The C3 Framework prompts middle school and high school students to assess the ways people have worked to promote the common good. The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework. It also summons students to take informed action. One way that Wendy Harris, a high school social studies teacher at a Deaf school in Saint Paul, MN, advance this goal…

After a 72-year struggle, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote in 1920. Coupled with the Fifteenth Amendment, which extended voting rights to African American men, the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment transformed the power and potency of the American electorate. This article invites the…

Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange's photojournalist activism during World War II was a direct response to President Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 (EO 9066), which led to the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans in 10 camps across seven mostly western states. Approximately two-thirds of those imprisoned were U.S.…

The nationwide commemoration in 2020 of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment is an opportunity to explore not only women's long struggle to achieve this landmark moment, but also to engage in an exploration of women's civic engagement during the woman suffrage movement. The terms "woman suffrage" and "suffragist" often…

From statues to picture books, the depictions of suffragists do not always do justice to the complexity of the issues and activists who fought for the 19th Amendment, which provided that "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 sex." This…

When John Lewis sought to change segregation laws in 1960 Nashville, Tennessee, he did so through nonviolent sit-ins. Throughout U.S. history, activists like John Lewis have turned to social change tactics outside of the institutions of democracy from which they have been largely excluded. However, social studies curricula rarely frame these…

The 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, a year after being passed by Congress. It extended the right to vote to many women, but not all. Excluded from this landmark constitutional victory were women like Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, who was born in Guangzhou (then Canton), China, in 1896, but who immigrated to New York as a child. From 1882 to…

A project-based approach to studying the civil rights movement can stimulate student engagement and their sense of connection to this historic period. The authors taught this project-based learning (PBL) unit on the American civil rights movement multiple times in the past 10 years to classes of middle school, high school general education,…

In 1957, a civil rights organization called Fellowship of Reconciliation created a comic book to teach America's youth about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Entitled "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story," the comic book was enormously successful. John Lewis, a young civil rights activist at the time, recalled that the book was…

A lesson exploring the Pledge of Allegiance, its history, and the addition of the phrase "under God," can serve as a jumping off point into major themes of U.S. history and First Amendment freedoms. Although the Pledge is ubiquitous in contemporary America, educators and students are often uninformed about the history and meaning of the…

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…

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,…

Growing up in an era when protest at national political conventions is carefully contained in "free-speech zones" (often physically removed from the site of the official conventions), students today may have a difficult time conceptualizing the tumultuous scene that was the 1968 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago. Fueled by…

Describes the author's experience with the Vietnam War as a deferred civilian. Traces his movement from general knowledge of the war to active opposition to it. Discusses his involvement in the peace movement and his experiences in teaching a course on the war. (GEA)

Provides historical information on the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" and the role of A. Philip Randolph who originally conceived the idea for the March. Features a letter from A. Philip Randolph to President John F. Kennedy. Includes a list of teaching activities. (CMK)