TOPIC 8.10 THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN THE 1960’S
Riot or Uprising? : “The Language of the Unheard”
Grand Rapids’ Black community leaders worked tirelessly to expose and reform the city’s racist policies in the Post War Era. Their pleas were ignored for decades. Black residents were systematically excluded from jobs, housing, and educational opportunities. In the summer of 1967, frustration boiled over.
KC-8.2.1.C - Continuing resistance slowed efforts at desegregation, sparking social and political unrest across the nation. Debates among civil rights activists over the efficacy of nonviolence increased after 1965.
Objective:
1. Students will contextualize persistent racial inequalities that continued to exist throughout the civil rights era
2. Students will analyze causes of social unrest in American cities in the summer of 1967
3. Students will analyze media coverage and descriptions of the social unrest in the summer of 1967
These key concepts in an Antiracist classroom:
“A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?...in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In the late 1960s, white leaders of Grand Rapids prided themselves on the tranquility and basic fairness of West Michigan culture. As civil disturbances erupted in Watts, Newark, and Detroit, Grand Rapids’ leaders were sure that nothing of that sort was possible in their city. How were these leaders so blind to the reality of life in Grand Rapids for its Black residents? Students will sift through the evidence of the realities of life in the city in the post-war years and be provided with a vivid example of Dr. King’s meaning when he said that “riots were the language of the unheard.”
Notes
This lesson was created in partnership with the Grand Rapids Public Museum and its Archives. The museum offered the use of its Collections to create this engaging lesson. This lesson will serve as an important follow-up to the Unit 7 Lesson about the 1920’s Fight Against Jim Crow in Grand Rapids. Unfortunately, despite Michigan Supreme Court’s decision against Jim Crow in the state, students will see how the discrimination against Black residents continued nearly unabated. Students will take a “virtual tour” of Grand Rapids by following a map linked to artifacts and newspaper stories from the museum’s collection.
The powerful ending to this lesson will leave students with a deeper understanding of what Dr. King meant about the “language of the unheard” and why American cities continue to see civil disturbances that revolve around issues of racial injustice in the United States.