Civil Rights Oral History Lesson Plans
Oral history interviews provide tangible access to the past, with narrators offering first-hand descriptions in their own voices of historical events, ideas, and mindsets. The SOHP, in collaboration with Carolina K-12, created lesson plans on teaching about the American Civil Rights Movement through oral history clips. The lessons offer a unique way to bring history alive for middle and high school students.
Access additional civil rights lessons that integrate oral histories here, and visit Carolina K-12’s database for hundreds of lessons and PowerPoints on numerous topics. The Carolina Oral History Teaching Fellows program was a collaboration between the Southern Oral History Program and Carolina K-12. Funding for this program was provided by the Southern Oral History Program, the North Caroliniana Society, the College of Arts & Sciences, and the Graduate School’s Bland Fellowship.
Despite the vastness and diversity of Appalachia, the term is often associated with cultural aspects that are not inclusive of African Americans. In this lesson, students will explore black life in the mountains, first through the lens of “Affrilachia,” a term coined by black Appalachian poet Frank X Walker. Through the exploration of poetry and music, students will gain an understanding of the important role African Americans have played in mountain culture. Students will further explore the various experiences of African Americans living in the North Carolina Mountains by listening to oral history interviews from the Southern Oral History Program, covering topics from daily life to the impact of the Civil Rights Movement. Students will culminate their learnings by creating a performance piece about black life in Appalachia from oral history interview excerpts.
Access the lesson plan and the accompanying PowerPoint.
Students will explore education during the Civil Rights Movement through the examination of oral history interview excerpts, selections from “Freedom Schools” newspapers, poetry, and discussion. Incorporating reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language goals, this lesson will lead students to reflect on the importance of education and access to quality education in terms of personal growth, fulfillment and equality.
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A Durham, NC native, Pauli Murray (1910-1985) is a lesser-known civil rights trailblazer whose life, activism and constant courage in the face of adversity made societal advancements that impact us today. The intersection of her crucial work also serves to illuminate the connections between the struggle for civil rights and women’s rights. This lesson will provide an overview of Pauli Murray’s incredible work, perseverance and accomplishments through class lecture and interactive discussion, and most importantly, through her own words. Infused throughout the lesson are seven oral history clips from a 1976 interview with Pauli Murray, housed at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Southern Oral History Program. This lesson will ultimately broaden student understanding of the Civil Rights Movement in terms of the heightened challenges (and thus fight) faced by African American women, as well as bring to the forefront one of the most impactful trailblazers for civil and women’s rights.
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In this lesson, students will examine the fight for African American voting rights during the 1950s-60s through a PowerPoint discussion, readings, and oral history excerpts. Students will learn about the various barriers to voting that African Americans faced, the ways in which people fought to expand voting rights, and the ways in which the expansion of voting rights affected political representation in the United States. This lesson culminates with an activity in which students are tasked with creating a skit for a new Voter Education Project with the goal of educating Americans about the fight for voting rights and increasing voter registration and turnout.
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This lesson will focus on how students of Historically Black Colleges and Universities created a culture of change and resistance that impacted the Civil Rights Movement within America. Utilizing varied sources, such as clips from the Southern Oral History Program’s recordings, film clips, articles, primary source documents, and various websites, students will work independently to discover how the agency and actions of HBCU students led to tangible social change, both in the areas surrounding their schools and across America.
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Students often have the misconception that voting was always a right for everyone over the age of 18. Further is the misconception that all former slaves were granted the right to vote following the ratification of the 15th Amendment. In this lesson, students will look at perspectives of those who, in actuality, did not receive the right to vote because of various methods of disenfranchisement. Through analysis of oral histories and other primary sources, students will understand how voting rights were taken away from African Americans in the South.
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History has often been remiss in overlooking the crucial leadership and contributions of women during the Civil Rights Movement, focusing instead on the more prominent male leaders. In this lesson, students will explore the important roles women played in the acquisition of civil rights as participants, organizers and leaders, particularly focusing on four examples: Septima Clark, Ella Baker, Daisy Bates and Fannie Lou Hamer. Through the examination of various readings, video clips and oral history interviews with and about these women, students will gain the understanding that without women, the Civil Rights Movement could not have been as successful. Students will culminate their understanding by writing ode poems about the women involved in the Civil Rights Movement.
Access the lesson plan and the accompanying PowerPoint.
Centennial of the 19th Amendment
In the Centennial of the 19th Amendment teaching resource, SOHP undergraduate interns created a guide utilizing oral histories from the SOHP’s archive and project,The NC 2020 Coalition Oral History Project. The lesson plans break into themes of voter suppression; intersectionality; activism in voting; and voting in memory. Oral history interview excerpts from archival projects on voting rights provide historical context for the continuing fight for equality and voting rights in the South.
Explore the teaching resource and corresponding oral history interview excerpts.
The NC 2020 Coalition Oral History Project
The NC 2020 Coalition is a collaboration of organizations commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment. The coalition focuses on commemorating the anniversary by sharing information on events around North Carolina and on the history of suffrage efforts in the United States. Working together, the group’s purpose is to promote accuracy of the historical record, showcase legal and social advances in gender equality since the amendment’s passing, and describe its relevance in the current fight for equal rights. In collaboration with the NC 2020 Coalition, students of the SOHP conducted oral histories with women and transgender men involved with the coalition. In The NC2020 Coalition Oral History Project, the process of the construction in public historical commemoration meets the process of individual remembering. In working together to figure out how to collectively remember the complex history of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, these interviewees each bring their own sometimes conflicting, sometimes overlapping memories of women’s activism, voting, and citizenship. The project will launch gradually throughout fall 2020 leading up to the November 2020 election.
Mapping Voices of North Carolina's Past
Mapping Voices of North Carolina’s Past is an interactive map featuring oral history interviews with people from North Carolina’s past. This map and the accompanying discussion guide below are intended for K-12 teachers to help their students experience history through stories.
Students can explore school desegregation or listen to women talk about their fight for equal rights. By comparing audio clips, students can ask new questions: How did black students experience school desegregation differently from white classmates? What has immigration meant to different people? Why has the rise and fall of textile factories been important to North Carolinians? What impacts have newer industries and infrastructural developments had on the state?
The Women’s Leadership Discussion Guide is intended to foster discussion in grades 8-12 classrooms about women’s leadership and the long fight for equal rights across North Carolina, based on the Southern Oral History Program’s interactive map. After students listen to audio clips from oral history interviews embedded in the map, teachers can utilize the discussion questions provided for whole class discussion, small group discussion, and/or writing assignments.