreme Court Decision” – Choices TE – p. 51 – Reproducible 2.6Follow activity as written.
Choices, 42, 2/12/2016
“Inch by Inch”- Choices TE- p. 51-Reproducible 2.7 opening of the door for
desegregation– Bill Maudlin, the cartoonist, captioned this, “Inch by Inch”. Discuss the
cartoon with a partner and craft other possible captions for the cartoon that help to
explain the cartoon. Write your favorite caption on a copy of the cartoon with caption
blanked out.
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Post revised cartoons. Model “Walking Museum” procedures according to
Developmental Designs recommendations. Equip each student with post-its so they
can provide reactions to the new captions. During “Walking Museum” tour, have the
students, in pairs or small groups use post-it notes
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
A representative from each group share one/two post-it notes responses and/or a
comment about the activity.
Choices, 43, 2/12/2016
Part 2, Lesson 4
Late 1800’s – Early 1900’s – formation of the NAACP to fight segregation
↓↓↓
1935 – Group led by Charles/Houston/Marshall decides to challenge segregation in the
courts. CENTRAL IDEA – Group decided to challenge the notion that separate
facilities are truly equal. Started at the college level.
↓↓↓
1949 – Sweatt v. Painter – Supreme Court ruled that a Texas law school set up for
African-Americans was not equal to the states all-white law school.
↓↓↓
1950 – McLaurin v. Oklahoma – Courts decided that African American student who was
enrolled at the University of Oklahoma’s law school was not receiving an education
equal to that of white students.
↓↓↓
1952 – NAACP turns their attention to segregation in the public schools. They argued
that even if separate facilities were equal, they still violate 14th amendment. 5
lawsuits were filed. Supreme Court justices ruled the cases were extremely similar
and combined the 5 lawsuits into a single case known as Brown et. al. v. Board of
Education of Topeka et. al.
↓↓↓
1954 – Supreme Court decision – Brown v. Board of Education – declared racial
segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. ** Supreme Court did not provide
guidelines for complying with this decision **
↓↓↓
1955 – Supreme Court said that federal courts were to decide whether a school
district was acting in “good faith” by desegrating its schools “with all deliberate
speed”.
Choices, 44, 2/12/2016
Part 2, Lesson 4
Late 1800’s – Early 1900’s –
↓↓↓
1935 –
↓↓↓
1949 –
↓↓↓
1950 –
↓↓↓
1952 –
↓↓↓
1954 –
↓↓↓
1955 –
Choices, 45, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices In Little Rock
Part 3 - Choices in Little Rock
Lesson 1 – The First Day of School
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 60 minutes
What was the first day of school like for the first African American students who
attended Central High?
Materials/Preparation:
Read chapter 4 of Warriors Don’t Cry.
Chart paper, student copies of reproducible 3.2
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
“Getting Started”- Choices TE- p. 57 (paragraph 2). Reflect on a first day of school
that you remember. Create a web on the board or chart paper to record student
answers to this activity. Using the spider web, have students recreate their first day at
a new school. The spokes on the web should record the answers to the questions you
ask. Follow the questions below.
Ask students to recall the first day of school. What did you expect the day to be like?
What did you fear? What did you look forward to? How did you prepare for the day?
What surprised you about the experience? Today we are going to learn what the first
day of school was like for African American students who attended the all-white
Central High School.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
integrate/integration, state courts, superintendent, bystanders, upstanders, mob, mob
mentality, perpetrator, National Guard
Lesson &Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice;
Distributed Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Interpreting Points of View”- Choices TE - p. 59 –Reproducible 3.2 (pages 1-3)
Go to www.facing.org. Using page one and two of reproducible 3.2, have students
follow along as Elizabeth Eckford gives her account of the first day of school.
Refer to p. 59. Some people in the two photographs later regretted their behaviors that
day. Choose one individual who appears in one of the two photographs and write a
brief story about that person and what he/she might have done differently if that person
had chosen to be an upstander. How do students think the person they chose may
have felt about his/her behavior in years to come? Have students use journals to write
their stories. Consider using this writing piece as a possible first step toward
accomplishing the publishable essay activity.
Choices, 46, 2/12/2016
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
“Discussion Suggestions”- Choices TE- p. 60- Split into three groups. Use jigsaw
method so that each group experiences each of the three assignments below. Each
group has assigned roles of recorder, time-keeper, reporter, and facilitator. Assign
each group one of the following listed on a 3 x 5 card.
1. Grace Lorch was a bystander who tried to help Elizabeth Eckford by getting her
away from the mob. What might have happened if other bystanders had
supported Eckford in similar ways? For example, what might have happened if
the principal or a group of teachers had opened the doors of the school and
escorted the nine into the building? Would Eckford have felt less alone if a white
student had shown support? Would it have altered the outcome that day?
2. Have you ever experienced or witnessed an injustice? Write a brief description
of what you saw, heard, and felt that day.
3. What do you think will happen next in this “Warriors” story?
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Each group’s reporter shares out on one of the assignments.
Choices, 47, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 3.2
Page 1 of 2
I am Elizabeth Eckford…
I am part of group that became known as the Little Rock Nine. Prior to the segregation of
Central, there had been one high school for whites, Central High school, and one high
school for blacks, Dunbar. I expected that there may be something more available to me at
Central that was not available at Dunbar; that there might be more courses I could pursue;
that there were more options available. I was not prepared for what actually happened.
I was more concerned about what I would wear, whether we could finish my dress in
time...What I was wearing, was that okay? Would it look good? The night before when
the governor went on television [September 2] and announced that he had called out the
Arkansas National Guard, I thought he had done this to insure the protection of all the
students. We did not have a telephone. So, inevitably we were not contacted to let us
know that Daisy Bates of NAACP had arranged for some ministers to accompany the
students in a group. And so it was I that arrived alone.
On the morning of September 4th, my mother was doing what she usually did. My mother
was making sure everybody’s hair looked right and everybody had lunch money and notebooks
and things. But she did finally get quiet and we had family prayer. I remember my father
walking back and forth. My father worked at night and normally he would have been asleep
at that time, but he was awake and he was walking back and forth chomping on a cigar that
wasn’t lit.
I expected I would go to school as I did before on a city bus. So, I walked a few blocks to
the bus stop, got on the bus, and rode to within two blocks of the school. I got off the bus
and I noticed along the street that there were many more cars than usual. And I remember
hearing the murmur of a crowd. But, when I got to the corner where the school was, I was
reassured seeing these solders circling school grounds. And I saw students going to school. I
saw the guards break ranks as students approached the sidewalks so that they could pass
through to get to school.
And I approached the guards at the corner, as I had seen other students do, they closed
ranks. So, I thought maybe I am not supposed to enter at this point. So, I walked further
down the line of guards to where there was another sidewalk and I attempted to pass
through there. But when I stepped up, they crossed rifles. And again I said to myself maybe
I’m supposed to go down to where the main entrance is. So I walked toward the center of
the street and when I got to about the middle and I approached the guard he directed me
across the street into the crowd. It was only then that I realized that they were barring me so
that I wouldn’t go to school.
As I stepped out into the street, the people who had been across the street start surging
forward behind me. So, I headed in the opposite direction to where there was another bus
stop. Safety to me meant getting to the bus stop. I think I sat there for a long time
before the bus came. In the meantime, people were screaming behind me. What I would
have described as a crowd before, to my ears sounded like a mob.
Choices, 48, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 3.2
Page 2 of 2
I am Elizabeth Eckford…
1. Study the photographs carefully. Describe what you see. Where are people standing?
How are they relating to one another? If you were there, what sounds might you
hear? If you were a reporter, whom would you want to interview? What questions
might you ask?
2. Elizabeth tells her story of her first day at Central High School in Little Rock from
her point of view. Choose one person in the photograph above and write a short
story about how that individual happened to be at Central High School that morning.
What choices did that individual make?
