Teaching
 


Lesson Plans

Two series of "teaching ideas" have been created for use by classroom teachers. All plans utilize the timeline of events on this site. In addition, teachers may find the following resources useful.

If you are a teacher and would like to add materials to this site, please email Jeff Littlejohn at jlittlejohn@nsu.edu. We are eager to work with all classroom teachers who would like to participate in this project.


Middle School | High School | Political Cartoons & Massive Resistance | Legislative Documents & Films

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ideas for Middle School

Activity One

1. Before students enter, place supplies on 2/3 of the desks in one region of the classroom.

Supplies may include the following [all available in pdf here]:
a) the text of the 14th Amendment due process clause
b) a short discussion of Plessy v. Ferguson
c) a short discussion of "separate but equal"
d) materials from http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/sepbutequal.htm

2. As students enter the classroom, divide them into two groups:

Red Cards – students provided with proper supplies (print outs on issues)
Blue Cards – students provided with inadequate supplies (no print outs)

3. Ask the students simple questions on the Plessy case and "separate but equal."

a) Who was Homer Plessy?
b) Why did he have a case in court?
c) Why diid the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution come up in Plessy's case?
c) What was the highest court to decide his case?
d) What did the court decide?
e) What does the phrase "separate but equal"? -- How do these terms relate to the 14th Amendment?

Award the Red group members who should define the terms properly.

Challenge the Blue group members to "do better." Ask them why they aren't answering questions? When they complain that they don't have supplies, you might tell them that "based on your performance, you don't deserve supplies." The point, of course, is to illustrate the inequality created during the era of segregated public schools.

Activity Two

The Blue – losing – group must now decide how to proceed.

1. Blue group members may petition for authorities (the teacher) to enforce the “separate but equal” doctrine, which was established by the Plessy decision. This would mean that the two groups remain separate, but that the Blue group would get some additional supplies.

Or

2. Blue group members may sue in class for the authorities to “integrate” the groups and redistribute the supplies equally.

If the Blue group chooses option 1, then the authorities will give the group members a few additional supplies, but will continue to belittle the group members during the following exercise.

Group members from both the Blue and Red groups will fill out a short application to win an academic award (coke and candy bar). Each application will include the answers to two easy questions from the sources distributed, the group member's name, group, etc. No applications from the Blue group will be accepted.

When Blue group members complain, they will be told that they have equal supplies and facilities, but Blue members simply will not be considered for the award.

Again, they may sue for integration.

[The point of this activity is to illustrate the difference between eqaulization and integration]

If the Blue group chooses option 2, then proceed to activity three.

Activity Three 

The Blue Group is suing in court to integrate with the Red Group.

Blue Group will be supported by the NAACP
Red Group will be supported by white southern politicians and attorney generals

In Court, Blue Group may use
1) 14th Amendment
2) Linda Brown Story and Map [here]
3) Doll theory material
4) Photos of “equal” schools

In Court, Red Group may use
1) definition of precedent and stare decisis
2) Plessy v. Ferguson
3) Any other cases the teacher may like to include, like Gong Lum v. Rice.
4) (If equalization was sought by Blue group in previous exercise, Red group may use that to its advantage as well).

Court will find in favor of Blue group, and yet delay integration, saying that the process should proceed with “all deliberate speed.”


Activity Four

After the Court's decision, the members of the Red Group will be asked to oversee the implementation of the Court's decision to integrate. Members will be advised that they will lose all their special privileges, but that they must integrate with “all deliberate speed,” a phrase that they are free to define.

The Red Group has the options now. Will it:

1) Launch a campaign of Massive Resistance to integration, and thus seek to maintain its special privileges

Or

2) Integrate and lose all its special privileges

We assume (based on the coke and candy giveaway) that the Red Group will pursue Resistance. If so, then the Red Group must defend their resistance effort based on the historical precedent in Virginia. How did many white Virginian's oppose integration? Key phrases must be defined: Interposition, Southern Manifesto, Pupil Placement Act.

Meanwhile, if the Blue Group wants to challenge Massive Resistance, then it must challenge the doctrine of interposition and explain how black children in Virginia began to integrate schools in 1959.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ideas for High School

Brown v. Board of Education and its impact in Norfolk, Virginia
This year, schools across the nation have commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). As we remember this historic Supreme Court decision, however, it is important that we do more than simply celebrate Brown. We must place the case in context, so that we may better understand the role it played in the history of American public education.

There is no better place to study Brown than in Norfolk, Virginia. Although often overlooked, Norfolk was one of the oldest and most important cities involved in the desegregation struggles of the last century. As such, it witnessed three major educational battles, which may help us frame the Brown decision in the long-developing and complex series of events that have defined the relationship between race and public education in America.

