Lindsay L.

White
Text Set 1
A. The Haunted South: White-On-Black Crimes and Other Ghosts of the
Souths Past
B. Preface
(a)The main topics addressed in this text set are racial prejudice (specifically
between blacks and whites in the southeastern portion of the United States), segregation,
Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement and finally/most importantly, the murder of
Emmett Louis Till, Jr. in the summer of 1955 in Money, Mississippi.
Of the 110 freshmen and sophomore English students that I teach at H.W. Byers
High School, more than 90% of them are African American, and a very large percentage
of those students--both black and white--are extremely unaware and uninformed about
the history of the south and of African Americans in the U.S. Though the main goal of
this text set is to master literature and writing standards, I hope to enlighten them of
Americas dark past and provide them with the tools to better understand what being
black or white in the south in those days entailed and how those dynamics have impacted
present-day race relations.
(b) The following standards will be either assessed or addressed:
RL.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis
of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn.
RL.9-10.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in
detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped
and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
RL.9-10.7 Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two
different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment.
RL.9-10.9 Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source
material in a specific work.
RI.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis
of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
RI.9-10.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its
development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and
refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
RI.9-10.7 Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different
mediums, determining which details are emphasized in each account.
W.9-10.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to
answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or
broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject,
demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
SL.9-10.4 Present information, findings, and supporting evidence
clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and
the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience,
and task.

C. Table of Contents

Text 1: Mississippi Trial, 1930 page 3

Text 2: New BulletinDecember 1, 1930 page 3
Text 3: When I Lay My Burden Down by Maya Angelou page 5
Text 4: Death of Innocence by Mamie Till-Mobley page 9
Text 5: Civil Rights Chronology page 9
Text 6: Pictures page 13
Text 7: The Murder of Emmett Till (documentary) page 14
Text 8: Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday page 15
Text 9: Mississippi TrialMock Trial page 15
Text 10: Additional poems page16
statement of relevance page 18

D. Text 1: Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe

(a)
https://historicalfictionbookreviews3.wikispaces.com/Mississippi+Trial,+1955++Micah+R.
(b) A young boy, Hiram Hilburn, visits his grandfather in Greenwood, MS. Hiram
really looks up to and \ loves his grandfather and cant understand why his father no
longer wants anything to do with his own dad (so much so to the point where Hirams
dad moves his family to Arizona and away from the south). The last time Hiram was in
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Mississippi, he was really young, so when he arrives back in Greenwood in the summer
of 1955, things look differently through a set of more mature eyes. In short, Hiram is
starting to recognize the unfairness of the race dynamics in the south and ends up
befriending a young black boy from Chicago, Emmett Till, who ends up being the fatal
victim of a hate crime. Hirams eyes are further opened to the injustices when he attends
the trial and realizes that his friends murderers, two white men, will not be placed in
prison.
(c) I decided to use this text for several reasons. First of all, the context is very
relevant to the lives of my students--theyre all teenagers growing up in Mississippi just
like Hiram Hilburn and Emmett Till. It is my hope that they will get a glimpse of how
frightening this time period was for many in the south and that many of the hate crimes,
like lynchings, that they may have heard about happened in their own backyard. My
students, generally, feel as if they havent been impacted by racism, so it is my desire to
rid them of their feelings of being disconnected from the past.
Secondly, the readability of the text is perfect for my students. Most of my
students read at or around a 5th grade level. The text should be easy enough for them to
comprehend while also providing lots to draw on for more complex analysis. The book is
rich in views about race in the south and what could sometimes be the results of those
views.
(d) Before There Was Trayvon Martin--Many of my students are familiar with
the Trayvon Martin story and like cases that have been deemed by some to racially
motivated crimes. Regardless of whether or not they believe that race had anything to do
with Martins death or that he was the modern-day Emmett Till, I plan to encourage
them to relate the injustice surrounding the Trayvon Martin death to the injustice they are
going to find as the read Mississippi Trial, 1955. Im also going to ask them if hate
crimes are really a thing of the past or do we have a modern, more subtle version.
E. Text 2: News Bulletin December 1, 1930--The Mob is Never Right
(a) [Source is below, but heres a link just in case.
http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/beyond-the-textbook/24693]

(b) The bulletin expresses opposition to the many lynch mobs of the day, because
many of the blacks that have been accused of causing harm to whites have
actually been innocent. The writer is basically stating that people should not take
the law into their own hands and must rely on the courts to do their jobs.

