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Lewis Legacy Project: English 9: Day 4

Day 4 Lesson: March, Book 1

Pages 74 - 98

Day 4

Day 4: Lewis Legacy Project Begins!

Day 4 Overview

1) Read Aloud Time: 20 minutes (pages 74 - 98)

Discussion Questions:

1. Why do you think nonviolence was such an important part of the Civil Rights Movement?  Is nonviolence effective?  Why or why not?

2. What strategies did activists use to desegregate lunch counters and what happened in the end?

3. In what ways did John Lewis’ background and religion influence his fight for civil rights as well as the movement as a whole?

Historical Events in this section:

Event:  

  • The Fellowship of Reconciliation (F.O.R.)
    • What: An interfaith peace fellowship leading the charge on the most pressing human and civil rights issues through advocacy, activism, and educational programs.  Active during the civil rights movement for its relationship and involvement with Martin Luther King Jr.

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Event:

  • The Nashville Student Movement
    • Where: Nashville, TN
    • When: 1950s, 1960s
    • What: A student-led organization whose  main goal was to use nonviolence to challenge segregation in Nashville's public accommodations.
Nashville Student Movement
Led by John Lewis (front), approximately 200 students sing hymns and march from Tennessee A&I toward the Tennessee state capitol on Sept. 14, 1961, to protest the dismissal of 14 Freedom Riders from the university. Members of the Nashville Student Movement played significant roles in the continuation of the interstate bus trip through Alabama and Mississippi in May 1961. (Photograph by Paul Schleicher, Nashville Banner. Courtesy of the Nashville Public Library, Special Collections)

Event:

  • Woolworth’s
    • Where: Greensboro, NC
    • When: February 1, 1960
      • What: Four African American college students sat down at a lunch counter and politely asked for service. Their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Their passive resistance and peaceful sit-down demand helped ignite a youth-led movement to challenge racial inequality throughout the South.
Woolworth's Lunch Counter sit-in
A May 28, 1963, sit-in demonstration at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson, Miss., turned violent when whites poured sugar, ketchup and mustard over the heads of demonstrators, from left, John Salter, Joan Trumpauer and Anne Moody. (Fred Blackwell / Associated Press)
 

 

People in this section:

in order of appearance in today's reading

Jim Lawson

 Jim Lawson: an activist who was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960s, he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Diane Nash Diane Nash: A civil rights activist and a leader and strategist of the student wing of the Civil Rights Movement.
Gandhi Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) (1869-1948): An Indian lawyer who led his country’s quest for independence from Great Britain.  He is best known for his nonviolent practices and philosophy of peace which inspired the civil rights activists in the US during the 1950s and 1960s.