February is Black History Month. February is also American History Month. Black history, in a large measure, is American history. The African American struggle for equality is similar in many ways to the struggle for rights of all minorities such as Native Americans, women, and the disabled. All these struggles for rights share common issues and strategies for reform even to the present day.
What we now call Black History Month started in 1926 as Negro History Week. Carter Godwin Woodson, an NAACP leader (the NAACP celebrated its 100th anniversary in January 2009), was instrumental in getting official recognition by Congress. The month of February was selected for the celebration because both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, champions of the struggle for African American equality, were born in that month.
After more than 100 years of effort by the NAACP and other African American rights groups, many of the barriers to legal equality have been hurdled. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 accomplished this, thanks to the efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr. along with the major support of President Lyndon Johnson. Unfortunately, the struggle continues. The focus now is on issues of inequality in education, employment, criminal justice, and health care as examples. Who will champion the next breakthroughs to African American equality; and what will be the strategies to get this done?
Learning Activity
Leading Issues provides a variety of topics that affect most African Americans directly. These issues will need additional work, cooperation, legislation, and funding in the future to level the playing field of opportunity for African Americans, as well as other minorities.
Assign students to research either a Pro or Con position on one of the issues listed below. Students should address the essential question for the issue in a SIRS model written report or slide presentation. Students should cite at least three resources in addressing the essential question for each issue.
Each of these issues is one of many that continue to impact African Americans to a greater extent than mainstream Americans.
Pathfinders
These pathfinders are all accessed by first clicking SIRS Issues Researcher link in SIRS, then VISUAL BROWSE.
1: Click Civil Rights and Liberties icon > Civil Rights > Workplace Discrimination
2: Click Civil Rights and Liberties icon > Civil Rights > Racial Profiling
3: Click Civil Rights and Liberties icon > Civil Rights > Affirmative Action
4: Click School Family and Youth icon > Education Policy > No Child Left Behind
5: Click Economics, Business, and Law > Criminal Justice > Discrimination in Criminal Justice Administration
ProQuest also provides another 21st-century skills model for students to demonstrate what they have learned through their research: a mini-debate format that can be completed in about three classroom periods.