(c) This source will inform the students of some of the practices that were
acceptable in those dayslike how it was okay for lynch mobs to persecute
blacks. Students have found this bit of information hard to believe in the past and
reading this will hopefully aid them a little in understanding why Emmett Tills
murderers, though they went to court, were still found not guilty. Simply, it was
easy to get away with murdering blacks.
(d) I would give this source in conjunction with our main novel to use for a quickwrite assessment in which students would have argue for or against the following
point using textual evidence from both sources: Even if lynch mobs were
completely ruled out, there would still be blacks murdered in this manner
primarily because lynch mobs were backed by much of the law enforcement.
F. Text 3: When I Lay My Burden Down by Maya Angelou
(a) Text 3:
When I Lay My Burden Down
from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou
"Thou shall not be dirty and Thou shall not be impudent were the two
commandments of Grandmother Henderson upon which hung our total salvation.
Each night in the bitterest winter we were forced to wash faces, arms, necks, legs, and
feet before going to bed. . .
We would go to the well and wash in the ice-cold, clear water, grease our legs
with the equally cold, stiff Vaseline, then tiptoe into the house. We wiped the dust from
our toes and settled down for schoolwork, corn bread, clabbered milk, prayers, and bed,
always in that order. Momma was famous for pulling the quilts off after we had fallen
asleep to examine our feet. If they werent clean enough for her, she took the switch (she
kept one behind the bedroom door for emergencies) and woke up the offender with a few
aptly placed burning reminders.
The area around the well at night was dark and slick, and boys told about how
snakes love water, so that anyone who had to draw water at night and then stand there
alone and wash knew that moccasins and rattlers, puff adders and boa constrictors were
winding their way to the well and would arrive just as the person washing got soap in her
eyes. But Momma convinced us that not only was cleanliness next to godliness, dirtiness
was the inventor of misery.
The impudent child was detested by God and a shame to its parents and could
bring destruction to its house and line. All adults had to be addressed as Mister, Missus,
Miss, Auntie, Cousin, Unk, Uncle, Buhbah, Sister, Brother, and a thousand other
appellations indicating familial relationship and the lowliness of the addressor.
Everyone I knew respected these customary laws, except for the powhitetrash children.
Some families of powhitetrash lived on Mommas farmland behind the school.
Sometimes a gaggle of them came to the Store, filling the whole room, chasing out the
air, and even changing the well-known scents. The children crawled over the shelves and

into the potato and onion bins, twanging all the time in their sharp voices like cigar-box
guitars. They took liberties in my Store that I would never dare. Since Momma told us
that the less you say to whitefolks (or even powhitetrash) the better, Bailey and I would
stand, solemn, quiet, in the displaced air.
But if one of the playful apparitions got close to us, I pinched it. Partly out of
angry frustration and partly because I didnt believe in its flesh reality.
They called my uncle by his first name and ordered him around the Store. He, to
my crying shame, obeyed them in his limping dip-straight-dip fashion.
My grandmother, too, followed their orders, except that she didnt seem to be
servile because she anticipated their needs.
Heres sugar, Miz Potter, and heres baking powder. You didnt buy soda last
month, youll probably be needing some.
Momma always directed her statements to the adults, but sometimes, Oh painful
sometimes, the grimy, snotty-nosed girls would answer her.
Naw, Annie . . .to Momma? Who owned the land they lived on? Who forgot
more than they would ever learn? If there was any justice in the world, God should strike
them dumb at once!Just give us some extry sody crackers, and some more mackerel.
At least they never looked in her face, or I never caught them doing so. Nobody with a
smidgen of training, not even the worst roustabout, would look right in a grown persons
face. It meant the person was trying to take the words out before they were formed. The
dirty little children didnt do that, but they threw their orders around the Store like lashes
from a cat-o-nine-tails.
When I was around ten years old, those scruffy children caused me the most
painful and confusing experience I had ever had with my grandmother.
One summer morning, after I had swept the dirt yard of leaves, spearmint-gum
wrappers, and Vienna-sausage labels, I raked the yellow-red dirt and made half-moons
carefully, so that the design stood out clearly and masklike. I put the rake behind the
Store and came through the back of the house to find Grandmother on the front porch in
her big, wide white apron. The apron was so stiff by virtue of the starch that it could have
stood alone. Momma was admiring the yard, so I joined her. It truly looked like a flat
redhead that had been raked with a big-toothed comb. Momma didnt say anything but I
knew she liked it. She looked over toward the school principals house and to the right at
Mr. McElroys. She was hoping one of those community pillars would see the design
before the days business wiped it out. Then she looked upward to the school. My head
had swung with hers, so at just about the same time we saw a troop of the powhitetrash
kids marching over the hill and down by the side of the school.
I looked to Momma for direction. She did an excellent job of sagging from her
waist down, but from the waist up she seemed to be pulling for the top of the oak tree
across the road. Then she began to moan a hymn. Maybe not to moan, but the tune was so
slow and the meter so strange that she could have been moaning. She didnt look at me
again. When the children reached halfway down the hill, halfway to the Store, she said
without turning, Sister, go on inside.
I wanted to beg her, Momma, dont wait for them. Come on inside with me. If
they come in the Store, you go to the bedroom and let me wait on them. They only
frighten me if youre around. Alone I know how to handle them.
But of course I couldnt say anything, so I went in and stood behind the screen

