The Fight for Brown

Essential questions

1. What is desegregation? 
2. Who fights for change and why?
3. How do people make change? 

Outcomes and objectives

After the lesson students will…

1. Describe segregation and desegregation and the impact they have on education.

2. Explain the people, events, challenges, and perspectives that led to the Brown v. Board of Education landmark decision.

3. Explain the role of the NAACP in the fight for the Brown decision, including their preparation for the announcement of the outcome. 

Preparing to teach

• Review the materials included and brush up on historical context. 

• Check on access to links to make sure they work and are not blocked. 

• Make copies of worksheets and texts to be used with activities.

Scaffolds and accommodations to support learners

Readings required for this lesson include historic documents (letters) and complex texts (All Deliberate Speed). Setting a clear purpose for why students are reading and what they should get from it is important as a reading support. Additional strategies for reading supports include:

• Tampering with the text: Students should have access to the complete text for context and differentiation possibilities, but orienting the task around a smaller section of text or rewriting complicated language in everyday/present-day language is helpful.
• Co-reading: Students reading together in small groups or with a partner can support understanding and comprehension. 
• Setting context: Sharing sourcing information and the broader context of what was happening at the time of the document or the time when the story takes place supports student understanding of the bigger picture and specific ideas in the text.

Differentiation

• Students could be assigned different parts of texts they would be responsible for understanding and then sharing what they learned with peers.
• More confident readers could be offered larger portions of text, and less confident readers could be offered slightly shorter excerpts.

Adjusting for middle school grades

Note: You know your students best, and we encourage you to use these activities and resources in ways that support rigorous and challenging learning. Below are some ideas for adapting these activities to middle grades:

• Adjust pacing. Some activities could be made longer, and the lesson could span two class sessions.
• Eliminate or revise activities and learning objectives to align better with your grade level goals and standards.
• Extra reading supports:
  • Read with a purpose: Set a clear and explicit goal for what students should learn from reading.
  • Read with a partner: Take turns reading aloud, or read quietly with timed breaks to explain what they read to each other.
  • Offer an everyday language version of the reading materials: Provide the original as well, but excerpts in typical everyday language can be a helpful scaffold or resource for students.

Instructional activities sequence

1. Review Brown v. Board of Education 1954 (set historical context–see short summary in the Materials Section to ensure that students know what the case was about) – 10 minutes
   • This could be read or distributed to students or be the foundation for a short lecture. You might consider asking students what they already know (KWL Chart)
2. Use the primary documents. Students will develop an initial sense of the timeline of the case and the role of the NAACP organization as the decision was made (see Materials Section):
   • Material set 1: Letters from the NAACP national office to the leaders of the local chapters of the NAACP on how to respond to the Brown decision, prior to the decision being made.
   • Material set 2: LDF “Winding Road” pamphlet on the timeline of the Brown v. Board decision.
   • Using the materials, students can respond or discuss the following:
     1. What is the timespan of the fight for desegregation in the “Winding Road” pamphlet? Why does that surprise you or not?
     2. Pick a court case in the pamphlet that you think was really important in the fight for Brown (for desegregation) and share why with a partner.
     3. What do the letters say the NAACP national office told the regional offices about how to respond when the Brown decision came out?
     4. Why do you think the NAACP gave the instructions that they did to the regional offices?
3. Read and discuss the book (or read and discuss select chapters from) All Deliberate Speed by Charles J. Ogletree. Using the table of contents, organize the chapters around themes, for example: Click here to see the chart.

Options for activity structure:

• Read at home: Students read a theme and come to class ready to discuss their theme(s) with classmates. Themes with more chapters could have more students so the work can be divided equitably. 
• Read in class: Select chapters for reading circles each day. Each small group of three students can take a different chapter in the theme for that day/task and circle up to take turns reading from their assigned chapter. This offers a built-in peer reading scaffold, but students may benefit from some behavior agreements to help support each other better, such as asking for help if they don’t know what they are reading, listeners taking notes and saving feedback or support for when their partner is finished, or students deciding how much they would like to read before passing along to their classmate. 

Assessment

• Assessment options: 

• • Write an essay or short response to answer a prompt around the daily theme. Example: Using what you learned from the reading today, how did Thurgood Marshall make a difference in the fight against segregation?

  • Observe student reading and conversation about their selected text and make notes about students’ learning and communication of ideas.

  • Have students jigsaw what they read and “teach” another group of students about their chapter or selected text. 

  • Authentic assessment could include developing a book cover or newspaper front page that reflects what they learned about the people or events in the book through popular media.

Materials needed and additional resources for enrichment

Short Summary of Brown v. Board of Education 1954
Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark case in the United States that challenged the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools. The case originated in Topeka, Kansas, where Black children were required to attend separate schools for Black students, which were often inferior in quality to those attended by white students. The plaintiffs argued that this segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal rights to all citizens.

The case reached the Supreme Court in 1954, and in a unanimous decision, the Court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, declared that state laws establishing separate public schools for Black and white students were inherently unequal and unconstitutional. This decision overturned the precedent set by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, which had upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine.

The Brown v. Board of Education decision marked a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement, as it laid the groundwork for desegregation efforts across the country and challenged the legal basis of segregation in other public facilities. It played a crucial role in the ongoing struggle for racial equality in the United States.

Click here to see the Letters from the NAACP Office (scroll to the bottom of the document).