School Integration Webpicks

Posted by Speakeasy News > Friday 06 April 2018 > Webpicks


Brown v. the Board of Education in 1954 is remembered in the U.S. as a landmark moment in the fight for civil rights. The segregated school that seven-year-old Linda Brown attended while the case for desegregation made its way through the courts is now a National Park Service Historic Site. These videos and websites are useful for covering this topic in class.

This video is from the National Park Service Brown vs Board of Education Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas. It's available to watch online, or download. It's subtitled in English, and there is a transcript available.

It alternates testimony from the late Mrs Zelma Henderson, one of the 13 parents associated in the Brown v Board of Education case with scripted commentary delivered by two teenagers, one black, one white.

Mrs Henderson's testimony is fascinating, for example the part right at the beginning where she explains that she had herself attended integrated schools (in a different part of Kansas), so was shocked when her children were forced to attend segregated ones.

The segment from 7:00 to 9:35 is very usable because it gives very concrete examples of how schoolchildren faced discrimination. It gives an example from each of the five cases which were combined in Brown v Board of Education, and ends with a recording of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place."

Separate is NOT Equal
This is a well produced video from the State Bar of Georgia. It is 8 minutes long, so it would be difficult to use it all, but the first 1'30" is a good introduction focussing on 7-year-old Linda Brown, with archive photos.

This NAACP mini-site created for the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education has lots of resources for more advanced students.



Webpicks Useful websites and online tools for classroom use
> Little Rock School Integration Videos