All day long in my first-grade classroom I hear, “That’s not fair!” It’s a primary concern for 6-year-olds—that everyone be treated equitably. First-graders are diligent about making sure each student gets the same number of chances, the same opportunities, the same choices. They are quick to alert you if they didn’t get a turn or if someone else got seconds. They understand that, above all, we must be fair. That’s why the topic of civil rights is such a natural unit of study for first grade; it’s all about fairness.

To introduce the modern civil rights movement to 21^st century students, we have to help them identify with the situation of those discriminated against and understand the injustices. That personal connection to this critical time in our history is hard because, fortunately, they have no experience with segregation. They do not know what it’s like to be denied entry into a restaurant, or bussed to a school across town, or be told you can’t try on shoes before you buy them. They know for a fact that a black man can be president and this makes it a little hard for them to understand it wasn’t always this way. And so we help them achieve this by looking at the experience through the eyes of a child, someone the students can relate to.

We help students connect to Martin Luther King Jr. by reading My Brother Martin [10] by Christine King Farris to discover what Dr. King was like as a child. We conduct a human treasure hunt and the students go around the classroom to find classmates who share similar traits or interests with Dr. King, like playing baseball or reading. It helps them see that he was not so different from them; he wasn’t born great; he seized the opportunity to do great things—and so can they.

We also read The Story of Ruby Bridges [11], which chronicles the experiences of a courageous little girl who spent her first-grade year as the only African American in her school. My students make a Venn diagram of themselves and Ruby to help them realize they have a lot in common with this little girl who was doing the right thing.

When we read my story, Child of the Civil Rights Movement [12], students become a part of the civil rights struggle, acting out marches, singing protest songs and creating a village to represent an extended family of caregivers. I want to convey to students the sense of community, the group effort that was required to bring about the change in laws, behaviors and attitudes. I want them to learn about Dr. King, but also to recognize that he did not act alone and that it was the mass movement of everyday folks that led to the success of the civil rights movement. 

Teaching history to young children is about helping them connect to the past in a meaningful way. When students can relate to characters in a story, they can understand and appreciate it. My students love learning about civil rights because they know how important it is to be fair and what a great injustice it is to deny a child the right to thrive.

Shelton is a first-grade teacher and author of Child of the Civil Rights Movement. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and three sons. She is dedicated to spreading the truth about our American history.

It’s bad enough that Rosa Parks’ decision in 1954 to stay put rather than give up her bus seat for a white man is so often seen as the reaction of a tired seamstress rather than the purposeful action of a committed civil rights activist. But when a state legislator – one with a degree in political science, no less – invokes Rosa Parks to support states’ rights and oppose health care for the disadvantaged, it’s downright galling.

It’s also a troubling sign of what happens when a nation doesn’t work hard to remember its history.

The incident, in Idaho, was brought to our attention by civil rights icon Julian Bond, who is also an emeritus member of the Board of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “I thought you’d like to see this,” he wrote in an email to which he’d attached a copy of a news article from the Idaho Statesman [20].

The article described how Assistant Majority Leader Brent Crane, the third-ranking “Republican leader in the Idaho House,” cited Mrs. Parks when he stood to oppose the creation of a state-run health exchange, required as part of the health care reform act passed by Congress in 2009. “One little lady got tired of the federal government telling her what to do,” he said. “I’ve reached that point, Mr. Speaker, that I’m tired of giving into the federal government.”

As most teachers know, the Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation on buses were made by the states. Rosa Parks’ arrest triggered the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott [21]. And it was only after the United States Supreme Court—a branch of the federal government—ruled such segregation unconstitutional that the bus boycott ended.

Maybe Crane missed the day in high school when they covered that lesson. Or perhaps he’s just not very good at remembering small details. That’s how he saw it, anyway, when he characterized it as “a slight mistake.”

We won’t even discuss the way he diminished Mrs. Parks’ legacy by calling her a “little lady.” Or that he missed the point about protecting the dispossessed and disadvantaged, the focus of her life’s work [22].

It does remind, us, though, that Idaho received a grade of F in our 2011 report Teaching the Movement: The State of Civil Rights Education 2011 [23], mainly because it leaves the decision about what to teach to individual districts. It’s entirely possible that Mr. Crane had perfect attendance in high school after all.

It’s worrisome that the important lessons of our shared history can be lost in just a couple of generations, even while many of those who participated in that history are still with us. Thankfully, one of them still knows how to stand up and speak [24]:

“It is unsurprising that state Rep. Brent Crane did not know that Rosa Parks was fighting against states' rights rather than the federal government, when she disobeyed Alabama's segregation laws; after all, Idaho received an F in teaching civil rights history in a survey conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

That ignorance can be remedied if the state follows Mississippi's example and mandates civil rights history be taught so young people in the future will not make such a foolish mistake.” --JULIAN BOND, Washington, D.C.

Costello is director of Teaching Tolerance.