Centering Youth Agency in the Civil Rights Movement

FAIN: ES-288076-22

Florida A&M University (Tallahassee, FL 32307-3102)
Darius J. Young (Project Director: February 2022 to February 2025)
Kristal Moore Clemons (Co Project Director: February 2022 to February 2025)

A new two-week, combined format institute for 25 K-12 educators on the history of youth activism in the Civil Rights Movement.

Hosted by Florida A&M University and the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools program, this two-week Institute will encourage teachers to consider “the student as a force for social change” during the Civil Rights Movement. While K-12 curriculum often centers the voices of adults, a growing body of scholarship has called attention to the role of young people in the battles for equality that engulfed the United States following World War II. Through a focus on the school desegregation standoff at Clinton High School and the creation of Freedom Schools during 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, teachers will learn new ways to center the voices of young people during this crucial era. Participants will hear from leading scholars, movement veterans, and contemporary student activists; participate in digital history workshops in collaboration with FAMU’s Black Archives; and create lessons that use these stories and culturally relevant pedagogies to promote student agency in their classroom