door.
Before the girls got to the porch, I heard their laughter crackling and popping like
pine logs in a cooking stove. I suppose my lifelong paranoia was born in those cold,
molasses-slow minutes. They came finally to stand on the ground in front of Momma. At
first they pretended seriousness. Then one of them wrapped her right arm in the crook of
her left, pushed out her mouth, and started to hum. I realized that she was aping my
grandmother. Another said, Naw, Helen, you aint standing like her. This heres it. Then
she lifted her chest, folded her arms and mocked that strange carriage that was Annie
Henderson. Another laughed, Naw, you cant do it. Your mouth aint pooched out
enough. Its like this.
I thought about the rifle behind the door, but I knew Id never be able to hold it
straight, and the .410, our sawed-off shotgun, which stayed loaded and was fired every
New Years night, was locked in the trunk and Uncle Willie had the key on his chain.
Through the fly-specked screen door, I could see that the arms of Mommas apron jiggled
from the vibrations of her humming. But her knees seemed to have locked as if they
would never bend again.
She sang on. No louder than before, but no softer either. No slower or faster.
The dirt of the girls cotton dresses continued on their legs, feet, arms, and faces to make
them all of a piece. Their greasy uncolored hair hung down, uncombed, with a grim
finality. I knelt to see them better, to remember them for all time. The tears that had
slipped down my dress left unsurprising dark spots and made the front yard blurry and
even more unreal. The world had taken a deep breath and was having doubts about
continuing to revolve.
The girls had tired of mocking Momma and turned to other means of agitation.
One crossed her eyes, stuck her thumbs in both sides of her mouth, and said, Look here,
Annie. Grandmother hummed on and the apron strings trembled. I wanted to throw a
handful of black pepper in their faces, to throw lye on them, to scream that they were
dirty, scummy peckerwoods, but I knew I was as clearly imprisoned behind the scene as
the actors outside were confined to their roles.
One of the smaller girls did a kind of puppet dance while her fellow clowns
laughed at her. But the tall one, who was almost a woman, said something very quietly,
which I couldnt hear. They all moved backward from the porch, still watching Momma.
For an awful second I thought they were going to throw a rock at Momma, who seemed
(except for the apron strings) to have turned into stone herself. But the big girl turned her
back, bent down, and put her hands flat on the groundshe didnt pick up anything. She
simply shifted her weight and did a handstand.
Her dirty bare feet and long legs went straight for the sky. Her dress fell down
around her shoulders, and she had on no drawers. . . . She hung in the vacuum of that
lifeless morning for only a few seconds, then wavered and tumbled. The other girls
clapped her on the back and slapped their hands.
Momma changed her song to Bread of Heaven, bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no
more.
I found that I was praying too. How long could Momma hold out? What new
indignity would they think of to subject her to? Would I be able to stay out of it? What
would Momma really like me to do?

