The Civil Rights Movement: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and March on Washington

Abstract: 

        America has change dramatically because of the outcome of the Civil Rights Movement. The struggles that took place not only effected laws, but also influenced a variety of disciplines. In this week unit, English, Math, and History have come together to exemplify the effects the Civil Rights Movement had in all of these areas. Even though this collaboration has great potential to be a greater unit, in the essence of time this group has decided to focus on the Montgomery Bus Boycott and The March on Washington for one week. In math, the students will learn the economical impact of the boycott. Students will also learn how to discover the population of the March by using mass approximations with minimal information. In history, students will be exposed to various documents and will be asked to analyze and interpret the significance of each event. In English, the students will be expected to actually relive the events of the boycott and the march in the classroom each week. Accommodations have been made in all of the lesson plans so that 'no child is left behind'.

Names and Majors of the Team Members

• Greg Baker: History Education 
• Shani Hawkins: English Education 
• Starsha Johnson: Math Education 
• Jennifer King: Math Education 
• Toya Murray: Special Education 
• Kimberly Redd: History Education

Subjects Integrated: 

• Math: The Bus Boycott's economic impact on the American economy; determining population in mass area approximation 
• History: Interpreting and analyzing various document crucial to the boycott and march 
• English: Re-living the Civil Rights Movement in the classroom

Objectives: 

Math: 

• Students will analyze graphs and charts of the demographic makeup of demonstrators. This will contribute to the understanding that not all protesters were adult black Americans.
• Students will analyze the financing of the bus companies of The Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• Students will compare and contrast the outcomes of the March on Washington and the bus boycott.

History: 

• Students will know the significance of the civil rights movement to present day America.
• Students will know the events leading up to the Montgomery bus boycott as well as analyze why it was effective. (The Montgomery bus boycott took more than a year before it had a positive outcome).
• Students will compare and contrast the outcomes of the March on Washington and the bus boycott.

English: 

• Students will relive the Civil Rights era. They will prepare for the upcoming events such as the march and the boycott.
• Students will re-enact the scenes from the boycott and the march.
• Students will reflect and communicate orally and on paper the role playing that they did in class.

Special Education:

• "Joey" will be aloud to work in groups to accommodate his willingness to work with others as well as help student stay on task.
• "Joey" Student will be given an outline of the lessons presented in class to help his organization and focus in class.
• "Joey" will be given materials that will be read in class the night before to accommodate his slow reading and comprehension.
• All students will be given questions before each reading to engage their active reading and make their readings more meaningful and focused.
• The students will listen to the "I Have A Dream" speech on tape while following along with the written word. (This will accommodate "Joey's" slow reading and low level of comprehension.

Rationale: 

        The purpose of this project is to show students that value of the Civil Rights Movement and why it is so monumental to American development. By all the disciplines coming together, students will come to an understanding of the impact that this era had on all Americans. The Civil Rights Movement was about unity. There is no better way to exemplify to our students what true unity is then by combining our disciplines and proving that there is unity in all subject areas. The intent of this lesson is to have students not only appreciate the struggles and triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement, but also an appreciation of all subject matters and to answer the repetitive question, "Why do we have to learn this?" or "What does this have to do with me?"

Resources Needed: 

        Each subgroup (ex: English, History, and Math) is responsible for including this in their unit description.

Unit Description

Math

Day one and two: 

• Objective: Lesson covering ratios in units of measurements. 
  
• Description: Use miles-per-gallon, and dollars-per-gallon. Compare the two and compute those of cars of 1960s and those of today. Compute those of running a bus, and how much it would require to make a profit. Then research the number of people who rode the bus in 1955 and how many of them participated in the Montgomery bus boycott. Since people had utilized other ways of transportation such as walking, using cabs, and getting rides in private cars and some even rode mules to work, students will compute how much money the bus company lost during the boycott.

Day three: 

• Objective: Lesson covering population in mass area approximations with minimal information. 
  
• Description: Use a square with a given number of pennies on it, then approximate the number of pennies that would fit on 25 of those squares. Lesson will use l * w to compute area, and units are in terms of the items, for example: 3 pennies by 4 pennies would give an area of 12 pennies. That is a population. Then apply it to the march on Washington. Have students research the number of people within a given space, and have them approximate how many people overall were there. Then have them research more to find out how close they actually were.

Day four and five: 

• Objective: Have students study the relationship of units of time. 
  
• Description: Have students create a time line that has appropriate measurements for lengths of time for the Civil Rights Movement. The mathematical concepts that would also be addressed would be that of portioning (where there is one time-line that covers perhaps from slavery to present day, with a sub-time-line that covers only from 1950-1965, during the bulk of the Civil Rights Movement.)

