"Mendez v. Westminster," a case about 1940s Mexican American school segregation, is a new vehicle for including Mexican Americans into U.S. history classrooms. This study explores how a class of primarily Mexican American students, who because of their heritage might develop a personal connection to the case, made sense of…

The current canons of education are replete with suggestions for how to raise the achievement of Hispanic and Latino students. Absent from that discussion is what to teach them in a way that anchors them to their uniquely American culture and history. The author considers how Mexican-American history is often taught as if it were an offshoot of…

This article presents an interview with Robert George, who holds Princeton's celebrated McCormick Chair in Jurisprudence and is the founding director of the James Madison Program. George has served on the President's Council on Bioethics and as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He is also a member of the…

Drawing on data from a historical-ethnographic study of the cultural politics of school desegregation in Seattle, USA, the author explores suffering as a recurring theme in the narratives of four black leaders, educators and activists involved in the struggle for black educational opportunity in that city during the post-Civil Rights Era. As these…

This article presents an interview with Dr. Edward Ayers, a recognized expert on Southern history and president of the University of Richmond. According to Dr. Ayers, 2011 marks the start of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and the emancipation of African-Americans. It is an important distinction based on the evolution of Civil War…

A typical U.S. high school student today might be able to recite some milestones of civil rights history--the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56; the Freedom Rides of 1961; and (some would add) the election of the first African American president in 2008. But how many students understand that these events, which historians call out as milestones,…

"A People's History for the Classroom" helps teachers introduce students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of U.S. history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. It includes a new introductory essay by veteran teacher Bill Bigelow on teaching strategies that align with Howard Zinn's "A People's…

This article examines the complex social production of white racial identity. Specifically, the author theorizes white people's fear of people of color and make a case for conceiving of white racial identities as profoundly ambivalent. Drawing from a larger ethnographic interview study conducted in a small, rural, white community in the Midwest of…

The mid-1960s saw civil rights victories in Congress during Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency. In "Going Down Jericho Road," Michael Honey wrote how Martin Luther King Jr.'s final focus showed that the struggle for black and working class parity continued. The 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike was a gritty struggle won in the streets by a host…

This article discusses how students can convert the shameful history of sundown towns in America into a rich opportunity for setting the record straight. The study of sundown towns across the nation can lead classes into exploration of the often unexamined role of race in their daily lives. It likewise opens the door to more general discussions of…

This research extends a continuing line of inquiry investigating how multimedia resources might be joined with other support structures to effectively implement problem-based inquiry (PBI) activities in secondary history classrooms. Two history teachers with experience in PBI implemented a technology-supported problem-based civil rights unit in…

Discusses the audio documentary series entitled "Will the Circle be Unbroken?" that uses the oral histories of more than 250 people to tell the story of the Civil Rights Movement. Provides excerpts from "Episode 12: Nine for Justice" that involved school integration in Little Rock (Arkansas) and sample lessons to accompany the…

This paper uses classroom observations of two high school social studies teachers' units about the U.S. civil rights movement and interviews with students in each class to explore the relationship between teachers' practices and students' understandings of history. The paper's analysis suggests that, while there is not sufficient evidence to…

Recognizes the importance of using oral history in the study of the U.S. civil rights movement in particular and social movements in general. Explains that oral narratives can yield evidence that is rarely available in contemporary written records. Can also document the emergence of racial, class, and ideological divisions within the civil rights…

Discusses oral history as a means to connect national events with the lives of individual people. Relates the information from student oral term paper interviews, focusing on topics such as the Vietnam War, the Great Depression, civil rights and school integration, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. (CMK)