The Civil Rights Movement: Grass Roots Perspectives
FAIN: ES-256868-17
Duke University (Durham, NC 27705-4677)
Robert Korstad (Project Director: March 2017 to February 2020)
Robert Blaine (Co Project Director: August 2017 to September 2017)
Judy Richardson (Co Project Director: September 2017 to February 2020)
A three-week institute for thirty school teachers on
the history of the civil rights movement at the grassroots level.
The "Challenging the Master Narrative of the Civil Rights Movement" Summer Institute will invite thirty teachers from across the U.S. for a three-week residency at Duke University in July of 2018. The institute is designed by a collaborative team of scholars, veterans, and educators from Duke, the SNCC Legacy Project, Tougaloo College, and Teaching for Change. Participants will learn the bottom-up history of the Civil Rights Movement and receive resources and strategies to bring it home to their students. They will have the unique opportunity to learn from the people who made the civil rights movement happen and from the leading scholars of the era. This is particularly important since many history teachers received their degrees before the publication of recent scholarship on the history of the civil rights movement from the bottom up.
Media Coverage
A Better Way to Teach the Civil Rights Movement (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Melinda Anderson
Publication: Edutopia
Date: 9/19/2018
Abstract: To improve history lessons on the period, educators emphasize the roles of grassroots activists, churches, schools, and women.
URL: https://www.edutopia.org/article/better-way-teach-civil-rights-movement
Associated Products
Honoring Civil Rights Movement Veterans: "Write That I" Poetry (Course or Curricular Material)Title: Honoring Civil Rights Movement Veterans: "Write That I" Poetry
Author: Teachers in the NEH 2018 summer institute
Abstract: These poems are by classroom teachers in the 2018 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Teacher Institute, “The Civil Rights Movement: Grassroots Perspectives from 1940-1980.”
The institute was hosted by the Duke University Franklin Humanities Institute, in collaboration with the SNCC Legacy Project and Teaching for Change.
The people honored by the poetry are veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. The authors learned about their work from SNCC Digital (www.snccdigital.org), the CRMvet.org website, and additional resources shared during the institute.
Year: 2018
Primary URL:
https://www.teachingforchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Poetry-Collection-August-2018_NEH_Institute.pdfPrimary URL Description: The poetry collection was posted for access by the teacher participants and others.
Audience: General Public