Then they were moving out of the yard, on their way to town. They bobbed their heads
and shook their slack behinds and turned, one at a time:
Bye, Annie.
Bye, Annie.
Bye, Annie.
Momma never turned her head or unfolded her arms, but she stopped singing and said,
Bye, Miz Helen, bye, Miz Ruth, bye, Miz Eloise.
I burst. A firecracker July-the-Fourth burst. How could Momma call them Miz?
The mean, nasty things. Why couldnt she have come inside the sweet, cool store when
we saw them breasting the hill? What did she prove? And then if they were dirty, mean,
and impudent, why did Momma have to call them Miz?
She stood another whole song through and then opened the screen door to look
down on me crying in rage. She looked until I looked up. Her face was a brown moon
that shone on me. She was beautiful. Something had happened out there which I couldnt
completely understand, but I could see that she was happy. Then she bent down and
touched me as mothers of the church lay hands on the sick and afflicted and I quieted.
Go wash your face, Sister. And she went behind the candy counter and hummed,
Glory, glory, hallelujah, when I lay my burden down.
I threw the well water on my face and used the weekday handkerchief to blow my
nose. Whatever the contest had been out front, I knew Momma had won.
I took the rake back to the front yard. The smudged footprints were easy to erase. I
worked for a long time on my new design and laid the rake behind the wash pot. When I
came back in the Store, I took Mommas hand and we both walked outside to look at the
pattern.
It was a large heart with lots of hearts growing smaller inside, and piercing from
the outside rim to the smallest heart was an arrow. Momma said, Sister, thats right
pretty. Then she turned back to the Store and resumed, Glory, glory, hallelujah, when I
lay my burden down.
(b) Like Crowes story, Angelous story takes place in the segregated south as
well. A young girl, Anne Henderson, watches her mother get mistreated and disrespected
by a group of poor white girls. There are clearly lots of morals and pride taught in this
young girls household, so shes really taken aback by the girls actions. More than
anything, shes confused about why her mother let them disrespect her without doing
anything. She learns later, however, that mother did win the battle and that sometimes the
best way to fight back is by not fighting at all.
(c) I chose this test because, when used with the other texts, it offers a broad view
of the South before the Civil Rights Movement. Though stories like Tills stand out above
others, blacks all over the South had to deal with racial prejudice, and that second class
citizenship not only entailed threats of death but also constant verbal and emotional
abuse. The text shares the theme of racism, Jim Crow and segregation with the others and
students will be able to look at the portrayal of these same themes in several works and
compare and contrast their use of themes.

(d) Before students begin reading, I will instruct students to try and draw out
similarities and differences between Anne Hendersons experience in the South
and, though the story is told is anothers point of view, Emmett Tills experience.
G. Text 4: Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America
by Mamie Till-Mobely
(a)
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Innocence-Story-Changed-America/dp/0812970470
(b) Death of Innocence offers an account of the time of Emmetts death that is told
by his mother. She talks about how she dealt with Emmetts death and used her
experience to bring much-needed attention to racial injustices in the South. By sharing
with the nation what had happened to her son, she opened up the eyes of many and
helped aid in the growth of the Civil Rights Movement.
(c) I selected this text to inject a little more pathos into the topic. The book offers
an image of Emmett Till that is not portrayed in other media. Hearing Emmetts life story
being told by his mother further helps us to understand that this was a kid just like any
other kid. He was a son, a cousin, a friend, etc. Hopefully, this will make Emmett seem a
little more real to my students.
I mainly want the students to pay attention to the type of young man that Mamie
Till-Mobley asserted that Emmett was as opposed to how others say he acted at the store
(where he supposedly whistled to a white lady) and write about any discrepancies.
(d) By this time, we will have heard different accounts of what happened at the store.
Students will read with purpose and actively seek out any discrepancies to the stories
weve already heard. They will also note any juxtaposition the disrespectful behavior that
some claim he exhibited versus the type of young man his mother knew to be.
H. Text 5:
(a) Civil Rights Chronology
1954

In Brown v. Board of Education, the

decision widely regarded as having sparked
the modern civil rights era, the Supreme
Court rules deliberate public school
segregation illegal, effectively overturning
"separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v.
Ferguson. Chief Justice Earl Warren,
writing for a unanimous Court, notes that
to segregate children by race "generates a
feeling of inferiority as to their status in the
community that may affect their hearts and
minds in a way unlikely ever to be
undone." Thurgood Marshall heads the

