For our unit on the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, students explored several underrepresented or commonly misunderstood facets of that era and its activism. These included the role of women; the role of students; the role of the church; the tension between nonviolent action and self-defense; and the relationship between the movement and the federal government. Through this examination, students came to recognize that the civil rights movement was not one single or uniform entity. Rather, it was composed of many different kinds of people with diverse beliefs, backgrounds, and goals. Our project attempts to embrace and emphasize this diversity by asking each student to design one square of a multifaceted “Civil Rights Quilt.” Click on individual squares to read statements by each student about their research, inspiration, and artistic choices.
