The books, articles, and films listed in the documents below are just a starting point for research on these subjects. New works of film, fiction, and scholarship are released frequently.
Curricula
Curricula Websites
These websites have curricula related to civil rights, human rights, and social justice.
International Museum of Muslim Culture, Jackson MS (external link)
Library of Congress curricula (external link)
Mississippi Department of Education Social Studies framework, including Civil Rights Education in Mississippi (external link)
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow (external link)
Southern History Project (external link)
Teaching for Tolerance (external link)
Voting Rights curricula (external link)
Zinn Education Project (external link)
Digital Archives & Resources
‘A Shaky Truce’ : Starkville Civil Rights Struggles, 1960-1980
This is a rich and extensive website on civil rights history in Starkville, in Oktibbeha County MS: “Through oral history interviews and digitized archival documents, this site highlights the civil rights story in Starkville, MS, and the voices of its participants.”
Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive by the University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage
McComb Legacies
An oral history project on the civil rights history of McComb, in Pike County MS
Mississippi Civil Rights markers for the Mississippi Freedom Trail
The Mississippi Freedom Project collection of more than 200 oral histories by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida
Lynching in Mississippi
Lynching is a horrific part of the history of racial terror in the United States. Lynching often targeted black men accused of fraternizing with white women, but it also targeted black women and children and sometimes people of other races who were thought to be associated with black people or movements for black freedom. Lynching involved small groups or large mobs of white people who subverted the legal process for black people accused or suspected of actual crimes or of transgressions of the white supremacist social order, such as interracial relationships or economic or political power.
Hundreds of documented lynchings occurred throughout the state of Mississippi.
Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) has an extensive website on the history of lynching in the US, including 654 that occurred in Mississippi: https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/
EJI has a lesson plan for high school teachers and students: https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report-landing
A key figure in the anti-lynching movement was Mississippi native Ida B. Wells. The Ida B. Wells-Barnett Museum is located in Holly Springs: http://idabwellsmuseum.org/
NEH Civil Rights Education Forum
In 2016 and 2017, the National Endowment for the Humanities provided funding for the Winter Institute to host a series of public forums designed to equip teachers with more tools for teaching about civil rights literacy: Civil Rights Literacy and the Past, Present, and Future of the Common Good
Click the links below to see videos of the events at the Jackson forum.
Jackson two-day workshop (April 29-30, 2016)
- Avoiding Historical Amnesia: Civil Rights Literacy and the Common Good Panel
April 29, 2016 – Panel discussion with Dr. Stuart Rockoff, Chauncey Spears, Dr. Daphne Chamberlain, and Dr. Leslie-Burl McLemore. Moderated by Dr. Jennifer Stollman. - Case Studies of Communities Engaging the Past for Future Success
April 29, 2016 – Panel discussion with Melissa “Missy” Janczewski Jones, Dr. Roy DeBerry, and Dr. Dave Tell. Moderated by Charles Tucker. - Civil Rights Literacy in the Classroom: Primary Sources, Methodology and Effects panel
April 30, 2016 – Panel discussion with Stacey Everett, Claire Gwaltney, Jacqueline Martin, and Lynne Schneider. Moderated by Charles Tucker. - Civil Rights and Religious Extremism: A Response from Mississippi panel
April 30, 2016 – Panel discussion with Dr. James Bowley and Dr. Loye Ashton. Moderated by Faith Ozcan. - Douglas Blackmon, Keynote Luncheon Speech
April 30, 2016 – Keynote Speaker, Douglas Blackmon is the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from Civil War to World War II and co-executive producer of the acclaimed PBS documentary of the same name. He is also the executive producer and host of American Forum, a public affairs program produced at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and aired weekly on more than 250 PBS affiliates across the U.S. - Learning from Each Other: An Intergenerational Conversation on the Struggle for Freedom panel
April 30, 2016 – Panel discussion with Charles “Chuck” McDew, Jeffrey Barner, Janice Marie Citchens, Tia Toines, Brianna Cry, Kadin Love, and Juliette Richert. Moderated by Melody Frierson. - Media Arts and Civic Engagement
April 30, 2016 – Conversation on film “Mississippi Innocence” with filmmaker Joe York and film subject Levon Brooks. Moderated by April Grayson. - School Integration in America: Then and Now Panel
April 29, 2016 – Panel discussion with David Rae Morris, Mike Espy, Douglas Blackmon, and Margie Cooper Pearson. Moderated by Dr. Stuart Rockoff.
Jackson, MS: April 29-30, 2016
Biloxi, MS / MGCCC: September 10, 2016
Oxford, MS / University of Mississippi: October 8, 2016
Cleveland, MS / Delta State University: October 13, 2017
Oral History Resources
This resource includes guides and examples to assist teachers, students, and others with conducting oral histories in their own communities.
Oral History Association (external link)
The Telling Lives Oral History Curriculum Guide (external link)
Power & Privilege
Privilege means an unearned right or advantage afforded to some and not to others (and at the expense of others).
Primary Source Collections
These collections, housed at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH), contain numerous documents and images that can be used for research and curriculum ideas. All are external links.
Citizens Council Forum Film Collection
Foner Freedom Summer Collection Digitized
The Medgar Wiley and Myrlie Beasley Evers Papers
Mississippi State Constitutions, 1817-1890