LESSON PLANS

The SNCC Legacy Project Digital Movement Platform (SLP DMP) is a place where first-person accounts of the Civil Rights Movement are documented. It is a place where teachers, activists, organizers, and organization leaders can find lesson plans that teach critical movement history.

By Cristina Tosto

Students come to understand the level of bravery displayed by local activists and ordinary people in Mississippi when they simply completed a voter registration form by imagining themselves in the role of someone who lived during the modern Civil Rights Movement. The names of the activists are revealed after they’ve considered what they might do in the role they’ve been given.

By Adam Sanchez

Three lessons that help students explore the history and evolution of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, including freedom rides and voter registration.

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

Unit with three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression in the United States. Includes close reading of an interview with Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer.

By Julian Hipkins III, Deborah Menkart, Sara Evers, and Jenice View

Interactive lesson on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in Atlantic City that introduces students to a vital example of small “d” democracy in action.

By Emilye Crosby

This lesson uses a case study of Lowndes County, Alabama and three SNCC-related documents from the early 1960s — just before and after the Voting Rights Act — to explore the impact of the Voting Rights Act (and 1964 Civil Rights Act) on every day southern Black citizens: What did the legislation mean to them? Did they achieve their goals? The way textbooks present the Voting Rights Act, it is easy to imagine that the new law took care of all remaining problems overnight. Was that true?

Additional Resources