1955

1956

1957

NAACP/Legal Defense Fund team winning

the ruling. Hernandez v. Texas becomes the
first Mexican American discrimination case
to reach the Supreme Court. The case
involves a murder conviction by a jury that
includes no Latinos. Chief Justice Earl
Warren holds persons of Mexican descent
are "persons of a distinct class" entitled to
the protection of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
On August 28, 14 year old Emmett Till is
beaten, shot and lynched by whites after
allegedly saying "bye, baby" to a white
woman in a store in Mississippi.
In Alabama, on December 1 Rosa Parks
refuses to up her bus seat to a white man,
precipitating the Montgomery bus boycott,
led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Montgomery bus boycott ends in victory,
December 21, after the city announces it
will comply with a November Supreme
Court ruling declaring segregation on buses
illegal. Earlier in the year, King's home was
bombed. Autherine Lucy is first African
American admitted to the University of
Alabama.
Efforts to integrate Little Rock, Ark.,
Central High School meet with legal
resistance and violence; Gov. Orval Faubus
predicts "blood will run in the streets" if
African Americans push effort to integrate.
On Sept. 24, federal troops mobilize to
protect the nine African American students
at the high school from white mobs trying
to block the school's integration.

1960
February 1, Lunch counter sit-in by four
college students in Greensboro, N.C.
begins and spreads through the South. On
April 17, the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is
founded.
1961

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

organizes Freedom Rides into the South to
test new Interstate Commerce Commission

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regulations and court orders barring

segregation in interstate transportation.
Riders are beaten by mobs in several
places, including Birmingham and
Montgomery, Ala
1963

1965

The United Farm Workers Union , under

the leadership of Cesar Chavez, organizes
to win bargaining power for Mexican
Americans.
James Meredith becomes first African
American student admitted to the
University of Mississippi.
In and event that traumatizes the nation,
President Kennedy is assassinated in
Dallas, Texas. Two days later, his alleged
assailant, Lee Harvey Oswald, is also shot
and killed. Vice President Lyndon Johnson
becomes president.
Martin Luther King Jr., receives the Nobel
Peace Prize. The Twenty-fourth
Amendment, ending the poll tax, is ratified
and becomes part of the Constitution.
Mississippi Freedom Summer, a voter
education and registration project, begins.
White northern college students volunteer
to run practice elections in preparation for
the Presidential election of 1964. Two
white students, Andrew Goodman and
Michael Scherner, and an African
American civil rights worker, James
Chaney, are murdered.
The Bracero Program is terminated.
Selma, Ala. voting rights campaign.
Jimmie Lee Jackson, 26, participating in a
march led by the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, is killed by
Alabama state troopers as he attempts to
prevent the troopers from beating his
mother and grandfather.
Selma to Montgomery march. The Voting
Rights Act passes and is signed into law on
August 6, effectively ending literacy tests
and a host of other obstacles used to
disenfranchise African American and other

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1968

minority citizens.
Malcolm X, the fiery orator and Muslim
leader, is assassinated. For some, Malcolm
X's militant rhetoric is a rival and
alternative to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s
message of Christian non-violence.
The Watt's section of Los Angeles erupts in
five days of rioting after an African
American woman is killed by a fire truck
driven by white men.
The Supreme Court, in Green v. County
School Board of New Kent County
(Virginia), rules that "actual desegregation"
of schools in the South is required,
effectively ruling out so-called school
"freedom of choice" plans and requiring
affirmative action to achieve integrated
schools.

(b) The chart outlines some of the major events leading up to the civil rights
movement and following it.
(c) Its important to me that, in their analyses, they are able to use evidence in a way
that shows that they are able to make connections between events surrounding the
death of Emmett Till and not view them as isolated events. Hopefully, this
timeline will help do that.
(d) With every text that we read or listen to, I am going to be sure to give them dates
in which the works were set. The timeline would be a tool that they could
constantly refer back to in order to get a gist of what was going on in any
particular time period.

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I. Text 6: Pictures
(a)

13

(b) Above is a picture taken of Emmett before and after his murder. Also, there
are two pictures of African Americans that have been lynched.
(c) Its been described in the books how severely Emmett was beaten and the
condition his body was left. I basically wanted them to be able to see the visual
themselves. Also, I would have to define the word lynch to my students, so I
want them a mental picture of the term in the event that theyll describe some of
these brutalities in analyses. They would also be able to compare and contrast the
portrayal of a topic in several different mediums to write about what is
emphasized in some and what is not.
(d) As I said above, these photos will help students further understand what lynch
mobs did to African Americans.
J. Text 7: The Murder of Emmett Till (documentary)
(a) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvijYSJtkQk
(b) This documentary not offers a retelling of the events surrounding and
following Tills death, but there is also footage from his funeral and of
interviews his family (mother, cousins, uncle and friends) gave shortly after
his death and during the trial. There is also footage from the actual trial.
(c) This is my attempt to present some of the same information in my students
favorite mediatelevisionin hopes that it will offer struggling readers even
more support and aid in their understanding by seeing the events played out in
a different format.

