Eleanor Roosevelt's support of African American rights was one of the highlights of her activities as first lady. Her fearless advocacy for justice pulled her into political controversies that were unprecedented for the wife of a president. The first lady's initiatives in support of the rights of African Americans offer students an excellent…

Presents an essay dealing with two nineteenth-century incidents of religious intolerance. Recounts the story of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, who was murdered by opponents of the new religion. Explains how the writings of Presbyterian minister and newspaper publisher, Elijah Lovejoy, set off a response that led to his death. (SG)

Describes the political struggles of the Teacher's Educational League in Buffalo, New York, and its founder, Mary A. O'Conner. Discusses the issues and problems women teachers encountered in attempts to reform teacher administrator relations. Traces the league's challenge to the Board of Education and the state of New York; explains that many of…

Describes the Nashville (Tennessee) lunch-counter sit-ins in 1960, civil-rights demonstrations led by students, and the resultant boycott of downtown businesses by blacks and sympathetic, or uneasy, whites. Many participants in the Nashville sit-ins went on to larger roles in the civil-rights movement. (SLD)

Examines John Stuart Mill's writings on women with respect to their reception in and their application to the American scene from 1850 to the 1870s. Concludes that the implications were accepted by a significant portion of American society in the 1970s, a full century after Mill's publication. Journal availability: see SO 507 179. (Author/DB)

This paper provides teachers with information about the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and makes available instructional procedures and resources for teaching about the Klan. First, some ideas are presented for dealing with the unusual emotional climate that can arise when the KKK is discussed in a classroom. Next, a brief history of the KKK is provided,…

The Woman Suffrage Movement experienced ideological changes so that earlier and later suffragists had different views. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert was one reformer who first criticized female socialization and the system of separate spheres. Later her views became more sentimental and she idealized the traditional role of women. (VM)

Examines the "Promiscuous Audience" charge against activist women in the 1830s--its emergence, persuasive force, motivations, and responses to it. Shows how, in establishing their right to speak from public platforms, activist women did not rely on natural law or Constitutional appeals, but rather emphasized the special nature of female…

This biography for younger readers depicts the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Nobel Peace Prize winner who dedicated himself to the struggle for equal rights for African Americans while embracing the principle of nonviolent resistance. The book presents an overview of the civil rights movement and chronicles King's role as national leader…

Provides a historical grounding for debates over writing pedagogy and multiculturalism. Examines responses in composition to events in 1968 in order to develop a framework for comprehending current issues in composition studies. Uses E. Corbett's 1969 article "The Rhetoric of the Closed Fist and the Rhetoric of the Open Hand" as a rhetorical…

A detailed examination of the Vietnam war demonstrations on the Iowa State University campus and in Ames (Iowa) in May 1970, utilizing local and student newspaper accounts and interviews contained in an oral history archive, show how words of protest along with critically reasoned behavior led to purposeful student contributions. Through the…

This biography for younger readers presents the life of Stokely Carmichael, who made famous the phrase "Black Power" as he fought for the rights of black people in the United States and who later settled in Africa, where he organizes young Africans to work for their rights. The book is introduced by an overview of the civil rights…

This review of literature dealing with Black political activism suggests that most of the political ideas generated within the Civil Rights movement are not original; these ideas are merely restatements of previous traditions of Black political activism in the United States. (Author/EB)

Sarah Winnemucca was a full-blood Paiute Indian born in 1844 in Nevada. The Paiute hunted and gathered and lived in wigwams constructed of branches, brush, and hides. Sarah's grandfather, Captain Truckee, befriended the explorer John C. Fremont and went with him to California. Captain Truckee admired White people's clothing and houses and,…

Although the suppression in 1917 of "The Masses," an influential Socialist magazine, has been depicted as an American tragedy, such a narrow interpretation ignores the bizarre, confused, often comic developments and episodes that attended the magazine's end. A reexamination of the demise of "The Masses" has been made to show…