In this classroom simulation, students travel back in time to 1945, when racism was institutionalized in many states through segregation. Though students cannot literally travel back to the Jim Crow era, teachers can create a situation that brings home the point of injustice and the choices individuals are faced with in such situations. Suddenly,…

This lesson focuses on the post-Reconstruction South and the social practices based on race and skin color that hindered the South's growth as a region and relegated many people to the status of second-class citizens, in spite of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. The lesson provides historical background and outlines a task for students to…

Outlines class activities to help students understand how the U.S. Supreme Court reaches its decisions and how the decisions change over time. Includes objectives, resources, issues and questions, procedures, and evaluations. Suggests that students will learn the facts and issues of important civil rights cases and form opinions on the decisions.…

This unit is one of a series that represents specific moments in history from which students focus on the meanings of landmark events. This unit focuses on the black experience in the critical years after Reconstruction. Using the landmark decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the unit opens with an examination of conditions in black America…