SUSIE & TYLER’S CURRENT EVENTS April 22, 2014

THE BASICS

Topic: Voting: Jake Tanzer and Mississippi Freedom Summer 1964

Quote “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” – Sir Edmund Burke “Freedom Summer organizers risked their lives and transformed our nation for the better. Today, we need to summon the courage to ensure their efforts are not being rolled back. History has taught us that we can be powerful agents of social change when we organize, agitate, and – most importantly – vote. The summer of 2014 will be an important test for the cause of freedom.” – Benjamin Jealous (MSNBC)

Vocabulary

• Congress of Racial Equality (CORE): a U.S. civil rights organization that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the Civil Rights Movement

• Ku Klux Klan (KKK): a secret organization which aimed to suppress the newly acquired powers of blacks

• Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP): American political party created in the state of Mississippi in 1964, during the civil rights movement

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP): an African-American civil rights organization whose mission is to warrant the social, educational, political and economic equality of rights of everyone and to abolish racial hatred and discrimination.

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC): civil rights organization founded in 1957 by Martin Luther King, Jr.; composed largely of African-American clergy; sponsored the massive march on Washington in 1963

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): a U.S. civil rights organization formed by students and active especially during the 1960’s, whose aim was to achieve political and economic equality for blacks through local and regional actions groups

Questions to Consider Freedom Summer • What were the circumstances that created the Mississippi Freedom Summer? • Why did the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress on

Racial Equality (CORE) focus their efforts in Mississippi? What was the plan to achieve voting rights? Why did voting rights matter?

• Why did lawyers from Oregon go to Mississippi? What was their goal? Did they achieve it?

• Who is Jake Tanzer and why does his story set an example for pursuing justice? • Who was John Doar and what was his role in pursuing justice? • Who were Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman? What was their

purpose in going to Mississippi in the summer of 1964? Why do they symbolize the struggle for voting rights?

• How did citizens work for justice in 1964? What were the dangers? Why do some people see their role as securing rights for disenfranchised minorities?

• What does it mean to make a difference? • What was the role of the courts in Mississippi in 1964? The African-American community?

The elected leaders? The press? • What questions would you want to ask Jake Tanzer about his experiences in Mississippi

in 1964? • How did the events of the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964 demonstrate the courage

of ordinary people in the African-American community who were in danger of losing their jobs, homes, churches, family, safety, and their lives in order to secure the right to vote?

• How did the events of the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964 demonstrate the commitment of young people, black and white, Northerners and Southerners to register people to vote?

Civil Rights and Voting Rights • What is the civil rights timeline in 2014? What are the issues: Voter ID laws? Redistricting

that marginalizes minority voters? Social and economic segregation in underfunded schools?

• What is the connection between voting and basic constitutional rights? • What were the majority and minority opinions in the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act

decision in 2013? What is the connection to voter identification laws? What is the connection to redistricting?

• What does the Fifteenth Amendment say about voting? • What does Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act argue? What kind of “qualifications” for, or

“prerequisites” to voting existed before the Voting Rights Act was passed? Why do you think the Voting Rights Act mentioned the 15th Amendment?

• How has the right to vote influenced democracies? • Which groups were disenfranchised (African-Americans, women, youth, felons) in the

United States? Is the right to vote protected and valued in 2014? If so, why? If not, why? • Should the right to vote be included in the US Constitution?

Articles • Freedom Summer 1964

o “Freedom Summer: How Civil Rights Activists Braved Violence to Challenge Racism in 1964 Mississippi” (democracynow.org)

o “Bowers: Klansman got away with murder” (coldcases.org) • Current State of Civil Rights and Voting Rights

o “African-American women are vocal and active in the political process, but they need more positions of leadership” (The Root)

o “Many doubt 1964 Civil Rights Act could pass today” (CNN) o “Obama: Right to vote under threat in the US” (Boston Herald) o “We Should be in a Rage” (opinion) (NY Times) o “50 years Later, Obama Salutes Effects of Civil Rights Act” (NY Times)

THE EXTRAS Pre-teaching, Extensions & Further Reading

• Freedom Summer 1964 o “Freedom Summer, 1964” (Stanford.edu) o “Lynching of Chaney, Schwerner & Goodman” (crmvet.org) o “The Mississippi Burning Trial (United States vs. Price et al.): A Trial Account”,

