Chronology: Civil Rights in the 20th Century (Version1)

Central Historical Question

How do historical photographs fit into the history of the African American Civil Rights
Movement in the 20th century?

Materials:
• Copies of Documents A-C
• Copies of Guiding Questions

Plan of Instruction:

Overview
This lesson is designed for use with students who have studied the African American
Civil Rights Movement through the end of the 1960s. It asks students to engage in
chronological reasoning about historical images. They will first examine three historical
images to try to determine what the images depict. Next, they will draw on their
knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement to determine the order in which the documents
were likely created. To do this, students must think about how the Civil Rights
Movement unfolded in the 20th century.

1. Introduction. Introduce the lesson by telling students that they are going to use
what they have learned about the African American Civil Rights Movement to try
to make sense of three historical photographs and then do their best to put them
in the order that they were created.

2. Round 1: Document Analysis. Have students examine all three images and
complete the chart for Round 1 in the Guiding Questions individually.

3. Round 2: Chronological Reasoning. Have students work in groups. First,

students share their answers from Round 1 and explain their reasoning. Next,
they should work together to come to a group consensus about the order that the
documents were created.

After groups have come to consensus, ask each group to vote by sharing out
their answers. You can project the tally on an overhead or keep track of the votes
on the board. Next, ask students to explain their reasoning. Be sure to ask
students to reason about each image and to explain how the image fits into an
overarching narrative of the Civil Rights Movement. At this point in the lesson,
don’t reveal whether students are right about the order of the documents. Rather,
try to get them to explain their reasoning as fully and clearly as possible. If
students miss key features in the photographs, you may want to point them out
and ask them to reason about why they might be important.

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4. Round 3: Final Vote. After groups have shared out their reasoning, ask them to
vote again, making note of any changes to the order of the photos. Have groups
share out their final vote, keeping track of the tally on the overhead or board.

5. Modeling and group debrief. After the final vote, reveal the order of the
documents. Next, discuss each document with the class, modeling your own
thinking about the images and how each fits into a broader narrative of the Civil
Rights Movement in the 20th century.

More About the Documents:

Below is a brief primer on each of the documents. Do not share this information
with students until the debrief at the end.

Document A

Big takeaways:
• Photograph shows white students harassing an African American student
integrating a previously segregated school.
• This should cue students to place the integration of schools in the late
1950s or early 1960s as schools began to integrate in the wake of the
Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
• Students should see that school integration in the South was after the
height of lynching but generally before the establishment of the Black
Panthers and the Black Power Movement more broadly. It is important
that students avoid overconfidence in placing this source before the Black
Power Movement. Although many of the high-profile instances of school
integration occurred in the late Fifties and early Sixties, school integration
was a long process that continued into the Seventies. So, although
students can rightly guess that this photograph precedes the Black Power
Movement, they should also recognize that it is possible that an image of
school integration could coincide with—or even follow—the Black Power
Movement.

This photograph shows Dorothy Counts being harassed by a group of white

students on September 4, 1957. Counts had been selected as one of four African
American students to integrate previously segregated high schools in Charlotte,
North Carolina. Counts was the only African American student to be selected to
attend Harding High School. Because of the intense harassment and abuse,
Counts’ parents withdrew her from the school after only four days.

This document represents efforts to integrate public schools in the wake of

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the resistance by white Southerners to
these efforts. Like some other Southern border states, North Carolina had
implemented a conservative, gradualist plan for integration (known as the
Pearson Plan to Save Our Schools) for complying with the Supreme Court’s

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orders to integrate with “all deliberate speed” in Brown II. Even these reluctant
steps toward integration were met by fierce resistance from many white people,
and African American students who integrated the schools were often subjected
to harassment and violence. (Note, other Southern states were even more
resistant to complying with Brown than North Carolina at the time.)

Students should understand that school integration in the South generally

occurred after the fight against lynching but before the creation of the Black
Panthers and the emergence of the Black Power Movement more broadly.

Document B

Big Takeaways:
• Photograph shows members of the Black Panther Party protesting at the
California capitol building.
• Students should place the Black Panther Party from the late sixties to mid
seventies.
• Students should identify that the establishment of the Black Panther Party
and the growth of the Black Power Movement were later than protests
over lynching and were generally later than school integration (though
some recalcitrant districts did not integrate until the 1970s).

This image shows members of the Black Panther Party (est. 1966) protesting at
the California state capitol building in Sacramento. Members of the Black Panther
Party travelled from Oakland to Sacramento in May 1967 to oppose the Mulford
Act, which made it illegal to carry loaded firearms in California. Prior to the
passage of this bill, California allowed residents to carry loaded guns in public
places so long as they were openly displayed (and not concealed). The law was
intended to end “patrols” by the Black Panthers. In response to police violence
and abuse, the Black Panthers used short wave radios to monitor police
dispatches and would show up at the scene of police activities openly displaying
loaded firearms to prevent police abuse and inform citizen of their rights when
arrested. The Mulford Act, signed into law by then Governor Ronald Reagan in
1967, made it illegal for the Panthers (and all California residents) to patrol with
loaded weapons.

Document C

Big Takeaways:
• Photograph shows students from Howard University with nooses around
their neck in protest of lynching.
• Outlawing lynching was a major focus of civil rights advocates in the first
decades of the 20th century.
• Students should place this document before school integration in the
South and the Black Power Movement.

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This photograph shows students from Howard University standing with nooses
around their necks in protest. The students are demonstrating outside the
Attorney General’s Conference on Crime, which had been called by the United
States Attorney General Homer Cummings in 1934 to bring professionals from a
wide array of fields together to discuss crime prevention, investigation, and
punishment. The students were protesting the conference organizers’ refusal to
discuss lynching at the conference. Although the frequency of lynching had
declined by the 1930s from its zenith in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
lynching was still a powerful tool used by white vigilantes to terrorize African
Americans and to enforce racial segregation and inequality, especially in the
South.

Students should understand that the fight against lynching generally preceded
the integration of schools following the Brown v. Board decision and the Black
Power Movement.

Sources

Document A
School dilemma Charlotte, N.C.: Youths taunt Dorothy Geraldine Counts, 15, as the
Negro girl walks to enroll at the previously all-white Harding High School here,
September 4th. Leaving the school, she was pelted with trash, small sticks, and
pebbles. Charlotte, North Carolina, 1957. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of
Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/96520936/.

Document B
Members of the Black Panther Party are met on the State Capitol steps by state police
Lt. Ernest Holloway, who informed them that they would be allowed to keep their
weapons as long as they caused no trouble or did not try to disturb the peace.
Sacramento, California, 1967. May. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of
Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2005677025/.

Document C
Howard University students picket the National Crime Conference in Washington, D.C.,
Dec., 1934 when the leaders of the conference refused to discuss lynching as a national
crime / photo by International News Photo Co. Washington D.C., 1934. Photograph.
Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/95517764/.

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