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 49, 2/12/2016
Statistics of the Little Rock 9
Central High School
Seniors: 1
Ernest Green
Juniors: 5
Minnijean Brown Trickey
Elizabeth Eckford
Thelma Mothershed Wair
Melba Pattillo Beals
Terrence Roberts
Sophomores: 3
Carlotta Walls Lanier
Jefferson Thomas
Gloria Ray Karlmark
Graduates of Central High School: 5
Ernest Green – 1958
Thelma Mothershed – 1959
Terrence Roberts – 1959
Carlotta Walls –
Jefferson Thomas – 1960
8 have Bachelor’s degrees
5 have Master’s degrees
1 has a Ph.D.
www.arkansasglobecoming.com/featuredstories.aspx?id=7
Choices, 50, 2/12/2016
Minnijean Brown
Minnijean Brown Trickey gained fame as the member of the Little Rock Nine who “fought back”
against the segregationist students by accidentally spilling chili on some boys and referring to a
female student as “white trash.” While teenagers today admire her bravery, in 1958 her
actions resulted in expulsion, and Minnijean became the only member of the Nine not to
complete the school year at Little Rock Central High School.
Born in Little Rock during the fall of 1941 to Imogene and Willie Brown, Minnijean was the
eldest of four children. Willie was self-employed as a mason and landscape contractor, while
Imogene worked as a nurse’s aid, mother and homemaker. Minnijean paved the way for her
siblings by attending Little Rock public schools, graduating from Dunbar Junior High in 1955 and
beginning her high school career at Horace Mann before volunteering to help desegregate
Central High in the fall of 1957.
Segregationist students at Central High found Minnijean’s demeanor particularly irksome and
began to harass her throughout the school day. Instead of using direct physical confrontation
as they did with other members of the Nine, the segregationists tried to provoke Minnijean into
intentionally reacting against them. After having soup dumped on her in the cafeteria and later
being jostled into spilling chili on some white boys, the school board expelled Minnijean for
calling a student “white trash” in a moment of exasperation.
Following her expulsion in February 1958, Minnijean moved to New York City where she lived
with Arkansas native Mamie Clark and her husband, Kenneth, the two African-American
psychologists who provided much of the research on segregation and self-esteem to the NAACP
for the Brown v. Board of Topeka case. They enrolled Minnijean in the Lincoln school, a
progressive and ethnically diverse private high school, from which she graduated in 1959.
Despite not completing the 1957-58 school year at Central High, Minnijean was a recipient of
the NAACP’s prestigious Spingarn Medal with the rest of the Nine and Arkansas NAACP
President Daisy Bates in June 1958.
Minnijean attended Southern Illinois University as a journalism major before marrying Roy
Trickey and moving to Canada in 1967. She completed a bachelor’s degree in social work from
Laurentian University and later earned her master’s in social work from Carleton University in
Ottawa.
Minnijean’s career has included teaching social work at Carleton and numerous community
colleges in Canada, working as an activist for peace and environmental issues and acting as a
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Workforce Development at the Department of the Interior
during the Clinton Administration. She currently lives in Little Rock and participates in Sojourn
to the Past, an interactive civil rights travel program for high school students.
Choices, 51, 2/12/2016
Elizabeth Eckford
On the morning of September 4, 1957, and wearing a new dress, Elizabeth Eckford walked down
Little Rock’s Park Street and into history as the lone teenage girl in the sunglasses who braved
the screaming, segregationist mob and inquisitive press corps in her quest to attend Little Rock
Central High School. Her life would never be the same.
Born in late 1941, Little Rock native Elizabeth is one of six children in the family of Oscar and
Birdie Eckford. Her father worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad as a nighttime dining car
maintenance man, and her mother taught African-American students at the segregated school
for the blind and deaf how to do their own laundry.
Elizabeth received her elementary education in Little Rock and graduated from Dunbar Junior
High School before starting high school at Horace Mann. Near the end of her 10th grade year,
Elizabeth became interested in attending, and helping desegregate, Central High in the fall of
1957.
That September, Elizabeth and Hazel Bryan Massery, a white Central High student, were
captured in the now-iconic Arkansas Democrat photo that became the single most recognizable
image of the 1957 crisis. Photographer Will Counts snapped the picture of Hazel at the head of
an angry white mob screaming at Elizabeth as she walked to school.
The two did not officially meet until 1997 when they reunited for a second, very different,
picture taken by the same photographer who captured the black-and-white image 40 years
earlier.
After Elizabeth’s year at Central High ended, she traveled with the rest of the Nine to New
York to receive the NAACP’s prestigious Spingarn Award, along with Arkansas NAACP President
Daisy Bates, for their bravery and heroism in desegregating Central High.
The following school year when Gov. Orval Faubus closed the public high schools in Little Rock
rather than continue with court-ordered desegregation, Elizabeth took correspondence courses,
summer school and received tutoring from the NAACP which allowed her to gather enough
academic credit to begin work on her bachelor’s degree at Knox College in 1960. She returned
to Little Rock shortly after, but attended Central State College in Wilberforce, Ohio, and
received a bachelor’s degree in history.
Elizabeth’s career has included service in the U.S. Army as a pay clerk and a military reporter, a
waitress, a welfare worker, a history teacher and her current position as a probation officer.
In 1999, she visited the White House with the Little Rock Nine to be presented with the
Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President William Clinton.
Choices, 52, 2/12/2016
Gloria Ray Karlmark
Gloria Cecelia Ray was born in Little Rock in 1942 to Harvey Ray and Julia Miller Ray. The
youngest of three siblings, Gloria remembers growing up in a home that emphasized education as
the path to success and contributing to society. Both of her parents graduated from college,
and Mr. Ray attended and graduated from the Tuskegee Institute where he worked in George
Washington Carver’s laboratory.
Gloria attended Little Rock public schools, starting at Gibbs Elementary and moving on to
Dunbar Junior High. During the spring semester of her last year at Dunbar, Gloria signed a
sheet for students who might be interested in attending Little Rock Central High School in the
fall of 1957. Gloria started Central High as a sophomore.
The start of a school year was always an exciting time for Gloria. As in past years, she prepared
for the first day at Central High by getting a new dress and shoes. “I went to the first day of
school with Ernest… and it burst my bubble, I usually say that. That’s when I became aware that
the world of open and available doors… were in no way going to be open and available to me.” And
yet, despite the violence and harassment Gloria faced that first day and throughout the school
year, she believed that her parents had not raised her to accept being less than equal. “I had
not been brought up to accept not being allowed to pursue education and the best education I
could get.”
Gloria’s mother lost her job as a welfare worker with the state of Arkansas during the 1957-58
school year and was blacklisted from any other state jobs. Consequently, when Governor Faubus
closed the Little Rock high schools the following year they moved to Kansas City, Missouri,
where Gloria attended an integrated high school and qualified for the honors program. She
graduated from high school in 1960.
Having an interest in science and math, Gloria graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology in
1965 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and mathematics. She married Krister Karlmark in
1966, and they have two children. Her career has included being a public school teacher, a
systems analyst and a technical writer. Gloria founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of
Computers in Industry, an international journal of computer applications in industry. She took
early retirement in 1982 before returning to work in 1994 in the Netherlands for Philips
Telecommunications and then for Philips Lighting.
Along with the other members of the Little Rock Nine and Arkansas NAACP President Mrs.
Daisy Bates, Gloria received the prestigious Spingarn Award from the NAACP for her heroism
and bravery throughout the 1957-58 school year at Central High. In 1999, she returned to the
U.S. and, with the Little Rock Nine, visited the White House to be presented with the
Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President William Jefferson
Clinton.
Choices, 53, 2/12/2016
Ernest Green
Born in Little Rock in 1941, Ernest Green made history on May 27, 1958, when he became the
first African American to graduate from Little Rock’s Central High School, following a school
year that began with a Constitutional crisis. The son of Lothaire and Ernest Green Sr., Ernest
has a brother, Scott, and a sister, Treopia Washington.
Like the rest of the Little Rock Nine, Ernest came from a family which placed a lot of emphasis
on the importance of education and personal development. Consequently, Ernest participated in
church activities and the Boy Scouts, eventually earning the rank of Eagle Scout. He attended
segregated Dunbar Junior High School and graduated after ninth grade, at which time he was
assigned to Horace Mann High School, a new high school for African Americans.
At the end of his junior year at Horace Mann, Ernest volunteered to attend the all-white Little
Rock Central High School in fall of 1957 and help desegregate the city’s largest high school.