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(d) Since this documentary is filled with interview of people who were actually
there during the time that Till was kidnapped and murdered, Id like for the to
be able to easily pinpoint differences between how the information is
presented in this documentary versus how Hiram Hilburn retells the story in
Mississippi Trial, 1955.
K. Text 8: Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday (lyrics)
(a)
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
(b) These lyrics liken the African American bodies hanging from trees after being
lynched to the fruitits all too common. While the sound may be pastoral and the
ideal land to some, theres juxtaposition as far as how corrupt the Jim Crow South
actually was. In short, while the South may have seemed utopic to some, it was a
nightmare to others.
(c) Though this song is a different method of expression than weve dealt with
before, I think its important for them to understand that the social issues, just like today,
permeate different types of media. The students will identify themes in this song and
compare and contrast them with those found in all the works that have been and will be
mentioned. They will cite evidence and perform analyses.
(d) Before the students listen to the song, I will ask them to listen carefully and
try to figure out what the singer is actually singing about. What is strange about her
descriptions? Why do you think she mixed peaceful descriptions with very morbid ones?
L. Text 9: Mississippi Trial, 1955Mock Trial
(a) http://questgarden.com/02/45/6/050922122653/t-resources.htm
(b) Students will research more about Tills murderers trial (Roy Bryant and J.W.
Milam), and replicate it in class. Each student will be given a character

15

(several repeats), and they will be required to perform in-depth research of

that character. They will write opening and closing statements for their
characters.
(c) This is a cool assignment, because its student-centered. It gives the students
somewhat of a choice to drive their own learning and cater to their own
interests. Writing standards as well as speaking and listening standards will be
addressed in this assignment. Students will conduct research projects to
answer questions and synthesize multiple sources on the subject. They will
also be required to propel conversations by posing and responding to
questions that relate the current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas.
They will qualify and justify their own views.
(d) I will introduce the students to the assignment by having them perform a
quick-write exercise in which they pretend they are the ghosts of Emmett Till.
They are to write what they think Tills response wouldve been to his unfair
trial.
M. Text 10:
(a)
The Klan-Gil Scott-Heron
Countryside was cold and still
There were three crosses on the hill
Each one wore a burning hood
To hide its rotten core of wood
And I say father, father I hear an iron sound
Hoof beats on the frozen ground
And downhill the riders came
Lord it was a cryin' shame
To see the blood upon their whips
To hear the snarlin' from their lips
And I cried mother, mother I feel a stabbing pain
Blood runs down like summers rain
And each one wore a mask of white
To hide his cruel face from sight
And each one sucked a hungry breath
Out of the empty lungs of death
And I say sister, sister, I need you to take my hand
It's always lonely when it's time to stand
He who rides with the klan
Is a devil and not a man
For underneath his white disguise
I have looked into his eyes

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And I say brother, brother, stand by me

It's not so easy to be free
Father, mother, sister, brother, stand by me
It's not so easy to be free
It's not so easy to be free
It's not so easy to be free
Nobody ever said it would be easy
Nobody ever said it would be easy
It's not so easy, no it's not so easy
We Wear the MaskPaul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
(b) Though the two poems were written at different times, both express discontent with
the social circumstances of African Americans and that many blacks were hopeless and
fearful.
(c) I chose these texts, because they, in my opinion, portray the voices of many African
Americans during the time (though the Dunbar piece was written several decades before
Tills murder). Its important for the students to know that the end of slavery didnt end of
the problems blacks faced, In fact, it only signaled the beginning. These will be read near
the beginning of the unit. The students will compare and contrast the theme of freedom
in the two poems. How do the authors view freedom? They will provide textual evidence
for their arguments.
(d) To get the students interested, I will give them a pre-reading writing activity that will
look like the following: Imagine that you are a newly freed slave. How would you feel
and why?

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N. Students should be interested in reading these texts, because all texts are completely
relevant to their own heritages. In the midst of learning the origins of the race dynamics
that we still witness today, hopefully theyll all learn something about themselves and
begin to make connections between the past and the present.

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