This course will examine the US Civil Rights Movement, from Black life in the early twentieth century through the mass mobilization efforts of the 1950s and 1960s, civil rights activism outside the South, and the transition to Black Power.
Lead Scholar: Hasan Kwame Jeffries, The Ohio State University
Master Teacher: Corey Winchester
Image: Shirley Chisholm campaign poster, 1972 (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC09721.01)
Up to 24 PD Hours
This course will examine the US Civil Rights Movement. It will begin by looking at Black life in the early twentieth century—the height of the Jim Crow era—to establish a critical context for the Black activism to come. It will then explore the development and impact of the mass mobilization efforts of the 1950s and 1960s, from the Montgomery bus boycott and the student sit-ins to the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington. It will also scrutinize the grassroots organizing campaigns led by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi and Alabama. The course will conclude by looking at civil rights activism outside the South, evaluating the impact of federal civil rights legislation, and analyzing the ideological and tactical transition to Black Power.
Shirley Chisholm campaign poster, 1972 (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC09721.01)
You may attend Professor Jeffries’s book talk on Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt, regardless of which symposium course you select. Symposium participants who attend the optional book talks earn additional PD credit.
A Black family learns about the Emancipation Proclamation from a Union soldier in "Reading the Emancipation Proclamation" by H. W. Herrick, published by Lucius Stebbins, Hartford, CT, 1864 (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC07595)
Hasan Kwame Jeffries is the College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University, where he teaches courses on the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. Jeffries is the author of Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt, which tells the remarkable story of the African American freedom movement in Lowndes County, Alabama, the birthplace of Black Power. He is also the editor of Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, a collection of essays by leading civil rights scholars and teachers that explores how to teach the Civil Rights Movement accurately and effectively. Jeffries has worked on several public history projects. From 2010 to 2014, he was the lead historian and primary scriptwriter for the $27 million renovation of the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, the site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He hosts the podcast Teaching Hard History, a production of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s educational division, Teaching Tolerance. He has also contributed to several documentary film projects as a featured on-camera scholar, including the Emmy-nominated Black America since MLK.
Corey Winchester teaches US History and Sociology of Class, Gender, and Race at Evanston Township High School, where he is an induction co-coordinator and staff coordinator of Students Organized Against Racism (SOAR). He was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus from Loyola University Chicago’s School of Education (2016), received the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching (2019), and was recognized as Illinois History Teacher of the Year (2020). Corey has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Northwestern University and a master’s degree from Loyola University Chicago. He is currently a PhD student in learning sciences and a social sciences methods instructor in the Teacher Education Program at Northwestern University.