Central High offered a wider and more complex curriculum than Horace Mann did, making the
educational opportunities available quite desirable.
Ernest became the only senior among the nine African Americans who decided to integrate
Central High that fall. Not only did Ernest survive the daily harassment and intermittent
violence the rest of the Little Rock Nine experienced, he had to study extraordinarily hard to
make sure he graduated and could demonstrate that African Americans were equally capable of
attending Central High as anyone else.
Martin Luther King Jr., who was in Arkansas to speak at Arkansas Agriculture Mechanical And
Normal College’s commencement in Pine Bluff, attended Ernest’s graduation with the Green
family. At the end of the 1957-58 school year, Ernest, the rest of the Little Rock Nine and
Arkansas NAACP President Mrs. Daisy Bates received the prestigious Spingarn Award from the
NAACP for their heroism and bravery in integrating Central High.
After high school, Ernest attended and graduated from Michigan State University with a
bachelor’s degree in 1962 and a master’s degree in sociology two years later. His career has
included nonprofit work at the A. Philip Randolph Education Fund (1968-1977), experience in
government as the Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs under President Jimmy
Carter (1977-1981) and currently as Senior Managing Director at Lehman Brothers investment
banking firm in Washington, D.C.
In November 1999, Ernest represented the Little Rock Nine in paying last respects to Daisy
Bates as she lay in state at the Arkansas State Capitol. Ernest then joined the Little Rock Nine
at the White House to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation’s highest civilian honor,
from President William Jefferson Clinton. Ernest is married to Phyllis Green and together they
have three children.
Choices, 54, 2/12/2016
Thelma Mothershed Wair
Born in Bloomsburg, Texas, in late November 1940, Thelma was the oldest of the Little Rock
Nine. She is one of six children born to Arlevis Leander Mothershed, a psychiatric aid at a
Veterans Administration hospital, and Hosanna Claire Moore Mothershed, a homemaker. The
family moved to Arkansas, first North Little Rock and then Little Rock, when Thelma was a
young child.
A congenital heart condition delayed Thelma’s formal schooling, however she graduated from
Dunbar Junior High School and spent a year at Horace Mann when the opportunity became
available to attend Little Rock Central High School in the fall of 1957 and help desegregate the
school. The night before the nine students were to enter Central High for the first time,
Governor Faubus called out the National Guard theoretically to preserve the peace and prevent
disorder from occurring. Thelma assumed that the Guard was really there to protect the Nine;
when the Guardsmen refused them entrance to the school, she recalls thinking, “How wrong I
was!”
Similar to the rest of the Little Rock Nine, Thelma wanted to attend Central High not so much
to integrate the school but to receive the benefit of the wider curriculum and facilities.
Despite a year filled with verbal taunts and even some physical harassment, Thelma survived
unscathed and healthy. When the school year ended, Thelma, the other members of the Little
Rock Nine and Arkansas NAACP President Daisy Bates received the prestigious Spingarn award
from the NAACP for their bravery and heroism in desegregating Central High.
The following school year when Governor Faubus closed the public high schools in Little Rock
rather than proceed with court-ordered desegregation, Thelma took summer school in St. Louis
and received tutoring provided by the NAACP to keep up with her studies. By the time Central
High reopened in 1960, she had completed her coursework and later received her diploma from
the school district in the mail.
Thelma attended college and graduated from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale with a
BA in Home Economics in 1964 and continued on to receive her MS in Guidance and Counseling in
1970. In 1985, she earned an Administrative Certificate in Education from Southern Illinois
University – Edwardsville.
In addition to her 28-year teaching career in the East St. Louis school system, Thelma worked
at the Juvenile Detention Center of the St. Clair County Jail in St. Clair County, Illinois, and as
an instructor of survival skills for women at the American Red Cross Shelter for the homeless.
During the 1989-90 school year, the East St. Louis chapter of the Top Ladies of Distinction
honored her as an Outstanding Role Model.
Choices, 55, 2/12/2016
Melba Pattillo Beals
Born in Little Rock the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Melba Pattillo was one
of two children born to Lois and Howell Pattillo. The family lived with their grandmother, Lois
Pattillo. Melba learned the importance of hard work and an education at a young age: in 1954,
her mother was one of the first African-American graduates from the University of Arkansas
with a Ph.D., and her father worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad.
Melba and her brother, Conrad, both attended Little Rock public schools. A 1955 graduate of
Dunbar Junior High, Melba started high school at segregated Horace Mann High School. When
in the spring of her sophomore year, the school district asked for volunteers to desegregate
Little Rock Central High School in the fall, Melba signed up to experience the expanded
curriculum and educational opportunities. At the time, her mother taught English at a
segregated high school in North Little Rock.
On September 4, 1957, Melba arrived too late to join her fellow members of the Little Rock
Nine at the corner of Park and 12th streets to walk to Central High, but just in time to see
Elizabeth Eckford get caught in the mob and Terrence Roberts get turned away by the National
Guard. Melba’s mother sent her home for the day and continued on to work in North Little
Rock. She was not able to escape the taunts and harassment of segregationists permanently; on
September 23 when the Nine spent half a day at Central High, a white female student slapped
Melba across the face.
At the end of the 1957-58 school year, Melba, the rest of the Little Rock Nine and Arkansas
NAACP President Mrs. Daisy Bates received the prestigious Spingarn Award from the NAACP
for their heroism and bravery in integrating Central High.
During the next school year when Gov. Orval Faubus closed the public high schools in Little Rock
rather than proceed with desegregation, Melba moved to Santa Rosa, California, to finish high
school while living with a white family who belonged to the NAACP. She continued on to obtain
her bachelor’s degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and her master’s
degree from the prestigious Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York
City.
Melba worked as a television reporter for the NBC affiliate in San Francisco and the PBS
member station in that area. In addition to consulting and motivational speaking, Melba serves
on the history faculty of Dominican University. Her award-winning book about the Central High
crisis, Warriors Don’t Cry, came out in 1995, and she followed it with White is a State of Mind
four years later.
Choices, 56, 2/12/2016
Terrence Roberts
Born in Little Rock four days before Pearl Harbor, Terrence Roberts was the oldest of seven
children born to William and Margaret Roberts. A veteran of World War II, Terrence’s father
worked at the Veterans Administration Hospital in North Little Rock and his mother operated a
catering business out of their home.
Terrence graduated from Dunbar Junior High School in 1956 and started high school at
segregated Horace Mann High School. Despite the new physical facilities at Horace Mann, it
did not have the extensive curriculum of academic courses that Little Rock Central High School
offered. When Mann students were offered the opportunity to become the first African
Americans to attend Central High, Terrence, an “A” student, was among the volunteers. He
would be one of five youngsters, along with Melba Pattillo, Thelma Mothershed, Elizabeth
Eckford and Minnijean Brown, starting Central High in the 11th grade.
A tall, lanky teenager, Terrence made the front pages of newspapers around the world when on
September 4, 1957, he became caught alone in the mob outside of Central High. As Terrence
approached the school grounds, the Arkansas National Guardsmen would not let him pass, and he
politely retreated. He told reporters, “I was told that if there was any resistance and that I
was not permitted to go in that I should not try and force my way.”
Like the other members of the Little Rock Nine, Terrence sincerely believed and told reporters
that day, “I think the students would like me ok once I got in and they got to know me.” Every
day of the following school year would test Terrence’s faith in that belief and his patience with
those students who harassed him.
After the 1957-58 school year ended, Terrence, the other members of the Little Rock Nine and
Arkansas NAACP President Mrs. Daisy Bates received the NAACP’s prestigious Spingarn Award
for their bravery and heroism throughout Central High’s first year of integration.
After losing a battle in the U.S. Supreme Court, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus actually
closed Little Rock’s public high schools in the 1958-59 school year rather than continue with
desegregation. With no school to attend, the Roberts family moved to California, and Terrence
graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1959.
Terrence graduated from California State University with his bachelor’s degree in 1967,
received his master’s degree in social welfare from UCLA in 1970, and took his Ph.D. in
psychology at Southern Illinois University in 1976. Roberts serves on the psychology faculty at
Antioch University, Los Angeles and directs the graduate program. He also works as a speaker
and consultant. In 1999, along with the rest of the Little Rock Nine, Roberts received the
Congressional Gold Medal from President William Jefferson Clinton at the White House.
