For my students, and through discussions with my colleagues I have found that a vast majority of students in our community believe that the mistreatment of African-Americans in this country is exclusive to slavery, which they erroneously believe ended with the simultaneous efforts of Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King. Their chronological awareness about the history of our country is severely limited, and like many fifth graders, they are exposed to limited moments and viewpoints in history. The time period between the end of the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement are a very cloudy area of American history, particularly for my current 6th grade students. By tailoring this unit not just to the needs of my current students, but to address the deficiencies in the Social Studies curriculum in general, this unit will be applicable across a wide variety of 6th grade Social Studies classrooms.
This curriculum unit will analyze the history of educational discrimination in the United States toward major ethnic and racial groups, with particular focus paid to African-American and Latino-American and Asian American history. The struggle for human rights and equal protection under the law will be researched through a variety of class activities and readings, drawing from primary sources, Supreme Court opinion excerpts, and other collections of race-related legal analysis and documents. Particular attention will be paid to several historical incidents and court cases including Plessy v. Ferguson, Lum v Rice, and Mendez v Westminster. The unit culminates with students completing a series of journal entries in the voice of a minority student struggling with the realities of educational segregation.