Illinois State Standards met by the proposed lesson: 

• 1) Goal 6.D.1: "Compare the numbers of objects in groups." 
• 2) Goal 7.B.5: "Estimate volume and capacity of shapes, regions, solids and explain the reasoning supporting the estimate." 
• 3) Goal 8.B.2: "Analyze a geometric pattern and express the result numerically."

English

        English Students will be doing some hands on learning. They will be asked to re-enact what they research. The English class will turn into a micro-theater production. In the interest of time, facilitators should have a list of Internet sites that the students can choose from. Other resources that the facilitator should have available are poster boards, markers, and a few dress up clothes from the 60's. The key to this lesson is to let the students discover this era mostly by themselves. It will be their responsibility to make sure that the re-enactment events replicate the actual events (this is a means to enforce some kind of evaluation).

Day 1: Research day

• Students will go to different Internet sites and find out about The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington. Students should be looking for what kinds of posters were made, how the people dressed, and what were the main issues that were being protested.

Day 2: Preparation for re-enactment

• Students will use class time to make posters for the March and boycott. Students will also come up with a plan on how to transform the classroom into scenes from the bus boycott and the march. Students may need to take this further as a homework assignment.

Day 3: The role playing begins

• Students will re-enact the scene where Rosa Parks refuses to get off the bus. Students will have assigned roles to play. They will also be asked to hold a conference meeting between the bus companies and the African American community.

Day 4: Role playing continues

• All of the desks will be out of the way and students will not be able to sit down. They are to hold up their posters, march around the room, sing songs, and wait for the "I Have a Dream" speech by guest speaker, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A student will be assigned to read to speech in its entirety, while every marcher listens.

Day 5: Assessment and Evaluation

• Students will use half of the time discussing what has happened in the classroom this past week. The second half of the class period will be dedicated to students writing a paper justifying the actions that they took this week when they participated in the boycott and the march (Please allow the discussion to take precedence over the in class writing assignment, students can always be asked to do the write up as a homework assignment).

History

        Students will engage in a variety of learning activities that will allow students to not only learn what happened during the Modern Civil Rights Movement, but to question the motives of all players involved (i.e. the activists, state governments, businesses, key historical figures, etc.). Furthermore, students will have several opportunities to express their thoughts about this important era in ?our? ? every citizen's ? history by examining these events from: reading primary sources from the era, writing poems about the movement, organizing a mock demonstration, and examining the relationship between the protestors. Finally, the students will be asked and expected to list the various strengths and weaknesses of the movement and the strengths influenced the United States government to adopt the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965.

Day 1 and part of Day 2: 

• Students will come into the classroom and find two signs (one sign will read 'White' and the other will read 'Colored'. The students will be randomly assigned to a certain group, where they as a group ? will generate a list of social norms Americans of European and African descent held. Thereafter, the students will share these list in class and as a class highlight the Jim Crow laws that faced African-Americans since Reconstruction.

Day 2: 

• Students will finish the discussion about the Jim Crow laws and begin discussing the 'Birth' of the Modern Civil Rights Movement ? the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The class will begin this section by watching a short excerpt from the Eyes On the Prize series, which will highlight the major players from the boycott & discuss its origins. Towards the end of this lesson students will then be asked to interview an older American who remembers the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The students will be required to ask their interviewees: 

• 1) how did the media react to the demonstration that went on over a year? and 
• 2) which person or group of people were focused on in the news stories from 1955-56?

Day 3: 

• In the beginning of class students would be given a list of 'Quick Facts' about the bus boycott (i.e. the NAACP's involvement, Rosa Parks, the Southern Christian Leadership Council's role, etc.). After students receive this packet/'Quick Facts' sheet, they will then be asked to brainstorm as a class an issue, within the school, they would like to address.
• The aim of this exercise is to have students realize the extensive amount of work demonstrators had to do for the boycott to be effective.

Day 4: 

• Day 3's activity would be continued 

Day 5: 

• Students would attempt to present their strategy or actually hold a demonstration for the issue they decided to address. Then, they will discuss their grievance in contrast to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s IHave Dream speech; time ? if permitted ? will be spent by the history teacher to discuss the speech ? if not, the teachers will simply omit this information from the unit.

Over the weekend 

• Students will come into class the following week with information on the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 (no discrimination in public facilities & accommodations) and 1965 (Voting Rights; no discrimination towards voters). The following week would lead students into a discussion about the significance of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, and how this movement has brought about Affirmative Action, Title IX, and other civil rights public policies that have attempted to end discrimination in the U.S.