Introduction
Problems abound in teaching about the civil rights movement in part due
to the ways in which black leadership and civil rights movement
participants are presented as a largely monolithic group, neglecting
different movement experiences determined by race, sexuality, class, and
gender dynamics (Higginbotham 1990; Crawford et al. 1990; Robnett
1996; Ling and Monteith 1999; Collier-Thomas and Franklin 2001). The
traditional approach toward the study of black leadership and civil
rights takes on a uniform appearance: black men led and women organized.
This approach is problematic when considering, for example, the pivotal
role Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP, had in assisting the
Little Rock Nine in their efforts to desegregate Central High School.
Bates is a leader in the most traditional sense: she holds a titled
position with the NAACP, wields power over its members, makes decisions
on behalf of the organization, and is perceived by the public as a head
authority. Other black women like Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Ella
Baker, Diane Nash, Constance Baker Motley, and JoAnn Robinson similarly
led the fight to ensure civil rights compliance, equitable treatment
under the law, desegregated lunch counters, and the right to vote. But,
how many of these important African American women would be recognized
by undergraduate and graduate students? How many political science
majors and doctoral candidates are aware of these women who have made
vast contributions to American society, yet have gone unnoticed?
African American women have a long history of political activism,
starting with anti-slavery networks, civil rights organizations, and
black feminist collectives (Collins 2000).
Overcoming racism and sexism has had a profound impact on African
American women's political activism by inspiring them to actively
participate in social movements, political parties, campaigns,
elections, and, ultimately, run for public office. Nonetheless, efforts
to transform the curriculum and integrate the perspectives of African
American women have met with varying degrees of success. African
American women's political activism within the civil rights movement has
not been accurately documented but rather conveniently forgotten.
African American women were instrumental to the movement in their roles
as organizers, fund-raisers, and leaders in orchestrating tremendously
successful grassroots campaigns that advanced black liberation and
attested to their leadership capabilities.
It is this writer's view that African American women of the civil rights
movement should not to be presented as victims or celebrated as
mainstream heroines from a contributionist approach. Perhaps Rosa Parks
is the easiest for instructors to use in this way, considering the
frequent trivialization of her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It is
in this regard that Cedric the Entertainer's comedic performance in the
film, Barbershop, becomes illustrative. He insists that all
Rosa Parks did was “sit down” because she was tired, which minimizes her
role as an important civil rights activist. Obviously, this message is
problematic. However, it is indicative of an educational system that
treats black history month as cultural enrichment. During the month of
February, students learn about black firsts and their achievements to
develop tolerance for difference as opposed to challenge basic
assumptions about cultural stereotypes (Higginbotham
1990; Omolade 1993; Banks 2003).
An alternative or transformative approach to the curriculum enables
students to critically evaluate political processes. Such an approach
allows students to consider why, for example, African American women are
conspicuously absent from the curriculum on black leadership and civil
rights. Students can begin to question and understand how race,
sexuality, class, and gender dynamics operate within the context of the
movement. They come to appreciate multiple perspectives and realities as
they relate to the unequal distribution of power and privilege in the
United States, thereby creating a new framework by which students view
key concepts, issues, themes, and problems inherent to the movement that
counter mainstream perspectives. African American women are then
integrated into the curriculum as leaders, performing roles similar to
those of black men without privileging one experience over the other.
Therefore, black liberation is not equated with black masculinity or
manhood.
My course on the civil rights movement is designed to introduce students
to black leadership, specifically the principles, goals, and strategies
used by African American men and women to secure basic
citizenship rights. It provides a fairly broad, yet comprehensive
account of the civil rights movement so students can develop a critical
perspective of historical and contemporary trends in African American
political life. An in-depth analysis of the civil rights movement often
inspires students to become more informed and politically active
citizens. Through critical examination of the major philosophical and
theoretical arguments contesting interlocking systems of oppression,
students arrive at some understanding of how African American men
and women influenced the political process via public
persuasion, litigation, grassroots mobilization, and direct action
despite different movement experiences determined by race, sexuality,
class, and gender dynamics (Weber 2001). This
course is unique in that it expands the curriculum on black leadership
and civil rights to include African American women thereby offering
students an alternative vision that recognizes African American women as
leaders on the frontlines versus helpmates on the sidelines (Higginbotham 1990; Omolade
1993). While African American women were typically shunned as
public spokespersons for the movement, few instructors and curriculum
specialists interrogate why, if this should be so, and recognize
individual black women who dared to be the exception. Each black female
activist sets up a fascinating puzzle, raises a stimulating question,
and exposes different movement experiences. African American women and
their experiences shine a critical light on paradoxes crucial to
understanding multiple perspectives and realities within the civil
rights movement.