“A Chronology” (School of Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City) o “John Michael Doar and the Mississippi Burning Trial” (School of Law, University of

Missouri-Kansas City) • Civil and Voting Rights

o “Election Performance Index” (Pew Charitable Trusts) o “Looking back at the Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage” (msbusiness.com) o “Civil Rights Chronology” (civilrights.org)

Lesson Plans

• Freedom Summer, Teacher Resources (National Museum of American History) • Freedom Summer (history.com) • Justice and Fairness (Creating Character, USC) • What is Justice? (Learning to Give) • Get out the vote! (Hudson River Valley Institute)

What’s the connection? Constitution

• 15th Amendment (Legal Information Institute, Cornell) • “The Missing Right: A Constitutional Right to Vote” (Democracy Journal) • “Groups want action on voting rights bill” (Hattiesburg American) • “Protecting the Right to Vote: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the March on

Washington” (The Justice Blog) • “SCOTUS’ Shelby and McCutcheon Decisions Saved the GOP” (The Root) • “Put the Right to Vote into the Constitution” (Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., Florida Courier) • “Supreme Court Invalidates Key Part of Voting Rights Act” (NY Times)

Oregon • “Oregon lawyers and Mississippi justice” (Oregonian)

Students • Nina Simone – “Mississippi Goddam” video lyrics (azlyrics.com)

o “Nina Simone: The Antidote to the “We shall Overcome” Myth of the Civil Rights Movement” (History News Network)

• Freedom Summer, Deborah Wiles (Good read aloud!)

• Jake Tanzer o “1964, My Story of Life and Death in Mississippi”

(Oregon Benchmarks) o “Remembering the March on Washington” (Oregon

State Bar Bulletin) o “Historic Undertaking” (Oregon Jewish Life Magazine)

We the People Lesson Connections Middle School, Level 2

• Unit 5, Lesson 23: How does the Constitution protect freedom of expression? • Unit 5, Lesson 25: How has the right to vote expanded since the Constitution was

adopted? • Unit 6, Lesson 29: What are the rights and responsibilities of citizenship? • Unit 6, Lesson 30: How might citizens participate in civic affairs?

High School, Level 3 • Unit 3, Lesson 19: How has the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

changed the Constitution? • Unit 3, Lesson 20: How has the right to vote been expanded since the adoption of the

Constitution? • Unit 6, Lesson 34: What is the importance of civic engagement to American

Constitutional Democracy? • Unit 6, Lesson 35: How have civil rights movements resulted in fundamental political

and social change in the United States?

Oregon State Social Science Standards/CCSS 8.1. Evaluate continuity and change over the course of United States history by analyzing examples of conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among groups, societies, or nations. 8.14. Explain the rights and responsibilities of citizens. 8.20. Analyze the changing definition of citizen ship and the expansion of rights. 8.21. Analyze important political and ethical values such as freedom, democracy, equality, and justice embodied in documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. HS.1. Evaluate continuity and change over the course of world and United States history. HS.5. Examine and evaluate the origins of fundamental political debates and how conflict, compromise, and cooperation have shaped national unity and diversity in world, U.S., and Oregon history. HS.6. Analyze ideas critical to the understanding of history, including, but not limited to: populism, progressivism, isolationism, imperialism, communism, environmentalism, liberalism, fundamentalism, progressivism, isolationism, imperialism, fundamentalism, racism, ageism, classism, conservatism, cultural diversity, feminism, and sustainability. HS.24. Analyze and critique the impact of constitutional amendments. HS.28. Evaluate how governments interact at the local, state, tribal, national, and global levels. HS.33. Explain the role of government in in various current events. HS.34. Explain the responsibilities of citizens (e.g., vote, pay taxes) HS.35. Examine the pluralistic realities of society (e.g. race, poverty gender, and age), recognizing issues of equity, and evaluating need for change. 6-8.RH.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions. 6-8.RH.8 Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text. 6-8.RH.9 Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic. 9-10.RH.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text. 11-12.RH.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas. 11-12.RH.9 Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.