Shelton, Paula. (2013) Child of the Civil Rights Movement. Dragonfly Books.

In her book, “Child of the Civil Rights Movement”, Shelton reveals (in first person narrative) her
own personal perspective of when she was a young black girl living during the Civil Rights
Movement. Shelton’s father was a civil rights leader who moved his family from New York to
the deep-south to participate in the movement. Shelton eventually joined the fight herself. This
books holds a lot of valuable information about the civil rights movement- from the march from
Selma to Montgomery and the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. This is a great read for
students interested in learning about the civil rights movement, especially from the perspective of
someone who was their own age at the time and actually witnessed such events in history. One
of the most important lessons from this story was how the leaders of the movement were able to
successfully make things happen. Such people used cooperation with one another and exercised
determination and perseverance to achieve their goals. This book mirrors the ambition and
motivation of both Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman as influential heroes of our past. Just like
Shelton’s family never game up on their goals, the same can be said for both of these inspiring
women who fought for making a change in society by acting heroically and paving their way to
freedom through selflessly standing up to laws to better the lives of those who came after them.

-Paige Babb, Mount Saint Mary’s University

Map of The Underground Railroad

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/maps/undergroundrailroad/

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The map above is a depiction of the The Underground Railroad. The railroad consisted of many
different routes, which connected the “slave” states in the South to the “free” states in the North.
People on both sides- those who were in favor and those who were against slavery operated the
network. This system was very secretive as there were very few records to be found. People
kept silent in fear of exposing themselves, having to turn in the slaves, and facing jail time. The
image above is important to bring to students attention when teaching them about the heroic
actions of historical figures like Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman. Students are not truly able to
grasp the extent in which Tubman maneuvered her way throughout the United States in order to
achieve freedom. This map truly gives students a better idea of just how enormous of a mission
this secretive network was.

-Paige Babb, Mount Saint Mary’s University

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 Library of Congress, Courtesy of Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development www.loc.gov/teachers

The written piece above is one of Rosa Parks’ many reflections on her bus arrest. This is
important to bring to student’s attention during the lesson because it shows Parks’ thoughts and
feelings from her own perspective at the time rather than from someone else’s point of view.
The final lines “I did not resist” are particularly important to instill in the minds of the children.
We want our students to idolize leaders and heroic people, like Rosa Parks- someone who fought
for the mistreatment of people.

-Paige Babb, Mount Saint Mary’s University

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The above newspaper article titled “The Moses of Her People” relates Harriet Tubman to a
biblical reference of Moses (a prophet who led the Israelite people out of slavery in Egypt to the
promised land.) This idea of equating Tubman to Moses is interesting because it truly portrays
how the slaves viewed her- as someone so holy and important. To them- Tubman truly was a
savior. While this biblical reference might not be important or easy to understand for 2nd graders
the main idea is for students to understand that what Harriet Tubman did was incredible. The
actions she took were so important that all of the newspapers were regarding her as this heroic
woman who brought people out of slavery (like Moses).

-Paige Babb, Mount Saint Mary’s University

“Freedom & Inequality” article

The article below gives a brief overview of vocabulary terms that are important for students to
understand prior to learning about Harriet Tubman. This article accompanies a vocabulary
lesson where students learn about vocabulary terms and participate in matching games. The final
product of this lesson is a vocabulary fan that is meant for students to refer to at any point in time
to review the terms and definitions. Rather than just reading vocabulary words and there
definitions- it is important for students to see the actual words in context. This is where this
article “Freedom and Inequality” comes into play as it incorporates these words for students into
context that is kid friendly in language.

-Paige Babb, Mount Saint Mary’s University