In order to study the three educational battles in detail, teachers may divide their classes into groups. The following list and reading material is offered as a suggested course cartridge.

Group Listing

Group I: Race and the Development of Norfolk Public Schools, 1870-1920

Henry S. Rorer, History of Norfolk Public Schools, 1681-1968. Norfolk: 1968.

J. L. Buck, The Development of Public Schools in Virginia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1942.

Gary Ruegsegger, The History of Norfolk Public Schools. Norfolk: Norfolk Public Schools, 2000.

Peter F. Orazem, "Black-White Differences in Schooling Investment and Human Capital Production in Segregated Schools," The American Economic Review 77 (Sept 1987):714-23.


Group II: Education through the Press: P.B. Young and the Norfolk Journal and Guide

Henry Lewis Suggs, "P. B. Young of The Norfolk Journal and Guide : A Booker T. Washington Militant, 1904-1928," The Journal of Negro History , Vol. 64, No. 4. (Autumn, 1979): 365-376.

Henry Lewis Suggs, P. B. Young, Newspaperman: Race, Politics, and Journalism in the New South, 1910-1962 . Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1988.

Raymond Graves, "Hancock, Jackson, and Young: Virginia's Black Triumvirate, 1930 - 1945."
Virginia Magazine of History and Biograph y 85:4 (1977).


Group III: Race and the Salary Issue: Aline Black and Melvin Alston cases (1939-40)

Bruce Beezer,"Black Teachers' Salaries and the Federal Courts Before Brown v. Board of Education: One Beginning for Equity." The Journal of Negro Education 55 (Spring 1986): 200-213.

J. Douglas Smith, Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Earl Lewis, In Their Own Interests: Race, Class and Power in Twentieth Century Norfolk, Virginia . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Alexander Leidholdt, Standing Before the Shouting Mob: Lenoir Chambers and Virginia's Massive
Resistance to Public School Integration . Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997.

ALSTON et al. v. SCHOOL BOARD OF CITY OF NORFOLK et al. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT. 112 F.2d 992; 1940 U.S. App. LEXIS 4464; 9 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1059; 130 A.L.R. 1506 (June 18, 1940). [ online ]

SCHOOL BOARD OF NORFOLK ET AL. v. ALSTON ET AL. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 311 U.S. 693; 61 S. Ct. 75; 85 L. Ed. 448; 1940 U.S. LEXIS 204; 9 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1407 (October 28, 1940). [ online ]


Group IV: Norfolk Schools and the NAACP's move
from equalization to integration, 1940-54

Doxey A. Wilkerson, "The Negro School Movement in Virginia: From 'Equalization' to 'Integration,'" The Journal of Negro Education 29 (Winter 1960): 17-29.

The Road to Brown video

Henry S. Rorer, History of Norfolk Public Schools, 1681-1968. Norfolk: 1968.

Gary Ruegsegger, The History of Norfolk Public Schools. Norfolk: Norfolk Public Schools, 2000.

J. Douglas Smith, Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Earl Lewis, In Their Own Interests: Race, Class and Power in Twentieth Century Norfolk, Virginia . Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Alexander Leidholdt, Standing Before the Shouting Mob: Lenoir Chambers and Virginia's Massive
Resistance to Public School Integration . Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997.


Group V: Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Brown II (1955)

BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION 344 U.S. 1 (1952) [ online ]
BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION 344 U.S. 141 (1952) [ online ]
BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION 347 U.S. 483 (1954) [ online ]
BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION 349 U.S. 294 (1955) [ online ]
James Paterson, Brown v. Board of Education . Boston: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Website list under "Brown cases" on this site.


Group VI: School Desegregation, Harry F. Byrd, and Massive Resistance

J. Rupert Picott, "The Status of Educational Desegregation in Virginia," The Journal of Negro Education 25 (Summer 1956): 345-351.

Matthew Lassiter and Andrew B. Lewis's "Massive Resistance Revisited: Virginia's White Moderates and the Byrd Organization" in The Moderates Dilemma , ed. Matthew Lassiter and Andrew Lewis. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998. (see Littlejohn for a copy)

James W. Ely, Jr., The Crisis of Conservative Virginia: The Byrd Organization and the Politics of
Massive Resistance . Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976.

Ronald L. Heinemann, Harry Byrd of Virginia . Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996.