In this article, I start with a brief discussion of my class format.
Then, I describe the effectiveness of two group exercises used to help
students develop critical thinking skills and advance essay-writing
techniques about civil rights era politics, specifically the multi-stage
social justice project and the critical evaluation of a post-civil
rights black student organization. In conclusion, I advocate less
lecturing and more collaborative projects.
My objective is to transform the curriculum on black leadership and civil
rights, using teaching strategies, research, and theory prescribed for
women faculty of color in college classrooms (see, for example, Benjamin 1997; Turner and
Myers 2000; Vargas 2002). This
endeavor requires that I abandon the ways in which instructors and
curriculum specialists have traditionally taught courses on black
leadership and civil rights by rejecting the dominant approach that
privileges the experience of black men over black women in the civil
rights movement. I therefore develop alternative learning strategies
that draw attention to the ideas and experiences of African American
women, providing the necessary background for a full appreciation of the
civil rights movement. To accomplish this objective, I have found the
following exercises most helpful.
Facilitating Class Dialogue
I do not lecture, but facilitate class dialogue so that students might
become active, participatory learners. My question-answering style
serves several legitimate pedagogical functions mentioned here. Prior to
class, I prepare a list of questions derived from the assigned reading.
These questions structure class dialogue. Students also prepare a list
of questions. These are questions for which they do not have the answer,
but would like to hear the views of others. A student volunteer asks one
prepared question and calls on another volunteer to respond with an
answer. Once the first student has evaluated the response and provided
additional information, the student who volunteered the response poses
an alternative question to the class. Everyone is invited to contribute
answers, present their own questions, and enliven the discussion. I
frequently comment on the exchange, elaborate on major points, pose
additional questions, and speak to missing elements in the
question-answer exchange. The advantage to this approach is that
students begin to make connections, see patterns, and imagine
alternatives, especially when I open class with video-recordings that
introduce a topic or theme derived from reading assignments (Dillion 1983).
For example, I have shown students the award-winning Ida B. Wells–A
Passion for Justice installment of the acclaimed PBS television
series The American Experience to draw a link between lynching
and the murder of Emmett Till. Ida B. Wells is the legendary
anti-lynching crusader best known for deconstructing the myth of the
black rapist through painstaking investigative reporting and tirelessly
lobbying for anti-lynching legislation in the United States (James 1997; Hine and Thompson
1998). Emmett Till is the fourteen-year-old black boy who was
kidnapped and murdered by white supremacists because he whistled at a
white woman in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi. This travesty
horrified the nation and helped mobilize the civil rights movement
(Williams 1987). After the video is shown,
I ask that students identify lynching in terms of who, recognizing the
victims and perpetrators; what, indicating hanging or other types of
executions; when and where such hate crimes were most likely to occur,
namely Georgia and Mississippi after the Civil War; and why, focusing on
the excuses used to justify these vigilante acts of violence. I
subsequently ask students whether what happened to Emmett Till
constitutes lynching. I only initiate class-dialogue to clarify the
facts; students sustain it with their own follow-up questions that often
lead to real world applications. In the past, students have raised the
following questions in response to the above discussion: How does
lynching differ from ordinary murder or assault? How is lynching when
defined as an act of terror against African Americans similar, yet
different from the terrorist attacks of September 11th?
Under these circumstances, students must demonstrate the ability to speak
intelligently about black liberation in the United States. They develop
and refine skills needed to practice political knowledge in complex and
diverse social settings, making the classroom an incubator for
democratic practice. Simply memorizing and regurgitating isolated facts
are insufficient, especially in an open discussion and debate of ideas
that enables people to choose those they will endorse or reject. While
students more readily engage in question-answer exchanges with each
other, I provide guidance and support. I encourage them to keep an open
mind, to step into other shoes, to make decisions with others, and to
reach compromises while maintaining integrity. I also urge them to
consider how the public's knowledge of civil rights activism might
change if the history and experiences of women like Ida B. Wells were
well known. The effective use of audiovisual aids attach a name to a
face, introduce a topic or theme, summarize ideas, link themes, and are
most helpful when I want to generate interest and enthusiasm.
