Walking in Their Shoes: Using #BlackLivesMatter to Teach the Civil Rights Movement

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The civil rights movement offers critical context for understanding the systemic police violence, voter suppression efforts, ‘law and order’ rhetoric and criminalization of activism we see today. It also helps us understand the strategies activists use to fight these injustices. Historians Shannon King and Nishani Frazier explain how they use 21st-century Black activism to teach the movement’s history—and how they use the movement to help students better understand the contemporary Black freedom struggle.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Listen to our <a href= "https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7y0lRqzZB3SPppmEfZUll3?si=oLMOaq3sSH23WccIyhhIVg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">latest Spotify playlist</a> f</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">or even more Movement Music inspired by this episode. </span></p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC6GWR6MERA" target= "_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">“You do know that when Dr. King was alive we had the Watts riots…”</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">– Watch the exchange we discuss between Don Lemon and Rev. Jesse Jackson during the 2014 Ferguson uprising. </span></p> <p><a href="https://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm" target= "_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Are you qualified to vote?</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">–</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">This is an amazing collection of Jim Crow era state voter applications and literacy tests from before the Voting Rights Act. </span></p> <p><a href= "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/lessons-plans/lesson-plan-voter-suppression-then-and-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">“Voter suppression then and now”</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">– This lesson plan offers students historical context and an examination of the issue today. </span></p> <p><a href= "https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/teaching-about-mass-incarceration-from-conversation-to-ci