Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/166026
Learning t; for the country. The nation was battered by racism and violence in 1963. In January, new Alabama Gov. George Wallace proclaimed his defiant policy of "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." In May, high-powered fire hoses and police attack dogs assaulted peaceful civil rights marchers in Birmingham, Ala. President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard in June to force Wallace to step aside and desegregate the University of Alabama — and then Kennedy proposed his own landmark civil rights legislation. Civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered in June, shot in the back outside his home in Mississippi. In September, four black girls were killed by a dynamite bomb blast at a Birmingham church. And in November, President Kennedy rode in an open car in Dallas as shots rang out. But on Aug. 28, 1963, these three women were in Washington, full of hope and a hunger for social justice, taking part in one of the largest political rallies the U.S. has ever seen. Go Online for Lesson Plans cta.org/civilrights50 Free lesson plans are available to commemorate civil rights milestones, such as President Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964; the signing of the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965; and the signing of the Immigration and Nationality Act on Oct. 3, 1965, at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. The six lesson plans for high schools and middle schools allow students to learn about affirmative action, the right of religious freedom, the fight for racial equality in education, ballot propositions and civil rights, and other key topics. Margaret Browne drove hundreds of miles to Washington from her segregated hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., with three friends. A graduate student at the University of Tennessee at the time, Browne had taken part in protests against segregated lunch counters in Tennessee. She worked in Alabama from 1960 to 1962 at a rural school. As an African American, she feared for her safety there. "It scared the hell out of me, because you could be shot and killed and nothing would be done about it." She moved to California in 1987 and spent 20 years as a public school teacher in the Bay Area, mostly teaching high school biology and chemistry in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. The Washington march and rally was "inspiring and enlightening." "The crowd was so huge that I couldn't see the speakers. However, I could hear them over the public address system," Browne recalls. "It was something that you felt compelled to go to. It was the thing to do, it was the place to go, it was the place to be." Her boyfriend at the time was an organizer with the famed Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a key civil rights group that led voter registration drives and the "Freedom Riders" protests, where activists rode interstate buses in the deep South during the 1960s, in states where federal laws against interstate bus segregation were being ignored. In Washington, local police were out in force, expecting riots or worse. The crowd remained peaceful. "There was no animosity, no hostility there. But then, that was another era. We expected to go somewhere and act in an appropriate manner. It's not like today where, if you're in a crowd, there may be hostilities or people fighting. That was not there. It was huge, as I recall, and a friendly crowd," she says. "After the march, our group drove to Danville, Virginia, to visit friends who were SNCC organizers. We were followed and stopped several times by the Danville police before we arrived at the residence where our friends were staying. However, the entire experience, at the march and in Danville, was inspiring and enlightening." Browne questions how much of King's dream of racial equality has become a reality. "I didn't believe there would ever be a black president in my lifetime," she says, but she feels President Obama is too cautious and spends too much time appealing to corporations and the middle of America. "And the middle at this point is really moving to the right," she adds. "We have a lot of work to do, in my opinion, because we still have racism." Too many blacks are still being incarcerated, for example. But segregation is gone. She recalls how, in 2010, on a family vacation trip, her group got a little lost and ended up driving into Mississippi by accident. In a restaurant, "the whole place was integrated." She sat where she wanted. She turned to her grandson, who was 17 at the time, and said, "You know, when I was your age, this could not have been the case." He looked at her as if to say, "Grandma, what are you talking about?" SEP TEMBER 201 3 Educator 09 Sep 2013 v3.6 int.indd 53 www.cta.org 53 9/3/13 2:26 PM