Crafting a Multi-Stage Social Justice Project
A major assignment for the course is a cooperative, collaborative social
justice project that involves multiple steps carried out throughout the
semester. It requires that students locate scholarly books and
newspaper, magazine, and journal articles featuring a significant
problem facing African Americans. A group of students prepares a
presentation that describes the issue in detail to the entire class, and
provides a realistic solution to the problem by designing a full-fledged
campaign for social justice. The topic is inspired by the course and
generated by a group of students who avoid simply reporting the issue or
event. Instead, they state the subject and its relevance to the course;
summarize their principles, goals, and strategies; demonstrate the
interrelationship between their topic and assigned readings; explain
causes and effects of the public problem; and suggest ways of handling
(or solving) this problem via active participation in politics. Along
the way, groups describe and evaluate existing efforts to address the
problem. The nature of the presentation varies and can take the form of
artistic expression (e.g., video, photography, poetry, spoken word,
music, mural, or poster presentation). However, the presentation must
recommend traditional or protest activities that advance the struggle
for black liberation in the United States.
Among the topics previously chosen are racial profiling, redlining,
reparations, unequal funding in inner city schools, and the exploitation
of black college athletes. One group suggested diversity training for
police departments, airport security, and school administrators to
remedy racial profiling. Members of this group distributed gray ribbons
similar to the red AIDS and pink breast cancer ribbons, requesting that
their classmates educate others when wearing their gray ribbon as a sign
that people are neither black nor white, but shades of gray. Another
group endorsed reparations for slavery to African Americans, putting
money into a trust fund that would benefit black-owned businesses,
support health care and education reform, and improve the infrastructure
of their communities. Members of this group created a 15-minute video
featuring interviews with African American faculty and staff employed at
the University of Connecticut, photos of black public intellectuals who
support the reparations movement, graphic depictions of African
enslavement, and monologues where each individual group member spoke to
the requirements of the project in a professional documentary style.
During the first week of class, students are provided a document that
identifies five steps toward completing the social justice project. The
first step involves selecting individual group members and identifying a
topic. Once the topic has been established, the group sets a time and
date to meet and drafts a brief statement of the problem. The second
step requires individual group members to locate references for their
bibliography. The third step involves writing the project report,
discussing both the issue and design of the social justice project in
detail. Since writing assignments are usually last minute efforts, I
have weaker groups exchange project reports with stronger groups on the
day in which they are due. Provided with advice on the content and
substance of the report in addition to grading criteria for peer group
evaluation, I ask that individual groups place a grade from 1-100 that
reflects the quality of work and effort made by another group in
completing their report. This grade is reached by group consensus. The
group justifies the grade by typing and attaching constructive feedback
to the evaluation form. The fourth step involves drafting an outline of
the presentation, demonstrating that the group has given thought to the
order in which topics will be presented before the class. The fifth step
is the presentation itself.
On the day of the presentation students submit peer evaluation forms for
accountability. Individual group members describe their specific
contribution to the research and writing of the social justice project,
including all activities in which the individual participated–arranged
meetings, found relevant material, hours worked on the project report,
main ideas contributed, etc. Provided with grading criteria, this
individual assigns a grade from 1-100 that reflects the quality of work
and effort made by each individual member of the group. Each person is
assigned two grades: one for research and one for writing. Given that
students must justify the grade and provide detailed comments, this
evaluation is strictly confidential.
Evaluating Post-Civil Rights Organizations
Another cooperative, collaborative assignment requires that students read
Robert Smith's We Have No Leaders: African Americans in the Post
Civil Rights Era, which provides a scathingly provocative
account of the effects and importance of the past three decades on the
future of black politics. Using archival and interview data, Smith
argues that black leadership has been ineffective in maintaining viable
and effective organizations post civil rights (McClain 1996). Out of this analysis of continuity and
innovation in black organizations emerges the claim that while black
leaders have somewhat adapted to post-civil rights era circumstances,
some serious problems still impede effective black political
participation (McClain 1996; Smith 1996). Using and applying their knowledge
of these shortcomings inherent to black organizations, students critique
a post-civil rights black student organization. Provided with a real
world example, they consider whether the organization adheres to a
top-down hierarchical, middle-class model of organization and strategy
that emphasizes elite interaction versus constituent mobilization;
depends upon white financial support; fails to mobilize the black vote
as an independent force; and possesses a limited capacity for networking
or coalition building with women's organizations (Smith 1996).
