TeachRock

Motivational Activity:

1. Play Clip 1, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and instruct students to take notes. Then ask students:
   • Why were schools segregated?
   • According to the video, where was segregation “outlawed”?
   • What branch of the U.S. government “outlawed” segregation and what year did it happen?
   • How did students contribute to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka? How might students have contributed to the Civil Rights Movement in general?

Procedure

Part 1: Student Activism

1. Inform students that they will be examining how students organized to protest racial segregation before and after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, and how music served as an organizing tool for their protests.
2. Display Image 1, Map of Student Activism in School Segregation, 1951 – 1969. In small groups or as a class, consider the following questions: 
   • What is causing students to take action? (Hint: Examine the title of the map.)
     
   • What might the location of these events suggest about school segregation? 
   • What might the timespan of these events suggest about school segregation? 
   • How might students have heard about protests so they knew to attend?
3. Display Image 2, Music as an Organizing Tool quote. Inform students that Black radio DJs contributed to the Civil Rights Movement by featuring Civil Rights leaders on their programs, surreptitiously promoting Civil Rights rallies over the air, and covertly playing music that signaled activists to take action. (The role of Black DJs in the Civil Rights Movement can be explored further in the Extension Activities section.) Then ask students:
   • Why might a song be a good tool for organizing people into action?
   • How might the title of a song or themes expressed in the lyrics of a song be important when organizing people to take action?
4. Explain to students that they will be they will be exploring in more detail some of the protest events that took place on the map they saw earlier.
5. Distribute Handout – Student Activism Station Activity Guide. Instruct students to organize into groups and assign a station for each group to visit. (Students may visit multiple stations if time allows.) Explain to the groups that at their station they will read an overview of the event, read a song title and a brief excerpt of the song’s lyrics, and view record covers of the song’s performers. They will then complete the Station Activity Guide and choose a song that they feel best matches with their Civil Rights student activism event.
   • Station 1: Student Activism in Farmville, Virginia in 1951
     • Materials Packet
   • Station 2: Student Activism in Kinston, North Carolina in 1951
     • Materials Packet
   • Station 3: Student Activism in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963
     • Materials Packet
   • Station 4: Student Activism in New York, New York in 1964
     • Materials Packet
6. Bring student groups back together to share their answers to the comprehension questions and explain their song selection using the lyrics as evidence.

Part 2: Student Organizations

1. Inform students that now they will be examining student organizations during the Civil Rights Movement and how music served as an organizing tool. Then ask students:
   • Do you think racial segregation was happening in places beyond schools at this time? What sorts of places? 
   • Do you think students protested at these other places? How might have they protested? 
2. Play the video “The Sit-In Movement” by Voices of the Civil Rights Movement and instruct students to take notes. (Warning: the video contains images of violence and accounts of racism.) Then ask students:
   • Who started the sit-in movement? Where did it begin?
   • How did a sit-in take place? What was the purpose of a sit-in? 
   • What new student organization helped the sit-in movement?
3. Distribute Handout – Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Ask student volunteers to read the text aloud and for all students to circle any words and phrases that they recognize and any that they do not. Then ask students:
   • How did the SNCC interact with the SCLC and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?
   • Why might the SNCC have taken their independent approach? 
   • What veteran civil rights organizer and SCLC official encouraged the founding of the SNCC? 
4. Play the video “Ella Baker: ‘The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement’” by Black History in Two Minutes (or so). Then ask students:
   • For what reason is Ella Baker “reverentially known as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”? 
   • What advice did she give members of the SNCC when they visited rural areas promoting Civil Rights? 
   • What did she encourage young people in the Civil Rights Movement to do?
5. Display Image 3, SNCC buttons. Inform students that these are SNCC buttons that members and others could wear. Ask students:
   
   • How might the SNCC buttons represent the aspirations of the Civil Rights Movement? 
   • Do you recognize the “We Shall Overcome” text? If so, what is it? (If necessary, inform students that “We Shall Overcome” was an important song in the Civil Rights Movement, was often sung at movement events, and has been referred to as the anthem of the movement.)
6. Play Clip 2, “We Shall Overcome.” Inform students that the singing is led by the Freedom Singers, a music group of student Civil Rights activists.
7. Distribute Handout – The Freedom Singers. Ask student volunteers to read the text aloud and for all students to circle any words or phrases that they recognize and any that they do not. 
   • Of what movement was the Freedom Singers leader Cordell Reagon a “veteran”? What played an “important role” in that movement? 
   • In what ways did the Freedom Singers represent how students led during the Civil Rights Movement and how music was an organizing tool?

Summary Activity:

1. Explain to students that they are now going to take on the role of a student organization. Instruct students to organize into groups and explain that each group will need to: 
   • Choose a contemporary cause of their choice. 
   • Choose an organized action to call attention to their cause (for example: a school walkout, school boycott, sit-in, or another nonviolent action). 
   • Choose a song that represents their cause and could be used as an organizing tool to signal students to action.
2. At a place in the classroom viewable to all, create three columns: Cause, Action, and Song. Ask student groups to share their choices and list them using the following prompts:
   • What would be your cause? Why? 
   • What would be your method of action? Why?
   • What song would represent your cause and be used as an organizing tool? Why?
3. Finally, ask students: 
   • How might the history that you explored in this lesson have informed the cause you chose, your method of action, and the song you chose?

Extension Activities:

1. Create an infographic about Barbara Rose Johns Powell. The following links can be used as resources:
   • Americans Who Tell The Truth
   • Robert Russa Moton Museum
   • Virginia Changemakers
2. Create an infographic about the Freedom Singers.
3. Create a student activism playlist.
4. Listen to Alabama Public Radio’s “Civil Rights Radio” program to discover more about the role of Black DJs during the Civil Rights Movement.
5. Read about the Teens Take Charge student activism event at a New York City school in 2019 to identify how school segregation endures.
6. Watch this Voices of the Civil Rights Movement‘s video to discover more about the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, AL in May 1963. (Warning: the video contains images of violence and accounts of racism.)

Handout – Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Handout – The Freedom Singers Handout – Student Activism Station Activity Guide Station 1 Materials: Student Activism in Farmville, Virginia in 1951 Station 2 Materials: Student Activism in Kinston, North Carolina Station 3 Materials: Student Activism in Birmingham, Alabama Station 4: Student activism in New York, New York in 1964

Common Core State Standards

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading

Reading 1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

Reading 2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

Craft and Structure 4: Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas 7: Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas 9: Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing

Text Types and Purposes 2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening

Comprehension & Collaboration 1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Comprehension & Collaboration 2: Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Comprehension & Collaboration 3: Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.

Presentation of Knowledge 4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language

Language 1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Language 2: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Social Studies – National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)

• Theme 1: Culture
• Theme 2: Time, Continuity, and Change
• Theme 6: Power, Authority, and Governance
• Theme 10: Civic Ideals and Practices

National Standards for Music Education

Core Music Standard: Responding

• Select: Choose music appropriate for a specific purpose or context.
• Analyze: Analyze how the structure and context of varied musical works inform the response.
• Interpret: Support interpretations of musical works that reflect creators’ and/or performers’ expressive intent.
• Evaluate: Support evaluations of musical works and performances based on analysis, interpretation, and established criteria.

Core Music Standard: Connecting

• Connecting 11: Relate musical ideas and works to varied contexts and daily life to deepen understanding.

National Core Arts Standards

Responding

• Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
• Anchor Standard 8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
• Anchor Standard 9: Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.

Connecting

• Anchor Standard 10: Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art.
• Anchor Standards 11: Relate artistic ideas and work with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding.