Essential Question:
What conditions created a need for a protest march from
Selma to Montgomery in 1965 and what did that march achieve?
Background
Throughout American history, African Americans have struggled
to gain basic civil rights, such as the right to vote.
When marchers gathered at the foot of the Edmund Pettus
Bridge, in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, to demand
voting rights, the nation was forced to acknowledge the
depth and breadth of racial discrimination and bigotry
that existed in the United States.
In the century following the Civil War, African Americans
citizens of the United States were consistently denied
rights given to white Americans. By looking at political,
social, economic, and cultural institutions of post-Civil
War America, students will be able to gain an understanding
of the struggle for civil and human rights. The1965
Selma-to-Montgomery march for the constitutional right
to vote significantly advanced this nation closer toward
its goal of ". . . justice for all."
This lesson plan examines the struggle for voting rights
from the early history of the United States to the climactic
battle for the right to vote that captured and focused
the attention of the world on the Black Belt region
of Alabama and the town of Selma. The events that took
place in Alabama ultimately caused this nation to reexamine
how it addressed matters of race, human rights, economic
empowerment, social justice, political justice, and
basic civil rights. The public struggle for African
Americans to be treated as first-class citizens helped
the United States to live up to its creed, so eloquently
espoused in the documents upon which this nation was
established.
We are confronted with a moral issue. It is as old
as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
The heart of the question is whether all Americans are
to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities .
. .(T)he time has come for this nation to fulfill its
promise.
President John F. Kennedy,1963 At times history
and fate meet at a single time in a single place to
shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom.
So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century
ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.
There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem.
There is no northern problem. There is only an American
problem. Many of the issues of civil rights are very
complex and most difficult. But about this there can
and should be no argument. Every American citizen must
have the right to vote . . .Yet the harsh fact is that
in many places in this country, men and women are kept
from voting simply because they are Negroes . . . No
law that we now have on the books . . . can insure the
right to vote when local officials are determined to
deny it . . . There is no Constitutional issue here.
The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no
moral issue. It is wrong--deadly wrong--to deny any
of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.
There is no issue of States' rights or National rights.
There is only the struggle for human rights.
President Lyndon B. Johnson,1965
. . . what happened in Selma is part of a far
larger movement which reaches into every section and
state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes
to secure for themselves the full blessings of American
life. Their cause must be our cause, too. Because it's
not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must
overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
And we shall overcome.
President Lyndon B. Johnson,1965
Objectives
- To investigate the conditions such as Jim-Crow laws
and other segregation policies under which African
Americans lived in Alabama and other parts of the
South from 1875 to 1965.
- To analyze the impact of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery
voting rights march.
- To apply information gained from primary documents
and class activities in order to understand the strategies
used by African Americans in pursuing the right to
vote, and to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies.
Motivation
Share the following quotations with the class:
Line from “Lift Every Voice and Sing,”James
Weldon Johnson
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, let us march
on til victory is won.
Excerpts from the Declaration of
Independence
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of
the governed . . .Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for
light and transient Causes; . . . all Experience hath
shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while
Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed.
Preamble to the Constitution of the United
States of America
We the People of the United States, in Order to form
a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote
the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty
to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America.
Pledge of Allegiance
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
of America and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
Ask your students whether or not these essential American
documents have always referred to all groups of Americans.
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