Both the social justice project and the evaluation of a post-civil rights
era organization involve students in a different manner than the
traditional lecture format, creating a safe place for class dialogue,
student interaction, and motivation necessary to inspire student
activism. Participation in these exercises, which reinforce the ideas
presented in class, enhances the learning process enormously. Students
develop critical understanding of the civil rights movement via
application, real world examples, illustrations, and individual lives in
a dynamic way–one that leads students to actively discover, explore, and
even participate in the lost legacy of race and gender activism. Each
exercise can be used in a class that introduces students to social
movements, specifically the women's liberation and civil rights
movements because the focus is not simply on women's or men's
contributions to the civil rights movement, but how the movement relates
to their personal lives, the principles for which they stood, goals they
set out to accomplish, and strategies used to mobilize others. Students
compare and contrast civil rights leaders, namely Martin Luther King,
Jr. and Malcolm X, Daisy Bates and Ella Baker, furthering recognition of
the similarities and differences in their methods, approaches, and
perspectives toward civil rights activism.
Conclusion
While these examples provide insight into my efforts to transform the
curriculum, I contend that they merely scratch the surface. I found that
monitoring, sharing, exhibiting, and peer evaluating empowered students.
They acquired a solid understanding of historical and contemporary
trends in African American political life through the research and
writing of their social justice projects. Following the course, students
know enough about the history of the subject, current and leading
debates, and positions taken by scholars to present an academic
presentation before their peers using and applying their knowledge of
the principles, goals, and strategies of African American men and women
to influence the political process. The overwhelming enthusiasm
exhibited by students when designing their social justice projects
prompted me to recommend this strategy to others. Students use a range
of communicative media, featuring one-on-one interviews with university
administrators and special effects, and a variety of sources for the
research and writing of their social justice projects–public opinion
polls, census data, social welfare agencies, and government employees.
Perhaps the most impressive outcome of this peer group learning exercise
has been the formation of a black student organization in support of the
reparations movement for African Americans, which attests to the
course's ability to inspire student activism.
The social justice project has the advantage of monitored interaction
situated in social, cultural, and historical contexts whereby students
employ a range of communicative media–speech, writing, drawing, poetry,
dance, drama, music, movement, and visual arts. An effective group
presentation acts as a model for which others follow, increasing the
chances that individual groups put forth their best effort to impress
fellow classmates. It creates communities of learning where individuals
work together drawing a material link between course content and real
world examples. It also provides an opportunity for students to listen
to their peers, respond to individual presentations, question the
opinions of group members, and share information relevant to the
course.
In the end, students express a renewed faith in individuals and admit
that the insights and perspectives offered in the course had a profound
impact on their lives. Again and again, students comment on the
integration of African American women into the curriculum as inspiring,
making reference to Ella Baker and Daisy Bates as women they had not
previously known. Students also indicate that the evaluation of
post-civil rights black student organizations made course content both
practical and meaningful. This type of hands-on activity, with all the
noise and movement of students doing, talking, and collaborating,
transforms a traditional classroom into an interdependent learning
environment. Students skillfully and sometimes cynically evaluate black
student organizations, offering brilliant interpretations of black
progress or lack thereof in this post-civil rights era.
The pedagogical approaches cited here reflect altered views of student
needs and experiences resulting from my personal desire to integrate
African American women into the curriculum on black leadership and civil
rights. As an undergraduate as well as graduate student, I always
understood that something was missing from the curriculum. I find this
approach much more productive than wasting time and energy blaming or
attacking scholars. However, as the curriculum still stands, African
American women within the civil rights movement remain largely
invisible. To make a difference, instructors and curriculum specialists
must begin gathering information and adopting new books. This process
involves creative pedagogical strategies for the classroom and
convincing faculty to redirect their scholarly research interests (Higginbotham 1990; Hedges
1996).
I would like to thank Ruth Nicole Brown at the University of Michigan for
exchanging syllabi, swapping ideas, and talking candidly about her
experiences in the college classroom–all of which inspired me to design
a multi-stage social justice project. I would also like to thank
Michelle K. Williams for encouraging me to write this article as well as
other members of our writing group at the University of Connecticut–Bede
Agocha, Daryl Harris, Valerie Johnson, and Jeffrey Ogbar–for their loyal
support.
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