History teacher focuses on Jim Crow during Black History Month
Students in Mrs. Brandt’s POD class generated relevant terms from a Richard Wright novel during a unit on Jim Crow laws to create posters depicting the realities of segregation.
February 20, 2015
During the Civil Rights Unit in Ms. Brant’s Problems of Democracy class, students read “The Autobiographical Sketch of Jim Crow” by Richard Wright and learned about the former practice of segregating black people from white people in the United States.
Eleventh grade students’ work was the basis for a large mural Mrs. Braqndt created in her classroom.
Mrs. Brant completes several projects throughout the year that address issues of human rights, including a unit on the Holocaust. Her Civil Rights unit and Jim Crow project coincide with the celebration of Black History Month during the month of February.
Jim Crow was the name for a race-based caste system that existed mainly in the south following the Civil War.
After reading the story by Wright, students were instructed to pick six relevant terms from the text and superimpose them on a Jim Crow photo of their choice in the computer lab.
The finished mini-posters protesting Jim Crow were placed edge to edge to create a stark bulletin board that affects all that have viewed it in Room 214.
The BluePrint will have more on Mrs. Brant’s project and other Black History Month projects in the district next week, but until then you can learn more about Jim Crow by connecting to the PBS page for its documentary The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow or you can check out the documentary through the youtube link.
