Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom's Bittersweet Song [Paperback]

Julie Buckner Armstrong (Editor), Susan Hult Edwards (Editor), Houston Bryan Roberson (Editor), Rhonda Y. Williams (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0415932572 | ISBN-13: 978-0415932578 | Edition: 1

The past fifteen years have seen renewed interest in the civil rights movement. Television documentaries, films and books have brought the struggles into our homes and classrooms once again. New evidence in older criminal cases demands that the judicial system reconsider the accuracy of investigations and legal decisions. Racial profiling, affirmative action, voting districting, and school voucher programs keep civil rights on the front burner in the political arena. In light of this, there are very few resources for teaching the civil rights at the university level. This timely and invaluable book fills this gap. This book offers perspectives on presenting the movement in different classroom contexts; strategies to make the movement come alive for students; and issues highlighting topics that students will find appealing. Including sample syllabi and detailed descriptions from courses that prove effective, this work will be useful for all instructors, both college and upper level high school, for courses in history, education, race, sociology, literature and political science.

Editorial Reviews

Review

At last a collection that broadens and deepens conventional understandings of the Civil Rights Movement, that goes far beyond Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat, Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, and the repeated scenes of dramatic interracial face-offs before the camera crews. It will be an essential text not just for scholars and teachers, but also for anyone seeking a less reverential, more multifaceted approach to the Civil Rights Movement.
–Deborah McDowell, University of Virginia

This valuable collection complicates and enriches the teaching of the civil rights movement. Employing the most recent scholarship, these essays challenge traditional approaches and provide excellent examples of innovative and compelling ways to teach this movement, and African American history more generally..
–Barbara Dianne Savage, UPenn

This book belongs in the library of every teaching historian...It will appeal not merely to those who focus on the history of the American civil rights movement but to all who seek new approaches to history pedagogy.
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–History of Education Quarterly

About the Author

Julie Buckner Armstrong is Assistant Professor of English at Valdosta State in Georgia. Houston B. Roberston is Assistant Professor of U.S. History at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Rhonda Y. Williams is Assistant Professor of History at Case Western.

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (October 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415932572
• ISBN-13: 978-0415932578
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,267,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Julie Armstrong was born in Birmingham, Alabama and currently lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. She teaches American, African-American, and Women's literatures at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Julie loves her wonderful harborside campus and her office in a former Salvador Dali museum. She is author of Mary Turner and the Memory of Lynching, and co-editor of The Civil Rights Reader: American Literature from Jim Crow To Reconciliation and Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom's Bittersweet Song.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Reviewing, September 27, 2011

By 

Brooke Nelson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom's Bittersweet Song (Paperback)

Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement is a collaboration of teachers and college professors coming together to create new methods of teaching the Civil Rights. These are educators from across the nation meeting every summer to learn from one another. This text is a compilation of their creative strategies and tactics for students to benefit from. The book's aim is to present new ways of exposing the Civil Rights Movement in classrooms across the nation. It is more than a textbook; it is a creative package for students and scholars to become enlightened by our history and contemporary way of life.