Choices, 57, 2/12/2016
Jefferson Thomas
Born in Little Rock in 1942, Jefferson Thomas was the youngest of seven children born to Mr.
and Mrs. Ellis Thomas. As the “baby” of the family, he fondly remembers tagging along with
older siblings on trips to the store and occasionally falling victim to his older brother’s jokes.
Jefferson had natural athletic ability and loved to play “pick up” games of basketball around his
neighborhood. In fact, these games were some of his only exposure to white children before he
made the decision to attend Little Rock Central High School in the fall of 1957.
At Dunbar Junior High School, Jefferson grew into a gifted athlete and ran on the track team.
He also participated in student government and served as president of the student body his
ninth grade year. As his time at Dunbar grew to an end, Jefferson volunteered to be one of the
African-American students to desegregate the all-white Central High in September 1957.
Jefferson would be one of three African-American tenth graders integrating Central High.
Carlotta Walls and Gloria Ray were also in his class. Possibly because he was quiet, or maybe
because he could run fast, Jefferson received an undue amount of physical harassment from
segregationists during the 1957-58 school year. Even though he was knocked unconscious on one
occasion, Jefferson never considered leaving Central High that year.
After the 1957-58 school year ended, Gov. Orval Faubus closed Little Rock’s public high schools
in 1958-59 rather than continue with desegregation. While Jefferson sat out from school
during the “lost year,” he returned to Central High in 1959 and graduated with the class of
1960.
Early in the summer of 1958 Jefferson, the other members of the Little Rock Nine and
Arkansas NAACP President Mrs. Daisy Bates received the NAACP’s prestigious Spingarn Award
for their bravery and heroism throughout Central High’s first year of integration.
After graduating from Central High, Jefferson moved to Detroit and attended Wayne State
University before moving to Los Angeles in mid-1961. In Los Angeles, Jefferson served as
treasurer of the NAACP Youth Council and completed his bachelor’s degree in business
administration at Los Angeles State College. After college, he became an accountant for the
U.S. Department of Defense and retired in 2004.
In November of 1999, he visited the White House with the Little Rock Nine to receive the
nation’s highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, from President William Jefferson
Clinton. In May 2001, Ohio Dominican University granted Jefferson a doctorate in humane
letters for his work in human rights and equality advancement.
Choices, 58, 2/12/2016
Carlotta Walls Lanier
In September 1957, Carlotta Walls became the youngest member of the Little Rock Nine, but
when she was born in December of 1942, she was the oldest of Juanita and Cartelyou Walls’
three daughters. A veteran of World War II, her father worked as a brick mason after the
war, and her mother, a graduate of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Little Rock, worked as
a secretary in the Office of Public Housing.
Carlotta attended Stephens Elementary School and moved on to Dunbar Junior High where she
graduated from 9th grade in 1957. She became one of three African Americans who would
begin their high school career by integrating Little Rock Central High School rather than
attending Horace Mann High School. Carlotta planned on becoming a doctor and realized that
the laboratory facilities and science curriculum at Central would prepare her for college better
than Horace Mann could.
Because of her light-colored skin, Little Rock School District Administrators briefly considered
achieving “desegregation” at Central High without anyone noticing if Carlotta became the only
African-American student at the school. Fortunately, the parents of all nine students, as well as
NAACP officials, made sure that potentially dangerous scheme never happened.
Carlotta’s lab partner in biology, Hazel Machon, remembers her as a dedicated student who
worked hard despite frequent interruptions from other students. A gifted athlete, Carlotta
gained some notoriety for successfully ¬– and permanently – fending off one of her perpetual
tormentors.
At the end of the 1957-58 school year, Carlotta, the rest of the Little Rock Nine and Arkansas
NAACP President Mrs. Daisy Bates received the prestigious Spingarn Award from the NAACP
for their heroism and bravery in integrating Central High.
In the fall of 1958, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus closed Little Rock’s public high schools
rather than continue with desegregation. With no school to attend, Carlotta received tutoring
provided by the NAACP to keep up. In the fall of 1959, she returned to Central High with
Jefferson Thomas for their senior year and graduated on May 30, 1960.
Carlotta spent two years at Michigan State University before moving to Denver with her family
so her father could find work. In 1968, she finished her degree at Colorado State College, now
the University of North Colorado, where she sits on the board of trustees. That same year,
she married Ira C. “Ike” LaNier. Carlotta began her career in the nonprofit sector working for
the YWCA as a program administrator and founded her own real estate brokerage firm in 1977.
Choices, 59, 2/12/2016
L.C. & Daisy Gatson Bates
Born in Liberty, Mississippi, Lucious Christopher (L. C.) Bates (1904-1980) grew up in Mississippi
and graduated from high school at Alcorn College in Indianola, Mississippi.
In the 1930s, L.C. Bates met Daisy Lee Gatson (1913-1999), a native and resident of Huttig,
Arkansas. They were married in 1942.
In 1941, they moved to Little Rock and started a newspaper called the Arkansas State Press “on
the conviction that a newspaper was needed to carry on the fight for Negro rights as nothing
else can.” The State Press became the largest African-American paper in the state.
Active members of the Little Rock branch of the National Association for the Advancement for
Colored People (NAACP), the Bateses played crucial roles in addressing the important issues of
voting rights, equal pay and desegregation that affected all black Arkansans.
When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 that
separate schools could not offer equal educational experiences, the Bateses began their
crusade for school desegregation.
L.C. began to outline a process for integration in an editorial published in The State Press. He
called “for calmness, and an unhysterical appraisal of our new venture into a hitherto
undiscovered democracy.”
As President of the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP, Daisy Bates used all of her
diplomatic skills and patience trying to create the path of cooperation laid out by L.C.’s
editorial. She doggedly pursued Little Rock School Board members and administrators to have
them include African Americans help plan the desegregation of the largest school district in the
state.
Daisy and L.C. Bates became repeated targets of violence and destruction by segregationists.
Crosses were burned on their lawn, rocks were thrown through their windows, and a Molotov
cocktail almost burned down their house.
When, unbeknownst to her and the NAACP, Gov. Orval Faubus temporarily blocked the
integration of Central High School by calling out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine
black students from entering the school on September 3, 1957, Mrs. Bates became the contact
person between the African-American community, the high school, the Little Rock Nine and
their parents during the Crisis.
Throughout the Central High crisis, L.C. played a crucial role in protecting his wife, their home
and the Little Rock Nine, as well as publishing the State Press and participating in daily
Choices, 60, 2/12/2016
strategic planning. In 1959, the decline in advertisements from white businesses forced the
Bates to close the newspaper.
After the Crisis, Mrs. Bates moved to New York and wrote her memoir called The Long Shadow
of Little Rock (1962) and then worked for the Democratic National Committee and for
President Johnson’s administration's anti-poverty programs in Washington, D. C. L.C.,
meanwhile, worked as a field representative for the NAACP from 1960 to 1972. After L.C.
Bates’ death on August 22, 1980, Mrs. Bates revived the State Press in 1984 and sold the paper
in 1987. Daisy Bates died on November 4, 1999 and became the first African-American woman
to lie in state at the Arkansas state capitol.
www.arkansasglobecoming.com/featuredstories.aspx?id=8
Choices, 61, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 3 - Choices in Little Rock
Lesson 2 – The Choices Leaders Make
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 90-105 minutes
What decisions made by influential elected officials (School Board, governor,
president) affected school integration in Central High School?
Materials/Preparation:
Eyes on the Prize film clip, “Southern School Desegregation,” 3:28 minutes
“Fighting Back” from Eyes on the Prize: 1) Eisenhower’s press conference and before
riot on September 4 and 2) Part 2 – lawsuit filed by NAACP and Faubus’ reaction to
the decision to send in troops (approx. 6 minutes) [borrow it from FHAO]
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
[Add the Supreme Court Decision Brown v Board to the timeline]
Thinking about turning points, what if Harrisburg School District decided to close half of
their schools and you were forced to attend school in one building with students from
several district schools? Journal about it for 3-4 minutes, 2-3 minutes pair share, and
chart out the ideas. How would you be affected? How would it affect your family? How
would it affect your friends? [Guide students to understand this would be localized
governmental action that would affect all students. Turning point is an event that marks
an important change of course in time.]
