Everyday People: 7th Graders Step into Selma
By Kimberly Ellis
“The Civil Rights Movement was made up of everyday people choosing to do difficult things.” Lesley Younge, an English teacher at Maret School, opened her 7th grade English class with this statement. Now that students had almost finished reading Brown Girl Dreaming — a powerful memoir written in verse by Jacqueline Woodson detailing her childhood — they used evidence from the novel to substantiate this claim. Students documented their evidence on Post-It notes, stuck onto posters on the classroom’s board.
After the class discussed examples from Brown Girl Dreaming, Younge introduced Teaching for Change’s Stepping into Selma: Voting Rights History and Legacy Today mixer in which students would encounter some lesser-known activists of the Civil Rights Movement. They had already learned about more notable historical figures, including John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, and Ella Baker. In this activity, however, students would focus on other, ordinary people who insisted on their citizenship rights while pushing for freedom more broadly.
Selma to Montgomery Marchers. Source: Matt Herron / Take Stock
Before students began the mixer, Younge played a video about Bloody Sunday, describing the five-day march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights. Students shared reactions to the video like “I saw obstacles, but I also saw people not giving up,” and “It’s ordinary people doing extraordinary things.” Students were particularly struck by the intergenerational nature of the march’s participants.
Younge reminded students that, “While we sometimes picture major people standing on platforms, what we really see in Brown Girl Dreaming and in this video is it’s about the collective effort of many people who made the Civil Rights Movement happen.”
With additional knowledge about the voting rights struggle, students were assigned historical figures like Colia Lafayette, Prathia Hall, and Richie Jean Jackson. They then completed additional research about their person by using resources from the “Brown Girl Dreaming Research Guide” created by Maret School educators. After adding this research to the biography, students proceeded to mingle. They eagerly launched into robust conversations with classmates and jotted notes on their interview sheets.
Afterwards, Younge facilitated a class discussion about the figures students had met. Students discussed their responses to three reflection questions:
Why were people willing to risk their lives to vote?
Why do you think some of the people you met today are not mentioned in textbooks?
How did the activity change your perception of who made up the Civil Rights Movement?
Students reflected on how people of all races and genders participated in the movement. Many students shared their surprise at learning how so many “regular” people participated. As one student articulated, many of the people in the mixer are left out of history books because “some don’t think they’re as important if they just helped one person instead of a thousand, but everyone had a part to make change.” Students enjoyed learning about new people, as well as connecting to the issues referenced in Brown Girl Dreaming.
Although Younge has used this mixer before, this year was the first time she integrated the lesson into her Brown Girl Dreaming unit. Throughout the novel, Woodson makes references to Black history, art, and activism, which many of Younge’s students did not know.
Subsequently, the Maret School English team partnered with the school’s librarians to create a research project to expose students to the references made in the novel to ensure a fuller understanding of the novel’s messages. Read more from Younge about how she and the Maret School English team have dug deeply into Brown Girl Dreaming.
Younge decided to weave the Selma mixer lesson into this unit to further enhance students’ understanding of the novel. Interactive lessons, like the Selma mixer, provide opportunities for students to learn from one another.
Visit Teaching for Change for several other role play lessons.
Kimberly Ellis is an Education Anew Fellow with Teaching for Change and Communities for Just Schools Fund. Read more of her stories.