Websites:
- http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/vahistory/massive.resistance/
- http://www.virginiaplaces.org/population/massiveresistance.html
- http://www.virginiaplaces.org/government/byrdorg.html
- http://www.educationalsynthesis.org/famamer/Byrd.html
- http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/exhibit/seibel9.html
- http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/reHIST604/byrd.html

Group VII: James J. Kilpatrick and Interposition

Joseph Thorndike, "The Sometimes Sordid Level of Race and Segregation: James J. Kilpatrick and the Virginia Campaign against Brown," in The Moderate's Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia , ed. Matthew Lassiter and Andrew Lewis. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.


Group VIII: Beckett v. School Board City of Norfolk (1957-1959)

Cases listed under Norfolk Cases on this website.

Antonio T. Bly,"The Thunder During the Storm - School Desegregation in Norfolk, Virginia, 1957 - 1959: A Local history." Journal of Negro Education. 67:2 (1998).


Group IX: The Divided White Community: The Tidewater Educational Foundation, the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, and Lenoir Chambers's opposition to segregation.

Alexander Leidholdt, Standing Before the Shouting Mob: Lenoir Chambers and Virginia's Massive
Resistance to Public School Integration . Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997.

Antonio T. Bly,"The Thunder During the Storm - School Desegregation in Norfolk, Virginia, 1957 - 1959: A Local history." Journal of Negro Education. 67:2 (1998).

Group X: The Norfolk 17 and desegregation in Norfolk Public Schools, 1958-1970

The Norfolk Journal and Guide, esp. August-September 1958 and January-February 1959.

Antonio T. Bly,"The Thunder During the Storm - School Desegregation in Norfolk, Virginia, 1957 - 1959: A Local history." Journal of Negro Education. 67:2 (1998).

Norfolk 17 videos on this site

"Virginia's 'Massive Resistance' Laws Declared Unconstitutional, J ournal of Negro Education 28 (Spring 1959): 163-172.



Group XI: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education 402 U.S. 1 (1971),
Busing in Norfolk, and the issue of "White Flight."

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education 402 U.S. 1 (1971). [ online ]

Summary and participants [ online ]

Susan E. Eaton and Christina Meldrum,"Broken Promises: Resegregation in Norfolk, Virginia," in Dismantling Desegregation , ed. Gary Orfield and Susan Eaton. New York: The New Press, 1996.

Gary Orfield, "Turning Back to Segregation," in Dismantling Desegregation , ed. Gary Orfield and Susan Eaton. New York: The New Press, 1996.

Leslie G. Carr and Donald J. Zeigler. "White Flight and White Return in Norfolk: A Test of Predictions," Sociology of Education 63 (Oct. 1990): 272-282.

David J. Armor, "Response to Carr and Zeigler's 'White Flight and White Return in Norfolk," Sociology of Education 64 (April 1991): 134-139.

Leslie G. Carr, "Reply to Armor," Sociology of Education 64 (July 1991): 223-27.


Group XII: Riddick v. The School Board of the City of Norfolk (1986)

Riddick v. School Bd., Civil Action No. 83-326-N, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, NORFOLK DIVISION, 627 F. Supp. 814; 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15141, July 9, 1984, Decided, July 9, 1984, Filed [ online ]

Riddick v. School Bd., No. 84-1815, UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT, 784 F.2d 521; 1986 U.S. App. LEXIS 22185, January 8, 1985, Argued, February 6, 1986 [ online ]

Riddick v. School Bd., No. A-925 (85-1962)., SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 476 U.S. 1180; 106 S. Ct. 2913; 91 L. Ed. 2d 542; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 1294; 54 U.S.L.W. 3823, June 16, 1986 [ online ]

Riddick v. School Bd. of Norfolk, No. 85-1962., SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, 479 U.S. 938; 107 S. Ct. 420; 93 L. Ed. 2d 370; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 4604; 55 U.S.L.W. 3316, November 3, 1986 [ online ]

Susan E. Eaton and Christina Meldrum,"Broken Promises: Resegregation in Norfolk, Virginia," in Dismantling Desegregation , ed. Gary Orfield and Susan Eaton. New York: The New Press, 1996.

Gary Orfield, "Turning Back to Segregation," in Dismantling Desegregation , ed. Gary Orfield and Susan Eaton. New York: The New Press, 1996.



Group XIII: The Backlash Thesis

Klarman, Michael. "HOW BROWN CHANGED RACE RELATIONS: THE BACKLASH THESIS," Journal of American History 1994 81(1): 81-118.

Group XIV: Norfolk Public Schools and Race Issues Today

Norfolk Public School Website [ online ]
School Performance Reports [ online ]
Superintendant's Assessment [ speech ]
Schools and Testing [ online ]
The Virginian Pilot [ online ]