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Social effects of the civil rights movement
Social effects of the civil rights movement
Social effects of the civil rights movement
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Citizenship Schools 2
Septima Poinsette Clark also known as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement," (Crawford, 1993, p. 96) used education to empower others. Her life's work enabled many people in the segregated South the opportunity to learn to read and write so that they could fully participate in a democratic society by exercising their right to vote. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the philosophy of education of Clark and the events that shaped that philosophy. According to Max Hunter, (2011) "in 1954, Clark began teaching at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee where she developed her Citizenship Pedagogy" (para. 2). The pedagogy that Hunter referenced developed because of the racism, sexism, and discrimination that Clark experienced while teaching in the public school system in and around Charleston South Carolina. She along with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) fought for black teachers to receive pay equal to their white counterparts ("AdultEducation," n.d.). She also fought and won the right for blacks to become principals in the Charleston school district (Wikipedia, 2011, para. 5). According to Lewis (2003), the school board fired Clark after teaching for 40 years, because she refused to give up her membership to the NAACP (Brief Portrait section, para. 4). She later, served as the first African American member on that same board (Sears, 2000, para. 19). All of these experiences shaped her work as an activist, feminist and advocate for civil rights.
Foundation That Paved the Way
Clark's accomplishments and contributions ...
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... (2008). The life of Septima Clark [Review of the book Freedom's teacher: The life
of Septima Clark, by K. M. Charron]. The John Perkins Center. Retrieved from
http://www.spu.edu/depts/perkins/about/perspective/2010-spring/Freedoms-Teacher.asp
Labaree, D. F. (1997). Public goods, Private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 39-81.
Lewis, S. K. (2010). Celebrating women's history month-Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987).
Retrieved from http://sistermentors.org/celebratingtenth.htm
Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, (n.d.). Citizenship school (1954-196?). Retrieved
from http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis54.htm#1954-
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Septima Poinsette Clark: NAACP involvement. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septima_Poinsette_Clark
The history of The Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States is a fascinating account of a group of human beings, forcibly taken from their homeland, brought to a strange new continent, and forced to endure countless inhuman atrocities. Forced into a life of involuntary servitude to white slave owners, African Americans were to face an uphill battle for many years to come. Who would face that battle? To say the fight for black civil rights "was a grassroots movement of ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things" would be an understatement. Countless people made it their life's work to see the progression of civil rights in America. People like W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A Phillip Randolph, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others contributed to the fight although it would take ordinary people as well to lead the way in the fight for civil rights. This paper will focus on two people whose intelligence and bravery influenced future generations of civil rights organizers and crusaders. Ida B.Wells and Mary Mcleod Bethune were two African American women whose tenacity and influence would define the term "ordinary to extraordinary".
Both Fannie Lou Hamer and Malcolm X rejected the idea that the main goal of the civil rights movement should be based on an aspiration to gain rights “equal” to those of white men and to assimilate into white culture. They instead emphasized a need to empower Black Americans.1 Their ideas were considered radical at a time when Martin Luther King Jr. preached the potential of white and black americans to overcome “the race issue” together and in a gradual manner. Malcolm X’s attempt to achieve his goals through revolutionary top-down methods and Fannie Lou Hamer’s focus on the need for grassroots movements contributed to the Civil Rights movement significantly by encouraging and assisting Black Americans.
Anna Julia Haywood was born into slavery to Hannah Stanley Haywood and her master, George Washington Haywood, in 1858.1 At the age of nine, she enrolled in St. Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute for free Blacks. Cooper married St. Augustine graduate George Cooper, in 1877. His death in 1879 "ironically allowed her to pursue a ca reer as a teacher, whereas no married woman—black or white—could continue to teach."2 Cooper received a Bachelor's and a Master's degree from Oberlin College, and was first recruited to teach in 1887. She taught at M Street High School, Washingto n's only black high school, for many years, and was the subject of public controversy because of her educational philosophy.
John Taylor Gatto, who was a teacher at the public school for twenty-six years, and the writer of the essay “Against School” that first appeared in Harper’s magazine in 2001, censures and blames the American public school’s educational system in his argumentative essay with various convincible supporting ideas. Gatto argues that the demands of public education system’s schooling are essential problems in “Against School”. Gatto shows some positive examples of the educating without forced schooling and shows models of the ‘success without forced modern schooling’. Indeed, the writer insists that historically forced schooling is not related to intellectual and financial success in American history. James Bryant Conant, who was the twenty-third
Angela Davis grew up surrounded by politically opinionated, educated, and successful family members who influenced her ideals and encouraged her development and ambition. Her father attended St Augustine’s College, a historically black school in North Carolina (Davis 20). Her brother, Ben Davis, was a successful football player who was a member of teams such as the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions (Davis 23). Her mother, Sallye Davis, was substantially involved in the civil rights movement and was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Davis 42). In addition, her mother joined the Southern Negro Youth Congress which had strong ties to the Communist Party. This involvement greatly influenced Davis as she had many associations with members of the party which later shaped her political views (“Complexity, Activism, Optimism: An Interview with Angela Y. Davis”).
Labaree discusses how the United State’s education is in a school syndrome, as people in America want schools to teach society’s ideals as well as let people express their individuality. These two demands are polar opposites that cannot be achieved. As the focus goes towards balancing these in hopes of improving society as a whole, the bettering of actual student learning is put on pause. Labaree talks about the beginning of education reform, in the 19th century, being the most successful in developing society; however, as education reform continued throughout time, its effectiveness wore off. He then addresses how the desire for education reform is more about improving society than it is about learning. He finishes his argument by providing possible solutions to fixing this problem, but states that fixing this problem will never happen because no one is willing to give up both demands. Overall, Labaree goes in wonderful detail explaining the problems of education reform. What made me choose this article was that he addressed the desire that people have on school systems in promoting both society normality and individuality. This correlates well with my topic in whether public school systems promote conformist ideals or individuality.
