Despite efforts to limit black history teaching, civil rights veterans are creating university courses for educators to share.
Rep. John Lewis recalls the basics of the SNCC
Rep. John Lewis, a charter member of the Student Nonviolence Coordination Committee (SNCC), remembers the early days of the movement. “The sit-ins are spreading like wildfires.”
Deborough Field Berry, USA Today
WASHINGTON – When some educators are drawn back from teaching black history, university professor Kijua Sanders McMutley is on a different path.
During a conference break this summer, she thrilledly typed into the syllabus for a course she teaches civil rights women this fall.
“This is when students want to learn about the civil rights movement. They want to know these stories,” said Sanders-McMurtry, who teaches freshman seminars at Mount Holyoke College, a women’s liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
She was one of nearly 20 educators and veterans on the Nonviolence Coordination Committee for Students (SNCC) that she met in Washington, DC this summer, and spoke about how she could teach college students and others about the civil rights movement. The three-day summit, hosted by the SNCC Legacy Project, aims to equip educators with tools to teach them about the vital movements that have changed the nation.
Organizers said the effort will come at a critical time as the Trump administration and others oppose teaching on black history and adopt restrictions on what can be taught in classrooms and institutions, including museums.
“This is a way to save history and ensure it’s not erased,” said Jeri Augus, a board member of the SNCC Legacy Project and a professor at Brown University. “We are determined not to happen, so this is one of the ways we see as part of the SNCC legacy. We don’t erase our history or let it be taught.”
I will teach and save the wild truth
At a lower level of the hotel here, educators listened on July 29th when they described the university-level courses that the professor had developed. Civil Rights Veterans also spoke with local activists about their work in the 1960s, registering black residents to vote for discrimination and protesting.
The table at the front featured a stack of books written by civil rights veterans, including “Hands on the Freedom Plough” and “Brother Hollis: The Sankofa of the Movement.”
The 15-week course curriculum was developed from thousands of major sources, including in-person accounts, newspapers, images, artwork, and films. Organizers said their goal is for educators to dive deep into the SNCC digital database and find ways to use the materials. They hope that the courses will be taught in the field.
Classes designed to be flexible can be taught in Ivy League schools, community colleges, church basements or community centers, they said.
The educators at the summit were from large research universities, community colleges and historically black universities. Some are taught in prisons too.
Regardless of the institution they were born in, instructors shared their willingness to teach the course. This reflects their living experiences and passions, according to Joshua Myers, an associate professor of Africana Studies in Afro-American Studies at Howard University.
“We’re not just delivering content for the week. Most of the people here know the story, they know the story,” he said before the session. “What we’re interested in is to deepen our commitment and connection with those who lived it, and ensure that education is a different project, a different kind of mission.”
That’s important, Meyers continues, “The story of the movement 50 years from now is not a disinfectant version.”
Those who fought for civil rights over 60 years ago were aging and many died. More recently, Major General Joseph McNeill asked him to sit and serve with three fellow college freshmen at a North Carolina lunch counter in quarantine on February 1, 1960.
“We’re not always here,” said Augusto, a board member of the SNCC Legacy Project.
College students are deeply interested in their history
Doris J. Ward, vice president of academic affairs at Last College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, says students are excited about their classes teaching their history.
“We want a more similar class,” she said. Her students said they were grateful for the course she taught last fall about the summer of Freedom in 1964., When many black and white college students joined local Mississippi activists to register and vote for black people.
Rust College, the state’s oldest HBCU, was a safe haven for civil rights workers from the 1950s to the 1960s. Ward attended the SNCC Summit to learn more about other civil rights courses.
Sanders-Mcmurtry, vice president of equity and inclusion at Mount Hole York College, said it’s helpful to know that today’s students can fight to protect their rights.
“College students care deeply about what happens in the world,” she said.
Cortland Cox, chairman of the SNCC Legacy Project, urged educators to continue teaching history.
“I don’t think I can educate everyone tomorrow, but work that does tomorrow, tomorrow, the next day, etc. will make a difference,” he said.
