Sudent Council Presentation

Introductions (Sept. 25, 29)

• purpose of Student Council at your Mesa Alta Middle School is to:

  • be the voice of students

  • Help in the community

  • provide ideas to improve school to make it a better place

Investigate on your own (October 1)

• Thinking about Leaders

1.     What qualities, traits, characteristics, do you possess as a leader?

2.     Who do YOU look up to or consider a leader and WHY?

3.     Ask your parent, grandparents, immediate relative about who is a leader they look up to and respect.

Share out next time we meet.

Current climate of protests of rights

• What are the protests about?

• Are peaceful protests effective?

• Are non-peaceful protests effective?

In history, leaders have struggled and advocated for rights-their rights, rights of others.

National Leaders

Ruth Bader Ginsberg  (Chief Justice in U.S. Supreme Court)

• RGB (Brittanica Biography)

• President pays respects to RGB (Reuters)

• Attorney K. Walker reflection of RGB

• Microagressions, microinsults, microassaults

1. History of Inequality

"All men are created equal." Did all mean all?

What is the difference between equity and equality (Gavin)

• Visual

• When the causes of the inequities are addressed= Justice)

• Explanation

• Thomas Jefferson & Founding Fathers (1619 project) pp. 17-18, 38, 43

• History of inequality is woven into the fabric of our democratic republic

• Fugituve Slave Act 1850

October 23

Plessy v Ferguson case

• Jim Crow Laws

Linda Brown & Brown v Topeka Board of Education (1954)

• Linda Brown's act of courage (Teaching Tolerance)

• Brown v Board of Education Quiz (p. 6)

• Ruby Bridges (1960)

Lovings

• Report on Lovings Case 1967

• The True Love Story

  • The Loving Story Documentary (trailer)

Overview

• Reconstruction and 1876 (Crash Course)                

2.  Peaceful Movement & Peaceful Protests

• The Butler Sit-In Scene

It was the younger generation who decided to take action into their own hands toward change. It was their approach to studying peaceful activism and applying it to lunch counter protests, that their courage, education and determination made a difference and contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Rev. Lawson Interview (3:18 min)  - Lunch Counter Sit-In during Civil Rights Movement    

Sit-Ins were peaceful protests used by the Students for Nonviolent Coordination Committee to counter the long existing inequality and prejudice that was considered normal practice, especially in the South.

Black students were going to Black colleges and wanted things to change. They were from a new generation inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King (MLK) and Gandhi and sought out social change by reading and researching other peaceful, non-violent ways. They did not want to live like their parents and grandparents in their struggle with segregation, discrimination and oppression. Black students formed the Students for Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and were influenced by activist Ella Baker who advocated beyond just integration for more social and political change, such as voter registration drives (What was SNCC, 2018).

3.  Background footage of the Greensboro, N.C. Sit Ins

                  ·       SNCC History (Activist Diane Nash)

    ·       Sit-Ins started in Greensboro, North Carolina (1:55 min)

    ·       John Lewis: The Nashville Sit Ins  (PBS)  (3:36 min)

                    ·        SNCC ROLE PLAY (p.3)        

                        Imagine you are a Nashville student. Write a letter to your parents explaining why you have decided to participate in the

                        freedom rides. Describe for your parents the experiences that led you to risk your life in order to end segregation in

the South. You can choose your gender, your race, your age, your social class, and the region where you grew up. Give

yourself a name and a history. Be imaginative. In vivid detail, tell the story of the events that made you who you are now: a

Freedom Rider.

Additional SNCC:

  Where did peaceful protests begin and why were they effective? 

•  Reflections on the Greensboro Lunch Counter

  • Joseph McNeil, Diane Nash, and John Lewis

• John Lewis: The Nashville Sit Ins  (PBS)

• John Lewis Interview by Trevor Noah

• Ella Baker & Sit Ins

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

• Civil Rights Movement

• What we don't Learn in School

4.  American Indian Movement Civil Rights included Sovereignty issues

1974 March in Farmington protesting murder of three Navajo men. Broken Circle (R. Barker, 1993) recounts the story.