The American Civil Rights Movement Reconsidered: Teaching the Role of Women

Abstract

This article examines coverage in social studies curriculum and U.S. history textbooks, specifically, of women in the American Civil Rights Movement (CRM) and considers how social studies teachers can broaden the narrative they teach to include more gender-related issues and the work of women activists. The author found that despite a rich body of scholarship focused on women in the CRM, textbooks, which still serve as the central curriculum documents in most secondary social studies classrooms, provide a relatively cursory treatment of women’s roles in the movement. The context of women’s activism and the intersections of race and gender, particularly around sexual violence and sexism within the movement, are rarely examined. To address this problem, the author provides examples of critical issues confronted by African American women in the era of the CRM as well as examples of activists that teachers could incorporate into their CRM units. In addition, the author argues that an inclusive study of the American CRM provides an excellent opportunity for students to develop an understanding of the many ways in which women and girls—often in the face of great personal danger—acted with courage and skill in the fight for racial justice.

Keywords:

• African American
• Black
• Civil Rights Movement
• textbooks
• women

Notes

Notes

1 Kate Shuster, PhD, is listed as the principal researcher and writer for both the 2011 and 2014 reports from SPLC.

2 Some accounts of Robinson’s activism (e.g., the one posted on Stanford’s King Institute website) suggest that Robinson avoided a prominent title in the MIA leadership in order to protect her university teaching position, but scholarship on women in the CRM makes clear that whether this is true or not, Robinson and other women were marginalized by male leaders.

3 This form of sterilization was so common among nonconsenting Black women in the North Sunflower County Hospital that it became known as a “Mississippi appendectomy” (American Experience).

4 I give credit to Patricia Kotrady, Dickinson College class of 2016, for constructing this resource list.