Resource Type: 
Unit Module
Instructor: 
Kayla Cato-Piersaint
Title: 
Adjunct Professor
Department: 
Africana Studies
Course: N/A

Description

This teaching resource is a unit module on the Civil Rights Movement, developed for use in my Africana Studies course and available to faculty in both the Africana Studies and History departments. While the Civil Rights Movement is often framed through its events in the American South, this module centers the borough of Queens, New York, as a critical site of civil rights activism, leadership, and political strategy. By localizing this movement to the borough of Queens, students are encouraged to see the Civil Rights Movement not only as a national struggle, but also as a local one with unique legacies in their own communities.

This unit explores the strategies, key figures, and grassroots efforts that shaped civil rights organizing in Queens. Students will engage with archival materials from the Queens College Civil Rights Archives and local historical records to uncover the ways Queens residents contributed to and were influenced by the broader civil rights agenda. A key focus of this unit will be the involvement of Queens College student Andrew Goodman, along with James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, who traveled to Mississippi during Freedom Summer in 1964. This was an act that demonstrates the direct connection between local activism and national movements.

Through this unit, students will be able to (1) research and develop a deeper understanding of the Civil Rights Movement, (2) critically analyze primary sources, and (3) articulate connections between local and national movements, reflecting on the ongoing relevance of civil rights activism in Queens. Ultimately, this resource invites students to see Queens as a place of history, home, and a site of ongoing struggle and change.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/