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
Federalism, federalizes, Supremacy Clause, States’ Rights, separation of powers,
unanimously, injunction, Executive Branch, public opinion, telegram
Lesson & Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice;
Distributed Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
Add the Supreme Court Decision Brown v Board to the timeline; Guide students to
consider how there could be positive outcomes on future dates to be added to the
timeline.
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Ordering activity of timeline pieces
T chart – positive influences/negative influences; organize it in a T chart to see both
kinds of influences promoted by the governmental leaders
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Choose one of the dates on the timeline and discuss how that decision affected this
time period.
Choices, 62, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District- Acquisition Lesson – Choices In Little Rock
Part 3 - Choices in Little Rock
Lesson 3A – The Choices the Media Made
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society? *
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 30 minutes
What choices were made by the media (reporters, photographers, TV), and what were
the local, national and international effects of those choices?
* This is a good place to interject oral interview process. If so, add 30 additional minutes.
Materials/Preparation
Optional: globe, world map, atlas, laminated activity maps, news clips (Kelly & Tony),
access to Google Earth or Google Maps,
Required: student copies of reproducible 3.8 – Choices TE – p 90 & 91, colored
pencils, LCD projector
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
As a shared reading, read Getting Started & Background Information – Choices TE – p
87 & 88 Emphasize the rights of the media.
Show clips of current events occurring locally and around the world followed by
discussion of how these events as seen on TV impact the students’ beliefs, feelings,
etc. Clips can be found in the resource page of the Harrisburg School District’s FHAO
website.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
peaceful assembly, press, provoke, segregationist, incite, objective observer, editorials
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
A Crisis Heard Around the World – Choices TE – p 88 – reproducible 3.8 or Nystrom
Activity Maps (Use maps, Google Earth, Google Maps, atlas to find locations). Check
maps for accuracy. Use colored pencils to color in areas on the map discussed on p.
90. Follow directions given in activity.
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Groups will share out the results of their map work.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Take a current event topic (such as Michael Vick incident with dog fighting) and have
the students share their feelings about the topic.
Choices, 63, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 3 - Choices in Little Rock
Lesson 3B – The Choices the Media Made
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 30 minutes
What choices were made by the media (reporters, photographers, TV), and what were
the local, national and international effects of those choices?
Materials/Preparation
Two weeks prior to this lesson, contact Sue Anthony (Director of Community
Services) at the Patriot News. Her number is 255-4102 and her email is
santhony@pnco.com
Optional: Thoroughly read both 3.9 & 3.10 as they contain sensitive material.
Students need to be prepared depending on maturity level
Place reproducible 3.9 and 3.10 on transparency, questions from 3.9 & 3.10 placed on
chart paper and posted in room, possible Patriot News reporter as guest speaker,
student prepared questions for the guest speaker
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Contact Sue Anthony at santhony@pnco.com, 255-4102. Visit from a reporter, writer
or photographer from the Patriot News (based on availability). The purpose of this visit
is to talk about their role as an objective reporter in a story. It is also to discuss their
impact on objectivity when it is not adhered to. Students should prepare questions in
advance to ask the speaker.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
peaceful assembly, press, provoke, segregationist, incite, objective observer, editorials
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
What is the role of the media – Choices TE – p 88 – reproducible 3.9 & 3.10
As a Shared Reading – NOT a small group activity – read 3.9 & 3.10. Divide the
students into small groups and allow them to discuss their feelings using some of the
questions found at the bottom of Choices TE – p 93 & 95. Members of the groups
should take notes on their discussion.
Gallery Walk – Be sure to model (Developmental Designs handbook) - Give students a
marker and allow them to transfer their answers on the posted chart paper. Allow
students to then view all answers. Discuss.
Choices, 64, 2/12/2016
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
“Personal Choice Scenario” – In a circle or large group create a scenario where
students have to make a choice. Allow them to whipshare what choice they would
make. Give students opportunity to discuss the consequences of the choices.
Example – Food fight in cafeteria, fight in the hallway, kids are stealing
or
Activities for Exploring Personal Response to Conflict - Continuums –- RDMS – p 207.
Follow game as written.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
In their journal, have students describe a time where they made a choice that they later
regretted. What would they have done differently? How might the situation have
turned out if a different choice had been made?
Choices, 65, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 3.9
“They Spat in My Face”
In her book, Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas branch of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, reported a conversation with Dr. Benjamin Fine, the education
editor of The New York Times. He was among the first reporters to cover the Little Rock story. Fine
came to her house a few days after the National Guard kept Elizabeth Eckford from entering the
school. Bates quotes Fine as saying:
“I was standing in front of the school that day. Suddenly there was a shout —
‘They’re here! The niggers are coming!’ I saw a sweet little girl who looked about
fifteen, walking alone. She tried several times to pass through the guards. The last
time she tried, they put their bayonets in front of her. When they did this, she
became panicky. For a moment she just stood there trembling. Then she seemed to calm
down and started walking toward the bus stop with the mob baying at her
heels like a pack of hounds. The women were shouting, ‘Get her! Lynch her!’ The
men were yelling, ‘Go home, you bastard of a black bitch!’ She finally made it to the bus stop
and sat down on the bench. I sat down beside her and said, ‘I’m a reporter from The New York
Times. May I have your name?’ She just sat there, her head down. Tears were streaming
down her cheeks from under her sunglasses. Daisy, I don’t know what made me put my arm
around her, lifting her chin, saying, ‘Don’t let them see you cry.’ Maybe she reminded me of my
fifteen-year-old daughter, Jill.
“There must have been five hundred around us by this time. I vaguely remember someone
hollering, ‘Get a rope and drag her over to this tree.’ Suddenly I saw a white-haired, kind-faced
woman fighting her way through the mob. She looked at Elizabeth and then screamed at the
mob, ‘Leave this child alone! Why are you tormenting her? Six months from now, you will hang
your heads in shame.’ The mob shouted, ‘Another nigger-lover. Get out of here!’ The woman,
who I found out later was Mrs. Grace Lorch, the wife of Dr. Lee Lorch, professor at Philander
Smith College, turned to me and said, ‘We have to do something. Let’s try to get a cab.’
“We took Elizabeth across the street to the drugstore. I remained on the sidewalk with
Elizabeth while Mrs. Lorch tried to enter the drugstore to call a cab. But the hoodlums
slammed the door in her face and wouldn’t let her in. She pleaded with them to call a cab for
the child. They closed in on her saying, ‘Get out of here, you bitch!’ Just then the city bus
came. Mrs. Lorch and Elizabeth got on. Elizabeth must have been in a state of shock. She
never uttered a word. When the bus pulled away, the mob closed in around me. ‘We saw you
put your arm around that little bitch. Now it’s your turn.’ A drab, middle-aged woman said
viciously, ‘Grab him and kick him in the balls!’ A girl I had seen hustling in one of the local bars
screamed, ‘A dirty New York Jew! Get him!’ A man asked me, ‘Are you a Jew?’ I said, ‘Yes.’
He then said to the mob, ‘Let him be! We’ll take care of him later.’
“The irony of it all, Daisy, is that during all this time the national guardsmen made no effort
to protect Elizabeth or help me. Instead, they threatened to have me arrested for inciting to
riot.”*
Choices, 66, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 3.9 “They Spat in MyFace” questions
1. Why does Benjamin Fine think he tried to help Elizabeth Eckford? Did he do the right thing?
2. What is the danger in a journalist becoming a part of the story he or she is reporting?
3. David Halberstam, a young reporter in the 1950s, wrote that when Ben Fine comforted Elizabeth
Eckford, he lost “his cool.” “He had started to argue with the mob and the Times had been forced to
bring back to New York.”** Halberstam maintains that however a reporter “feels about the events
taking place in front of him, it has to be kept bottled up.” What is he suggesting about the role of a
reporter? To what extent do you think Fine would agree? Did the Times do the right thing when it
replaced Fine with another reporter?
* Daisy Bates, The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir. David McKay, Company, Inc, 1962, 69-71.
