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More Than One Struggle:
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Discussion Questions and Primary Source Links
in the LCRM e-book edition
As an author and educator, I'm very curious to find out how learning might change with web-based e-books, like the Long Civil Rights Movement (LCRM) project at UNC, which allow readers to follow source links and communicate with each other by commenting in the margins. For the LCRM edition of More Than One Struggle, my colleagues at the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project and I inserted discussion questions and links to primary source materials in our attempt to deepen students' historical thinking. Will innovations like the LCRM project change how we teach and learn about civil rights history? There's only one way to know -- check it out!
List of discussion questions & source links (as of August 2010) in More Than One Struggle LCRM edition (requires free registration during pilot phase)
Registered readers are encouraged to respond by writing comments -- and posing their own questions -- in the margins of the LCRM edition.
Introduction
page 3
Given the author's caution against "viewing the history of black education solely through the lens of Brown," how might educators teach younger generations about this important chapter in civil rights history? Read the "Teaching Brown" essays by Dougherty and other contributors, published by the History of Education Quarterly on the 50th anniversary of the decision in 2004.
page 5
Does reading this account spark any new research ideas on Milwaukee, or the Northern civil rights movement at large? See Dougherty's essay, "African Americans, Civil Rights, and Race-Making in Milwaukee" and other chapters in Margo Anderson and Victor Greene's volume, Perspectives on Milwaukee's Past(2009). On the Northern struggle, see Jeanne Theoharis & Komozi Woodard's Freedom North (2003), and Tom Sugrue's Sweet Land of Liberty (2008).
page 7
How were these oral history sources created? Who was interviewed and why? How did the author shape the interviewing process, and how did oral history participants shape his interpretation? Read Dougherty's essay about the More Than One Struggle oral history project, view the finding aid to the full collection at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee library archives, and read or listen to selected interviews that have been digitized by the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project.
page 7
What does the author's personal background, and the transformation of his research questions while working on the book, reveal about his interpretation of civil rights history?
Chapter 1: Compromising to Win Black Teachers' Jobs
page 9
How did the city's white-owned press portray its small black community during this era? Read the full article on "Milwaukee's Harlem" (go to page 11) in the November 26, 1939 Milwaukee Journal where Kelley's photo appeared.
page 11
Explore racially restrictive real estate covenants for Milwaukee County, 1929-1946, digitized from the Lloyd Barbee Papers by the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project.
Chapter 2: Redefining the Local Meaning of Brown v Board
page 35
Compare coverage of this public discussion by the city's two major white-owned newspapers: "Schools' Race Policies Aired" (go to page 11, Milwaukee Journal) and "Race Bias Denied in Assigning Teachers" (go to page 5, Milwaukee Sentinel), both published on October 12, 1953.
page 39
Why did school segregation become a key issue in some -- but not all -- Northern areas by the mid-1950s? Read and listen to the oral history interview with Cecil Brown, Jr. and Loretta Brown, conducted by the author in 1995, and digitized by the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project. See also Tom Sugrue's interpretation in Sweet Land of Liberty (2008), chapter 6.
Chapter 3: Calming the "Migrant Crisis" Through Compensatory Education
page 54
Where can readers find the black-owned Milwaukee Defender newspaper, which has not yet been digitized? See its WorldCat entry for access to microfilm editions.
page 57
How did national media portray Milwaukee racism during this period? Read the text of "Races: The Shame of Milwaukee" in the April 2, 1956 edition of Time magazine.
Chapter 4: Confronting Established Blacks and Whites on Segregation
page 82
How do early black suburbanites describe their experiences in predominantly white settings? Read and listen to the oral history interview with Grant and Lucinda Gordon, conducted in 1995 by the author, and digitized by the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project.
page 90
To better understand the Story-Barbee conflict in 1963, compare oral history interviews with Wesley Scott and Gwen Jackson, conducted by the author in 1995, and digitized by the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project.
page 96
Contrast perspectives on improving black schools versus racial integration in McLeod's CORE report and the NNNPC's two-phase report, both from late 1963, digitized by the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project.
page 101
Do conflicting memories of activism appear in other histories of the civil rights era? If so, what do these conflicts tell us more broadly about this period?
Chapter 5: Uniting the Movements for Integration and Black Power
page 109
How did Juanita Adams and Arlene Johnson recall their activism in their oral history interview with the author in 1995? Explore further the dynamics of gender and religion in MUSIC protests as captured by local television news film clips on June 3rd, and June 4th, and December 8th, 1965, digitized by the March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project.
page 111
What do curriculum materials in three collections (the MUSIC records, the CORE papers, and the Helen Barnhill Papers) tell us about the Freedom School organizers' pedagogical and political aims for different age levels in 1964?
page 113
Explore the views of MUSIC opponents, such as school board member Lorraine Radtke, based on interview notes recorded civil rights researchers, circa 1966. See more in Ralph Showalter's report, Racial Isolation in Milwaukee Public Schools: A final report submitted to the US Commission on Civil Rights (1967).
page 116
In her 1995 oral history interview, how does Mildred Harpole explain her personal journey from all-black schooling as a child in Baltimore to her adult role in Milwaukee's school integration and independent school movements?
page 120
Listen and watch how Milwaukee high school students discussed race and textbooks in a news film clip from February 16, 1968.
page 126
What do source materials about the MUSIC school boycotts in 1965 and 1966 reveal about the movement's evolution after its first boycott in 1964?
Chapter 6: Negotiating the Politics of Stability and School Desegregation
page 131
To better understand the changing racial geography, try the free Social Explorer maps tool, zoom into Milwaukee, and create a slideshow of images of racial data by census tract from 1940 to the present.
page 151
How did Marilyn Moreheuser's activism on school integration evolve after she left Milwaukee? Follow Moreheuser's role in New Jersey's landmark Abbott v Burke school finance equity case in Deborah Yaffe's Other People's Children (2007).
Chapter 7: Transforming Strategies for Black School Reform
page 175
Read more about Fuller's 1960s activism in North Carolina in Osha Gray Davidson's The Best of Enemies(1996/2007), Christina Greene's Our Separate Ways (2005), and Robert Korstad and Jim Leloudis' To Right These Wrongs (2010). All three links go directly to the first mention of Fuller in the LCRM digital edition of each book.
page 191
Dougherty concludes this chapter by drawing connections between Milwaukee's school integration campaign and subsequent efforts by Fuller and other activists to gain private school vouchers. Should the recent "school choice" movement be considered part of America's long civil rights movement? Or do private vouchers and/or public charter schools diverge from the movement's history?
Conclusion: Rethinking History and Policy in the Post-Brown Era
page 202
What are the strengths and weaknesses of Dougherty's interpretation of the overlapping (and sometimes conflicting) black-led educational struggles in this Northern city? Compare your response with book reviews published in the Journal of American History, the American Historical Review, the Journal of Urban History, and the History of Education Quarterly. (All require subscription access.)
