Young, Gifted and Black: Teaching Freedom Summer to K-5 Students – w/ Nicole Burrowes. La Tasha Levy and Liz Kleinrock
Teaching Hard History
Learning for Justice
4.2 • 588 Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2021
⏱️ 77 minutes
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Summary
Teaching civil rights history to young learners creates both opportunities and challenges. The 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project and the subsequent Freedom Schools offer important lessons for helping elementary students to understand the civil rights movement. In this episode, we explore community-based strategies and activities for bringing the black freedom struggle into your classroom.
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And visit the enhanced episode transcript for additional classroom resources about Freedom Summer, Freedom Schools and teaching the civil rights movement to K-5 students.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | During the era of slavery, African Americans' primary goal was securing freedom. |
| 0:10.0 | Some enslaved ran to freedom. Others tried to fight their way there. |
| 0:15.0 | Still others sought freedom by carving out whatever space they could to make life a bit more bearable. |
| 0:21.6 | Free blacks wanted freedom too. |
| 0:23.6 | Freedom for their kiss and kin, known and unknown, who were still held in bondage. |
| 0:30.6 | They wanted them to enjoy the rights that they had. |
| 0:34.6 | At the same time, they understood that no African American, including those |
| 0:39.3 | unfettered by the shackles of slavery, could enjoy all of their rights, as long as some |
| 0:45.3 | African Americans remain trapped in bondage. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roger Tawny made |
| 0:51.3 | this clear in 1857 when he wrote in the Dred Scott decision |
| 0:55.7 | that African Americans, quote, had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. |
| 1:05.0 | After emancipation, African Americans' primary goal was securing what I call freedom rights. |
| 1:12.6 | The combination of civil rights and human rights that enslaved people identified as the crux of freedom. |
| 1:19.7 | No one knew better what it meant to be free than those who live in the presence of free people |
| 1:26.0 | and yet would deny the rights of free people. |
| 1:30.3 | Drawing on this understanding, African Americans pressed the issue, |
| 1:34.3 | organizing for a wide range of civil and human rights, |
| 1:37.8 | from the right to vote to the right to an education. |
| 1:41.6 | And although the chains of bondage had been broken, |
| 1:45.0 | African Americans still talked about their struggle |
| 1:48.0 | as a pursuit of freedom. |
| 1:53.0 | African Americans framed their primary goal as freedom |
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