** David Halberstam, The Fifties. Fawcett Books, 1993, 681-682.
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 67, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 3.10
“I Decided Not to Run”
The coverage of the Little Rock crisis in Eyes on the Prize shows the mob attacking four
African American journalists — reporters Alex Wilson of the Memphis Tri-State Defender,
James Hicks of the Amsterdam News, Moses J. Newsom of the Afro-American newspapers
and photographer Earl Davy of Little Rock. Wilson was the reporter who was hit with a
brick. Shortly after he was attacked, Wilson wrote about what happened to him on the
morning that the crowd at Central High School turned violent and the choice he made that day:
The disgraceful incident…occurred about 8:20 a.m. Monday, near the 16th and
Park Street entrance of Central High.
I parked my car about two blocks from the intersection. Newsom and I were in
front with Hicks and Davy following, when we began the long, apprehensive walk.
We had firsthand knowledge of where the nine stout-hearted Negro students
were to enter; and we set off at a fast clip to be on hand when they arrived at the
campus entrance.
About midway of the final block, we picked up a tail of two whites. They made
no comment. We kept moving forward.
A crowd of about one hundred faced the school (away from us), waiting for the
nine students to appear.
Then, someone in the crowd of whites spotted us advancing.
Suddenly the angry eyes of the entire pack were upon us. We moved forward to
within ten feet of the mob. Two men spread their arms in eagle fashion. One shouted:
“You’ll not pass!”
I tried to move to the left of the mob, but my efforts were thwarted. I made a
half-turn left from the sidewalk and went over to a Little Rock policeman, who was
standing mid-center of the street.
“What is your business?” he asked. I presented my press card. He took his time
checking it. Then he said: “You better leave. Go on across the sidewalk.”
(away from the mob at my heels).
I followed his suggestion. After taking several steps, I looked back. The officer was
near the opposite sidewalk, leaving the angry pack to track me.
The mob struck. I saw Davy being roughed up. Hicks and Newsom were
retreating from kicks and blows. I stopped momentarily, as the boots and jeers
behind me increased.
Strangely the vision of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine students, flashed before
me as she with dignity strode through a jeering, hooting gauntlet of segregationists
several days ago. Maybe, too, my training as a U.S. Marine in World War II and my
experience as a war correspondent in Korea, and work on the Emmett Till case [a
young African American boy who was lynched in Money, Mississippi for whistling at
a white woman] influenced my decision during that moment of crisis.
I decided not to run. If I were to be beaten, I’d take it walking if I could —
not running.*
Choices, 68, 2/12/2016
Reproducible 3.10 “I Decided Not to Run” questions
1. Why did Wilson refuse to run? What message was he trying to send? At whom was
that message aimed? What individuals and experiences inspired his decision?
2. David Halberstam writes that however a reporter “feels about the events taking place
in front of him, it has to be kept bottled up.” What is Halberstam suggesting about
the role of a reporter? To what extent do you think Alex Wilson would agree?
3. Why do you think Wilson and the other African American reporters found
themselves part of the story rather than simply as reporters of the story?
What is the danger in becoming part of the story?
* Quoted in A Life Is More Than a Moment: The Desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High by Will
Counts. Indiana University Press, 1999, 49, 51.
© 2005 Facing History and Ourselves
Choices, 69, 2/12/2016
The team may want to do the following activities during Advisory Time.
Choices, 70, 2/12/2016
Choices, 71, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 3 - Choices in Little Rock
Lesson 3C – The Choices the Media Made
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 30 minutes
What choices were made by the media (reporters, photographers, TV), and what were
the local, national and international effects of those choices?
Materials/Preparation:
Current editorials/Letter to the editor, Overhead projector, Video clip from Eyes on
the Prize – for more information go to PBS.org. Use Reproducible 3.10, p. 96,
transparency of Elizabeth Eckford and quotation. This photo appeared in an ad
paid for by a white man in a small town in Arkansas. The ad reads, “If you live in
Arkansas, study this picture and know shame. When hate is unleashed and bigotry
finds a voice, God help us all.”
Reproducibles 3.10 and 3.11
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
“Holding Up a Mirror” – Choices TE p.89 (paragraph 1) Reshow clip from the section
Fighting Back from the video Eyes on the Prize,. Follow activity. Remember to show
the video the 2nd time with NO SOUND. In their journals, have students write for a
minute or two about how they feel after looking at the video clip.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
peaceful assembly, provoke, segregationist, incite, objective observer, editorials
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
Holding up a Mirror – Choices TE – p 89 - ¶ 2. Show transparency of Elizabeth
Eckford being taunted with the quote: “This photo appeared in an ad paid for by a
white man in a small town in Arkansas. The ad read, “If you live in Arkansas, study
this picture and know shame. When hate is unleashed and bigotry finds a voice, God
help us all.” Follow activity Choices TE – p 96 – Reproducible 3.11
Optional: Discuss what Hazel Massery must have felt and thought after that day and
in the years to come. In 1962, five years after the crisis in Little Rock, Hazel Bryan
Massery called Elizabeth Eckford on the telephone. She later told an interviewer:”I
don’t know what triggered it, but one day I just started squalling about how she must
have felt. I felt so bad that I had done this that I called her and apologized to her. I told
her I was sorry that I had done that I was not thinking for myself. I think both of us were
crying."
Choices, 72, 2/12/2016
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to
Initiate Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Show historical images/photographs found on the district’s FHAO website. First, show
the image without the caption. How does this photo make you feel/what are you
thinking? What do you think this photo shows? Then show the same photo with the
caption explaining its background. Have students answer the following questions in
their journal: which picture stands out the most in your mind? Why did that picture
affect you so much? What specific details in the picture made you select it?
What emotions did it evoke?
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
On a notecard or piece of paper … Look again at the photo of the girl taunting
Elizabeth Eckford. What question would you have asked that girl if you were a
bystander that day? How do you think she would have responded?
Choices, 73, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 3 - Choices in Little Rock
Lesson 4 – The Choices the Students Made
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 60 minutes
What choices were made by the students at Central High School, and what were the
important consequences of those choices?
Materials/Preparation:
chart paper, post its, markers, Elizabeth Jacoway background information
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Read to students the background on Elizabeth Jacoway (attached).
Quote from Elizabeth Jacoway. “At the time, I was cocooned away from the
controversy in a protective shell that was typical for white southern ‘good girls.’ My
Uncle, Virgil Blossom, was superintendent of schools, but I was more interested in the
fact that my cousin was a cheerleader and popular.”
Have the students spend a few minutes thinking about the quote. Do you think
Elizabeth was in denial? Do you think she really knew what was going on? Think
about a time in school when a controversial incident occurred (fighting, bullying, name
calling, cheating) – what was your reaction? Was it possible for you to ignore it? Did
you join in or were you a bystander? Why did you make that choice?
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
controversy, cocoon, retaliation, empty apology
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
*** The following are lesson ideas to show how students during the Little Rock incident
felt and responded. You may choose to use any or all of the following ideas.*** We
suggest that you complete #1, #5, #6 and #7. If time permits, complete #2, #3 and #4.
Discuss Pie Chart entitled Student Population of Central High School in 1957. Discuss
how it only takes a few people to coerce/influence/intimidate a group into either action
or silence.
1. Getting Started – Choices TE – p 97 - ¶ 2. Use reproducible 3.13 as a read aloud or
shared reading. Have the students break up into pairs and answer questions on p104.
As an entire class, share out answers. What should students do?
Choices, 74, 2/12/2016
2. Creating an Identity Chart for Carlotta Walls – Choices TE – p98 – Reproducible
3.14. Create an identity chart, web or bag for Carlotta (see Unit 1, Lesson 1). Class
discussion.
3. Identifying Point of View (Big Paper) – Choices TE – p98 – Reproducible 3.14
4. Comparing Identity Charts – Choices TE – p99 – Reproducible 3.15 – Discuss
whether an “empty apology” is a better choice than no apology.
5. Reader’s Theater – Choices TE – pg 99 – Reproducible 3.16 – Allow students to
role play scene. Using graphic organizer, complete chart and use questions at bottom
of pg99 as a graded writing assignment.
6. Expressing an Opinion – Choices TE – pg100 – Reproducible 3.17 – These are
examples of courageous choices that were made at Central High School.