Jane Elliot, a third grade teacher from an all-white town of Riceville Iowa, decided to give her students a very daring experiment, yet, valuable lesson over the meaning of discrimination. After the death of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Ms. Elliott wanted to show her class what discrimination felt like, and how it effects people.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a newspaper editor and journalist who went on to lead the American anti-lynching crusade. Working closely with both African-American community leaders and American suffragists, Wells worked to raise gender issues within the "Race Question" and race issues within the "Woman Question." Wells was born the daughter of slaves in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. During Reconstruction, she was educated at a Missouri Freedman's School, Rust University, and began teaching school at the age of fourteen. In 1884, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where she continued to teach while attending Fisk University during summer sessions. In Tennessee, especially, she was appalled at the poor treatment she and other African-Americans received. After she was forcibly removed from her seat for refusing to move to a "colored car" on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, the Tennessee Supreme Court rejected her suit against the railroad for violating her civil rights in 1877. This event and the legal struggle that followed it, however, encouraged Wells to continue to oppose racial injustice toward African-Americans. She took up journalism in addition to school teaching, and in 1891, after she had written several newspaper articles critical of the educational opportunities afforded African-American students, her teaching contract was not renewed. Effectively barred from teaching, she invested her savings in a part-inte...
Wells was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, women’s rights advocate, journalist, and speaker. After her parents passed away she became a teacher and received a job to teach at a nearby school. With this job she was able to support the needs of her siblings. In 1844 in Memphis, Tennessee, she was asked by the conductor of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company to give up her seat on the train to a white man. Wells refused, but was forcefully removed from the train and all the white passengers applauded. Wells was angered by this and sued the company and won her case in the local courts; the local court appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee. The Supreme Court reversed the court’s ruling. In Chicago, she helped to develop numerous African American women and reform organizations. Wells still remained hard-working in her anti-lynching crusade by ...
Erin Gruwell began her teaching career at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California where the school is integrated but it’s not working. Mrs. Gruwell is teaching a class fill with at-risk teenagers that are not interested in learning. But she makes not give up, instead she inspires her students to take an interest in their education and planning for their future as she assigned materials that can relate to their lives. This film has observed many social issues and connected to one of the sociological perspective, conflict theory. Freedom Writers have been constructed in a way that it promotes an idea of how the community where the student lives, represented as a racially acceptable society. The film upholds strong stereotypes of
The idea of freedom can be seen throughout Collection 2 in our textbook. Freedom can be seen in the short story “The Censors” by Luisa Valenzuela when it talks about the freedom of speech. Addition to that, an article “A People’s History Of The 1963 March On Washington” by Charles Euchner shows freedom in its article when it talks about the segregation occurring to colored men. Lastly, freedom is shown in the graphic novel “Persepolis 2: The Story Of A Return” by Marjane Satrapi as it shows high restriction.
Civil rights activist, Daisy Bates was at the core of the school desegregation catastrophe in Little Rock, Arkansas in September 1957. Bates used her position as president of a local Arkansas branch of the NAACP to strategically destroy the segregated school system. Her civil rights work involved changing the policies of the Arkansas Public School System that promoted segregation of school students, which in turn denied equality of educational resources and qualitative instruction to Arkansas’ Negro students. This fight for civil rights for students of color caused a fundamental shift in how the state educated its students both Black and White. Her plan halted the nation to expose the segregation in the Arkansas school district. Bates advocated for Black children to attend public schools that had been segregated arguing that the school system needed to be desegregated. As a result of argument, Bates became the mentor to nine African-American students, who enrolled in
After World War II, the nation was focused on the promotion of democracy throughout the world. In 1946, President Harry Truman mandated a commission on higher education. The first federal commission on higher education in US history, submitted a report a year later and argued two fundamentals for higher education: equal opportunity and to educate the citizens. Philo Hutcheson (2011), an Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University, explained the principles as: first, to promote “equal opportunity as a social economic good” (p. 45) and the latter to educate individuals so they can “make wise choices, especially in the face of totalitarian threats” (p. 45) after the war.
In a place of extreme torment, this teacher is capable of bringing a light of faith in her students and from her determination she is able to show that is worthwhile to make a difference. Now days education is only about standardized testing and teaching a curriculum, rather than becoming a role model to students and change their perspectives of life. Therefore this movie teaches the enormous value and impact that a teacher can have in someone 's life and encourages teachers to exceed the limits and make education meaningful for students. In addition, the film inspires to pursuit a better future. It demonstrates that there is always hope to achieve big dreams and overcome the impossibilities. Finally, freedom writers teaches the humanitarian lesson of helping those who suffered, and being the change that they need to see. It is about becoming a hero everyday in the simplest moments of
The film Freedom Writers directed by Richard La Gravenese is an American film based on the story of a dedicated and idealistic teacher named Erin Gruwell, who inspires and teaches her class of belligerent students that there is hope for a life outside gang violence and death. Through unconventional teaching methods and devotion, Erin eventually teaches her pupils to appreciate and desire a proper education. The film itself inquiries into several concepts regarding significant and polemical matters, such as: acceptance, racial conflict, bravery, trust and respect. Perhaps one of the more concentrated concepts of the film, which is not listed above, is the importance and worth of education. This notion is distinctly displayed through the characters of Erin, Erin’s pupils, opposing teachers, Scott and numerous other characters in the film. It is also shown and developed through the usage of specific dialogue, environment, symbolism, and other film techniques.