Civil Rights

Essential Question: How did Black GIs respond to Jim Crow in U.S. Armed Forces during World War II?

Students will analyze ten presidential executive orders that had consequential ramifications on American society.

Students will evaluate the effectiveness of Truman’s Executive Order #9981 on American society by the time of the Vietnam War

This will be a cooperative learning assignment, where students will work in small groups between five to seven. Students will be broken into four groups and will be assigned a Former United States President, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. Students will be assigned one of the following Presidents to research through their Presidential Libraries. Students will only be able to use primary sources for this assignment.

Students will be able to identify a few relevant Civil Rights issues AND how the president of that era confronted/handled/resolved the issue, along with causes/effects; then students will reveal how many issues of the past affect their own lives today and explain how.

The students will read background material on civil rights movement relating to the armed services. They will analyze and discuss Executive Order 9981 and learn how the blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodward affected President Truman. After reading and class discussion, the students will express their thoughts in a writing activity.

Students will examine primary and secondary source material to draw connections while working individually, cooperatively with a partner, and during whole-group discussion.

To introduce analysis of primary documents to sixth through eighth grade students in preparation for History Fair’s theme, “Breaking Barriers in History”

Students will compare past and present examples of child segregation faced by two African-Americans. One is a recollection of an account by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This account occurred in 1935 when Dr. King was six-year-old. The second account takes place in the present, shared by Andrew S. Evans. This account occurred in 1949 when Evan is eleven-year-old.