7. Last Word – Choices TE – pg100 – Reproducible 3.18 – Ernest Green &
Graduation Day. Students, in their journal, should make predictions of what they think
happened at graduation. Read 3.18 and discuss questions
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Choose one of the three available writing suggestions – Choices TE – pg100. Have
students respond in their journals or as a graded assignment. These activities can
also be used as a whipshare or class discussion.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Journal what choice made by a student at Central High School impressed you the
most? Why? Include the name of the person you chose and briefly describe the
incident. Relate a time, in your life, when a choice was made that left an impression
on you personally.
This could be the start of a published work.
Choices, 75, 2/12/2016
Elizabeth Jacoway
Elizabeth Jacoway grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she
lived through the Little Rock desegregation crisis of 1957 –
1959, but failed to question what was happening in her
community. Her eyes were opened when she went to college.
She has spent the past 30 years investigating the Little Rock
crisis by interviewing every available participant.
Choices, 76, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 3 - Choices in Little Rock
Lesson 5A – The Choices the Community Made
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 90 minutes
What choices were made by the adults at Central High School, and what were the
important consequences of those choices?
Materials/Preparation:
Chart paper, student copies of Reproducible 3.19, highlighters, overhead of #1
Reproducible 3.19, highlighters for each student, 3x5 cards
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Place quote by Minnijean Brown on morning meeting board – Getting Started –
Choices TE – pg.118. The quote: “People make choices. There was no script for this
event. Some chose to treat us the way they did and some people chose to sit by and
do nothing.” Explain to them that students were not the only people who made choices
in Little Rock. Adults made decisions too.
In morning meeting, during share time, or in their journals students should talk about:
Who are the adults that make decisions that impact your life? Think of a time an adult
made a decision that affected you. Did it have a positive or a negative impact on your
life? How did this make you feel? (What you can/can’t eat in the house, are you
allowed to go to parties?, when is your curfew?, are you permitted to date)
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
segregationists, aggression, petitions, moderates, extremists
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Categorizing Decisions” – Choices TE – pg. 119 - Reproducible 3.19
Use #1 of Reproducible 3.19 as a shared reading. Have students orally answer the
question: What choice was made by the adults and what were the consequences?
Teacher should model highlights the choice and the consequence. Students should
highlight on their copy.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Break students into 4 small groups.
Assign section #2, #3, #4 and #5 from Reproducible 3.19
Have the students read their section in their small group.
Discuss any parts that they do not understand or are confusing (teacher should
circulate room)
5. Name the adult/adults that the section describes
6. Highlight the “choices” the adults made and consequences of those choices.
Choices, 77, 2/12/2016
7. Which of the actions of the adults are considered “acts of good citizenship”?
8. On chart paper, teacher should model a T chart with the headings “decisions”
and “consequences” and should use #1.
9. Groups should come up and complete T-chart noting whether it is a positive or
negative choice by placing a + or a – beside the choice.
10. At the completion of the T-chart, teacher will facilitate a discussion on the
overall choices and consequences.
Follow up activity:
“Categorizing Decisions” - Choices TE – pg119, ¶2 - Discuss moderate and extremist
positions. Follow directions as written. These words could then be added besides the
names of the adults on the T-chart.
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
On a 3x5 card, have the students chose 2 questions to answer and turn in for a grade.
1. What does it mean to be a good citizen?
2. What is the role of a citizen in a democracy?
3. How does the silence of ordinary citizens give power to people who hold
extreme views?
4. Who decides what are a moderate position and an extreme position?
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
In your student journal, from this lesson or from Warriors Don’t Cry, what choice made
by an adult stood out to you the most? Why? Include the name of the person you
chose and briefly describe the incident.
Choices, 78, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 3 - Choices in Little Rock
Lesson 5B – The Choices the Community Made
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 45 minutes
What choices were made by the adults at Central High School, and what were the
important consequences of those choices?
Materials/Preparation:
definitions of words listed in activating strategies, chart paper, markers, overhead of
Hollingsworth quote – Choices TE – p119 – “The shocking thing to me in 1957 was the
number of whites who didn’t participate in the aggression, who wouldn’t do anything
but look. Neighbors would express dismay, but wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t speak
out against it, would go ahead and close their doors to it.”
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
What is a bystander? Is being a bystander always negative or positive? Discuss.
Place the following words on the board or chart paper: instigator, observer, spectator,
upstander (person who gets involved and stands up for what is right), innocent
bystander and witness. Define each word. Next, place a word on a spider web. Can
you think of a situation where you were in one of these roles? How could your
actions/lack of actions have changed the outcome? Place students’ responses on
web. See example following using the word “instigator.”
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
segregationists, aggression, petitions, moderates, extremists
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
From the information gleaned from the class discussion during the activating
strategies, chose one of the events or use one such as “you are working in a store and
catch your best friend stealing…” “You are in a car involved in an accident and the
person driving leaves the scene...” “You know where and when two people are going
to fight….” What is the difference between getting someone in trouble (snitching)
versus doing the right thing? Would you tell because the person did something wrong
to someone else or just because you want that person to get in trouble? How can you
intervene without snitching? When is it worth losing a friendship? (Teacher should
share his or her own personal stories)
Discuss how the events would change if the bystander became an upstander.
*** The above can be done as either a small group or entire group discussion ***
Choices, 79, 2/12/2016
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
“Big Paper” Choices TE – p.119. Follow as written in the binder.
***The following is an optional activity to the one in the binder. ***
Discuss the quote by Perlesta Hollingsworth – Choices TE – p.119 using it as an
overhead transparency. Suggested prompts for making inferences: “I wonder why
the people did nothing.” or “I wonder why they were so surprised.” or “I wonder why
they were scared.” or “I wonder why they didn’t participate in the aggression.” or “I
wonder what would have happened if they did get involved. or “I wonder what they
were talking about around the dinner table.” or “I wonder if they had a guilty
conscience.” AND “I wonder what they would do today in a similar situation.” or “I
wonder if they are proud or embarrassed by their choices?” or “I wonder what they told
their grandchildren.”
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question:
As a whipshare: How do you think the silence of ordinary people gave power to the
mob that gathered outside of Central High School?
Choices, 80, 2/12/2016
This diagram created using Inspiration® 7.5a by Inspiration Software®, Inc.
Choices, 81, 2/12/2016
Perlesta Hollingsworth Quotation
Perlesta Hollingsworth was an African American woman who
lived near Central High in 1957. She is quoted as saying:
“The shocking thing to me in 1957 was the number of whites
who didn’t participate in the aggression, who wouldn’t do
anything but look. Neighbors would express dismay, but
wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t speak out against it, would go
ahead and close their doors to it.”
Choices, 82, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 4 - The “Lost Year”
Lesson 1A – The State v. the Federal Courts
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 45 minutes
What were the consequences of the decisions made by adults and students the
following year?
Materials/Preparation:
For background knowledge, teachers must read “Background Information” – Choices
TE – p128, “Getting Started” Choices TE - p128, and “Activity: Analyzing a Time Line,
Choices TE – p129, ¶1
Optional – place each date from timeline (reproducible 4.1) from Choices TE –
p130/131 on a separate sheet of cardstock if timeline is used as a student activity. The
information should be on both sides of paper so that the students don’t have to turn
their cards around. Try to have enough dates so that each student can participate
(additional dates can be located on the Little Rock website and follow this lesson plan)
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Show a School House Rock video about the Supreme Court. Watch once or twice and
then show one last time while the students complete a graphic organizer or take notes.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
intent, pass (as in pass a bill), appeal, justices, election, constitutionality, unanimous,
court of appeals, annul, issue (verb), enact, boycott, police state, prosecute
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers
Choices TE – p130 Give situations of real life turning points. Examples: a fumble in a
football game; your mother loses her job; you make the football team or cheerleading
squad.
Have teacher share a personal turning point and then whipshare with students a
personal turning point of their own.
Getting Started – Choices TE – p.128 – Using an overhead, read aloud the following:
Ernest Greene’s (the oldest of the Little Rock 9) graduation did not end the crisis in
Little Rock. As early as February of 1958, the Little Rock school board has asked the
federal courts to delay integration until 1961. Not long after the school year ended, a
district court allowed the delay. When the NAACP appealed the decision, the case
eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Predict:
1. What decision do you think the Supreme Court reached in 1958? Did they vote
to force Little Rock to integrate or did they vote to hold off on integration of
Choices, 83, 2/12/2016
public schools?
