Yo, Miss! (No. 15)

Holding Out For A Hero

I recently wrapped up teaching my unit on the Civil Rights Movement in my AP U.S. History classes and some of the lessons included a discussion responding to the following question:

To what extent was a more militant message necessary in achieving civil rights and combatting institutionalized racism in the 1960s?

Students read this NPR article “Black Power Scholar Illustrates How MLK And Malcolm X Influenced Each Other” where scholar Dr. Peniel Joseph discusses his book “The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.”

and then considered the following questions for the conversation:

How did the backgrounds and experiences of King and X affect their strategies?

According to the author, what were the roles that King and X played in the movement and how and why did they change?

To what extent can you legislate equality?

Can you think of other figures in American history or even today that have a similar dynamic in terms of shared goals but divergent strategies?

Students were really into the discussion as the article challenged their preexisting ideas about King and X. Then the next day they learned about Stokely Carmichael as well as the Black Panther movement and we returned to the discussion topic from the previous day. (I tried really hard to not keep saying we couldn’t have this conversation in a Florida public school today. I say that a lot, because it is true.)

When we discussed if students could think of current day Civil Rights leaders, students brought up how they felt as though the movement was lacking leaders like Dr. King, Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael. They wondered if a movement needed a clear leader in order for it to be effective and not fizzle. Of course, that is a topic for another newsletter. I am merely reporting their impressions.

Then the shooting in Nashville, Tennessee happened and two new national leaders have emerged into the spotlight to lead the fight to end gun violence as well as exposing the systemic racism in the United States.

The Republican-led Tennessee House voted to expel two of the three Democratic members, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, over their gun protest. All three representatives were accused of “violating decorum rules” for participating in a protest last week on the House floor following a mass shooting at a private school in Nashville where six people — including three 9-year-olds — were killed. The white member, Gloria Johnson was not expelled, but the two Black members, Pearson and Jones, were expelled. When Representative Johnson was asked by reporters if she thought there was a reason she'd had a different outcome. "I'll answer your question," she said. "It might have to do with the color of our skin."

When I watched Justin Jones and Justin Pearson deliver their speeches before being expelled by the Tennessee House of Representatives, I was immediately reminded of the great Civil Rights leaders that we had just been studying in my AP U.S. classes the previous week.

For example, before he was voted out, Justin Jones said: “What we see today is a lynch mob assembled not to lynch me but our democratic process…This is your attempt to expel the voices of the people from the people’s house. It will not be successful. Your overreaction, your flexing of false power has awakened a generation of people who will let you know that your time is up.… The world is watching.”

Then, before Justin Pearson was voted out, he said:

“You are seeking to expel District 86‘s representation from this House in a country that was built on a protest. You, who celebrate July 4, 1776, pop fireworks and eat hot dogs, you say to protest is wrong, because you spoke out of turn. Because you spoke up for people who are marginalized. You spoke up for children who won’t ever be able to speak again. You spoke up for parents who don’t want to live in fear, you spoke up for Larry Thorn, who was murdered by gun violence. You spoke up for people that we don’t want to care about.”

I am already thinking about how I will teach about Jones and Pearson in years to come. One idea that popped into my head last night is creating a lesson where I compare Pearson’s reference to “the Fourth of July” in his speech to remind his Republican colleagues that America was born out of protest (what he and his fellow representatives were being expelled for doing) with Frederick Douglass’s famous 1852 speech “What To The Slave is the Fourth of July?” where he discusses the hypocrisy of a country celebrating liberty when it was still awash in slavery:

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”

Of course, Douglass’s speech was delivered when race-based chattel slavery was still thriving in America. However, when Pearson brought up the celebration of July 4, 1776, I immediately thought that it would be interesting to create a lesson that challenged students to think about the meaning and symbolism of July 4th. For example, students could interrogate what July 4th meant in 1852 and what it currently represents in 2023. This could lead to a thought-provoking conversation about how the Fourth of July and the Declaration of Independence can be used to both remind the country of our potential as well as the progress we have yet to achieve as a nation. The lesson could also lead to a powerful discussion about the legacy of slavery, segregation, and institutionalized racism in America. I will work on this!

I am both angered by the racist actions of the Tennessee Republicans, but also inspired to see these two young brilliant Black leaders get the world’s attention.

I know they will continue to galvanize Americans to push for gun control laws and also fight against the prevailing racism in America.

As Dr. King reminded us: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”*

*Fun fact: In his “Arc of the Moral Universe” speech, Dr. King was echoing the words of the 19th century abolitionists and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker.

Thanks for reading and thank you for your support. It is great to be in this community with all of you!