This lesson is the first lesson of the series The Color of Law: The Role of Government in Shaping Racial Inequity. In this lesson, students examine the local, state and federal policies that supported racially discriminatory practices and cultivated racially segregated housing.
In this specific passage, which comes from the book’s first chapter, Douglass describes his enslavers. The passage focuses on Douglass’s memory of his first encounter with the brutality of his enslavers.
Jennifer L. Lieberman is Assistant Professor of English at the University of North Florida, and has taught classes to conventional and incarcerated students in subjects ranging from American literature and African-American literature to gender and women studies and the history of science, medicine, and technology. She was the Presidential Diversity and Inclusion Award winner and the Florida Blue Center for Ethics Fellow at her university in 2017, both for her work in ethics and social justice. Her book, Power Lines: Electricity in American Life and Letters, 1882-1952, is available from The MIT
This excerpt focuses on the lives of African American students during Freedom Summer. After reading Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech in class in 1963, students in main character C.J.'s school are asked to share their dreams at an assembly.
Given the controversy around kneeling during the national anthem, studying and discussing two landmark Supreme Court cases can provide students with examples of an oppressed group of people who defied authority and won.