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TEACHING ABOUT JENA
Curriculum
Revealing Racist Roots: The 3 Rs for Teaching About the Jena 6 is an outstanding collection of lesson plans, created by the Network of Teacher Activist Groups, and is available for free as an online download. (Please note that the guide does contain profanity.)
As Current Events
Many teachers are including discussion of the Jena 6 as part of classroom coverage of current events. Wisconsin teacher Marguerite Parks recently shared with us, "We had just watched the first part of 'Eyes on the Prize' and the Emmett Till case, so I think the issue was fresh for them. They made connections to the legal issues in both cases."
Be sure to visit www.tolerance.org on Monday afternoons for News Briefs on the Jena Six and other diversity issues. See our most recent edition.
Lessons about Lynching
In Jena, white youths chose a particularly gruesome symbol to terrorize their black peers -- the noose. According to the most conservative estimates, some 5,000 people -- mostly African American men -- were lynched in the United States between 1882 (the first year reliable statistics were gathered) and 1968 (the year in which many scholars believe the classic forms of lynching disappeared).
It Happened Here
Educators and community activists in Duluth, Minn., face the painful lessons of a 1920 lynching. (A lesson plan accompanies the story.)
Twelve Lines that Changed the World
Activities shed light on the anti-lynching anthem, "Strange Fruit."
An Ugly Family Secret
Warren Read struggles with deeply conflicting images of his great grandfather – one of a kind and friendly man remembered so warmly by his family, another of a man who helped recruit a mob that lynched three African American circus workers.
Lessons on Racial Disparities
Jena has cast a national spotlight on racial inequalities within the criminal justice system -- the local prosecutor "overcharged" six black youths for an assault on a white student. Such practices help give rise to disproportionate levels of incarceration among people of color. Use the following resources and activities to explore racial disparities in the United States:
A Primer on Racial Disparities
Offered as "The ABCs of Black History Month," this primer outlines the roots of disparities and the nature of disparities in education, employment, healthcare, housing and the criminal justice system.
Racial Disparities Mini-Jigsaw Unit
This mini-unit allows students in grades 8-12 to investigate racial disparities and their underlying causes and to identify steps individuals and society should take to alleviate them.
Down with DMC (Disproportionate Minority Confinement)
This lesson, available through Social Studies School Service, helps students examine "the Criminal Justice System as an agent of social control, combined with a study of prejudice and discrimination in the social structure."
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