Purpose

To appreciate the American black (working class) family's experience and role in the civil rights movement.

To experience representations of the African American family in popular genres: literature, documentary film, newspaper, movies, and personal testimony.

To discover that history is a personal, cultural, and creative process.

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Student/Teacher Objectives

• Respond to guided reading questions in class and small group discussions and reading journal

• Read The Watsons Go To Birmingham, 1963,by Paul Curtis

• Read a novel of choice that relates to the themes of The Watsons.

• View Spike Lee's documentary about the church bombings.

• Conduct short research projects to develop the cultural and historical background of the unit.

• Collaborate with a small group to create a collage or mural.

• Compile an annotated list of texts that deals with the themes of their novel.

• Lead a class discussion on a selected theme or issue.

• Listen to black music genres: field shouts, spirituals, blues, protest songs, mo-town recordings, jazz, rap, etc.

• Participate in focused group chats (on line or in class) on the major themes:

  black necks (oppression and violence against blacks/the Watson family and church bombings),

  blue collars (the urban black work experience/the Watson's life in Flint),

  road trips (leisure time and race/the Watson's trip to Birmingham).

• Read at least four newspaper accounts of the Birmingham church bombings (two northern, two southern, rural and urban).

• Students select and complete one final project from a class generated list of choices including:

  a ten page research paper, a story set in urban 60s America, a collection of five original

  songs or poems, a set of illustrations to accompany the novel.

• Presentation of final project to an audience (to be determined)

Materials

• 25 copies of novel, journals, documentary, films, recordings, posters, speakers, web addresses, art supplies (posters, glue, paint, markers, etc)

  Working list of key terms:

  • Flint, MI 1963
  • Birmingham, AL 1963
  • George Wallace
  • AFLCIO and civil rights
  • Black labor movement
  • church bombings
  • Civil rights leaders and followers
  • Freedom riders
  • Lunch counters
  • Protest genres (sit ins, walk outs, etc.)
  • Public civil rights monuments (road signs, holidays, park names)
  • beat generation + poetry
  • Motown + fashion
  • Food stamps
  • Welfare
  • Peon
  • conk + hair styles as symbolic political gestures
  • Nat King Cole
  • Dinah Washington
  • Music Genres
  • Race records
  • Highway 41
  • Soul food
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