2. How will the decision affect Little Rock’s schools?
Discuss the answers to the questions above. Make sure that you discuss both options.
The teacher must next explain to the students that the Supreme Court justices decided
(ruled) that school integration must continue. The ruling was made public that day
without reasons/explanations. It then took the justices until September 29 (approx. 2
weeks) to make public the reasons why they decided that school integration must
continue. This is a common procedure for the Supreme Court. This information is
necessary so that students do not get confused on the timeline activity.
Analyzing a Timeline – Choices TE – p.129 Using reproducible 4.1 – Choices TE –
p130 follow activity as written in TE
OR
Using the timeline that you copied on cardstock, pass the dates out to the students in
random order. (Remember that you can use the Little Rock website for additional
dates.) Have students line up in chronological order silently. After they are in order,
have the students space themselves out so that they can visually see how much time
happened between some of the events and how quickly others happened. Have each
student read aloud their date and event. Discuss with students the spacing (teacher
may need to adjust students). Explain that certain dates from this timeline will be
discussed in the following activity.
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Discuss as an entire class which dates from the timeline are important to the story of
Little Rock. Ask the students to journal which dates they believe most significant.
Have them list the date/dates and justify why.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Imagine you are on the Supreme Court and you have just ruled that Little Rock must
continue integration. Now you and the other justices need to explain your reasons.
Work in small groups (2-3 students) to discuss and come up with one or more
reason(s) for your decision. For example: it’s not fair to treat others differently because
of their skin color; the law applies to everyone. Group members must note “reasons”
on index cards to be turned in for the next lesson.
Teacher should collect student responses and use for activating in the next
lesson.
Choices, 84, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 4 - The “Lost Year”
Lesson 1B – The State v. the Federal Courts
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing – 45 minutes
What were the consequences of the decisions made by adults and students the
following year?
Materials/Preparation:
Student responses on index cards from unit 4 lesson 1.1final summarizing activity,
Reproducible 4.2 transparency and copies for students, Highlighters in different colors
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Review previous lesson Summarizing Strategy activity. Return student responses to
each group. One student from each group reports their “Supreme Court”
reasons/opinions. The rest of the class acts as the public responding to reasons by
giving a thumbs up or thumbs down (or neutral sideways thumb). For students who
gave thumbs down be sure to ask for explanation of their response.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
Intent, Supreme Court, legislature, postpone, overturn, pass (as in pass a bill), appeal,
justices, election, constitutionality, unanimous, court of appeals, annul, enact, issue
(verb), boycott, officials, “in good faith,” “binding effect,” prevailed, indispensable,
“living truth.”
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Reporting a Supreme Court Decision” - Choices TE – p.129. Read reproducible 4.2
together as shared reading. Afterwards, teacher facilitates a discussion to identify the
main ideas and answer the questions at the end of reproducible. Use a different color
to highlight the information relevant to each question. Example: highlight in pink the
answer to #1; highlight yellow #2; Highlight green #3
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
In small groups, students use the answers to the questions at the end of reproducible
4.2 to write a short news story about the Supreme Court decision (be sure to
distinguish a news story from an editorial). Students should read their paper and could
present it as a newscast. Discuss as a class how this story would be reported in the
news today.
Choices, 85, 2/12/2016
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Whipshare - How do you think the court decision (integration of Central High) will affect
Central High School and the community? Teacher should chart responses and post in
the classroom for use the next lessons activating strategy.
Choices, 86, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 4 - The “Lost Year”
Lesson 2A – The Lost Year “explained”
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 30 minutes
Why was 1958–1959 school year in Little Rock, Arkansas called the “Lost Year”?
Materials/Preparation
Overhead copy and student copies of Getting Started & Background Information –
Choices TE – p.135, Overhead copy/chart paper copy and student copies of cause &
effect graphic organizer (teacher will need to adjust), highlighters
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Revisit the chart from the summarizing strategies section of Unit 4 Lesson 1.2.
Teacher will need to stimulate discussion and allow students to add comments and
discuss further.
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
Metaphor
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Getting Started” & “Background Information” – Choices TE – p.135 Use the overhead
as a whole class shared reading. Go back over reading and have students highlight
the information they feel shows what happened after the Supreme Court decision.
Using a cause & effect graphic organizer chart the following:
Cause = Supreme Court decision (Cooper v. Aaron which stated that schools needed
to integrate immediately and that individual states could not overturn the Supreme
Courts decision.)
Effects = For the information to be placed in the effect section of the graphic organizer,
use reproducible 4.5 timeline – Choices TE – p. 146 and/or “Getting Started” &
“Background Information.”
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
In the students journals, have them write a paragraph using the information from the
graphic organizer. Students should write a paragraph describing how the Supreme
Court decision had many lasting effects on the people of Little Rock.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
As a whipshare discuss what was lost during the “Lost Year”.
Choices, 87, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 4 - The “Lost Year”
Lesson 2B – Shaping Public Opinion
UEQ – How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?
Lesson Essential Question: Suggested timing = 30 minutes
What are the most and least effective methods used by individuals and groups to try to
shape public opinion today?
Materials/Preparation:
Student copies of Reproducible 4.3 and ads in packet A & B - Be sure that each group
has a mixture of visual cartoons and printed ads by combining A & B; commercials or
political ads/videos (see link), reproducible 4.4, reproducible 4.5
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
Show political video LINK , fun commercials (axe body spray), etc. used to sway
public opinion. Have they explain which methods seem most effective and least
effective (propaganda techniques…role models, transference, celebrity appeal, expert
testimony, fear tactics, happy family).
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
sway, public opinion, campaign, purge, recall, Chamber of Commerce, authorized
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
“Analyzing Political Ads” – Choices TE – p 136. “Reading the Ads” - Choices TE –
p138. Complete reproducible 4.3 questions as students read and discuss ads in their
small groups. In an entire class setting, have students share out what they discussed
in their small groups. Be sure to explain the 5 questions from Reproducible 4.3 before
sending students off into small groups. Teacher should roam the room to ensure that
students have answers to any questions they may have.
“Creating a Persuasive Message” – Choices TE – p. 136 & 137. Follow as written in
the binder. “Designing a Campaign” - Reproducible 4.4 – Choices TE – p. 144 & 145.
Use reproducible 4.4. You may use the lesson as listed or alter it to a current
campaign. Students should present their campaign ads to the class.
Choices, 88, 2/12/2016
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts:
Choices TE – p. 146 - Using reproducible 4.5, teacher should share with students the
results of the Little Rock propaganda campaign that resulted in an election on
December 6, 1958. Teacher can use a cause & effect graphic organizer. The cause
being the December 6th school board election and the effects are all the events that
are found on the timeline after December 6th.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Place the following information on chart paper or the board: Rev. Colbert Cartwright of
the Pulaski Heights Christian Church said of the “lost year, ” “In the end, the law could
not do it. A group of very dedicated people … [rallied] support to take back the schools
and work on the desegregation problem.” Whipshare with students what lesson can
be learned from this. Be sure to emphasize to the students that the lesson is that
“people themselves had to take responsibility for what they wanted their community to
be…”
Choices, 89, 2/12/2016
Harrisburg School District - Acquisition Lesson – Choices in Little Rock
Part 5 - Legacies
UEQ – What are the legacies of the choices citizens make, individually and collectively?
Lesson Essential Question:
What lessons did the people of Little Rock and the nation learn from the crisis over
desegregation?
Activating Strategies: (Learners Mentally Active)
“Has America become less racist?” [article from Andrew Freas]
Acceleration/Previewing: (Key Vocabulary)
Teaching Strategies: (Collaborative Pairs; Distributed Guided Practice; Distributed
Summarizing; Graphic Organizers)
Distributed Guided Practice/Summarizing Prompts: (Prompts Designed to Initiate
Periodic Practice or Summarizing)
Share oral histories to assess the legacies individuals have experienced.
Summarizing Strategies: Learners Summarize & Answer Essential Question
Choices, 90, 2/12/2016