Lesson Introduction – Little Patriots Learning

The Civil Rights Movement: 2nd Grade Lesson Introduction

Think About It

Imagine for a moment you got the privilege to be one of the first kids from your neighborhood to attend a school in the nicest part of town. You are very excited because this school has a bigger, better playground than your old school and there are way more sports and activity teams to join. On your first day when you arrive, students who attend this school and their parents are outside yelling at you as you walk in. You hear them shouting that they don’t want kids from other neighborhoods to come to their school. As you go to your classroom, no one greets you except the teacher, and nobody wants to work with you on the assignments. At lunch you sit by yourself and at recess you play alone.

How do you think you would feel about going back the next day and the rest of the year?

Taking a Stand

One little girl was in a situation very similar around sixty years ago. She was invited to go to a new school that did not have any students there who looked like her. It was an all white school, and she was Black. Six years earlier, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregation of schools was illegal. Schools had to accept ALL local students, no matter what color their skin was. Though it was illegal, some schools still remained segregated, especially in the South. Ruby Bridges was chosen to be the first girl to begin the process of integrating Black and White students at her new school.

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