Civil Rights in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s

All links and information in this article are current as of 6 December 2018.

Students work in pairs using original archive news stories from The Guardian and Observer from the 1950s and 1960s and from the last 20 years. They also have access to the internet for further research.

The session starts with an introduction to race relations and the fight for civil rights in the USA during the 1950s and 1960s, including a short video on the civil rights movement and the press from the Newseum in Washington DC.

The wire stories available range from the banning of the Jim Crow laws in 1955, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the killing of the civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King and more recent events including the election of Barack Obama.

Topics covered include:

• The Montgomery bus boycott.
  

• Crisis at Little Rock.
  

• Race riots of 1967.
  

• Martin Luther King.
  

• Thurgood Marshall.
  

• Civil Rights Acts.

• Desegregation of schools.

• Rosa Parks and the forgotten Claudette Colvin.

• 1968 Olympics and more recent taking a knee protests.

• Election of Barack Obama

Each front page holds three news stories and three pictures. The students choose three events, organisations, characters or themes to write about. Students choose their own page layout, place the pictures of their choice on the page, edit their reports, write the headlines, design a masthead, and print their paper to a deadline.

Prior knowledge of this era and its issues would be helpful but is not essential.

For a range of news and journalism activities to do with your class before your visit see our news literacy teaching ideas.

For additional resources and ideas see our resources for teachers page

If you would like to place your school/organisation on our waiting list for workshops for 2018/19 please register using the link on the secondary workshops page.