Power & Systems
This term describes the ability of a person, group, institution, or government to influence decisions, control resources, or affect other people's opportunities.
What is power?
This was the forced transatlantic journey of enslaved Africans to the Americas.
What is the Middle Passage?
This period followed the Civil War and involved rebuilding the South and determining the rights and political status of formerly enslaved African Americans.
What is Reconstruction?
This young activist refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery before Rosa Parks became nationally famous for a similar act of resistance.
Who is Claudette Colvin?
This civil rights leader is strongly associated with nonviolent direct action, civil disobedience, marches, and boycotts.
Who is Martin Luther King Jr.?
This term describes beliefs, actions, policies, or systems that create or maintain inequality based on race.
What is racism?
Name ONE condition experienced by enslaved African Americans.
Accept:
Forced labor
Physical violence
Family separation
Lack of freedom
Restrictions on movement
Restrictions on education
Sexual exploitation
Sale and forced relocation
Lack of political rights
Which amendment abolished slavery in the United States?
What is the 13th Amendment?
This civil rights organizer emphasized grassroots leadership and helped develop the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Who is Ella Baker?
This activist emphasized Black self-determination and self-defense, particularly during the earlier part of his public career.
Who is Malcolm X?
Unlike individual racism, this type of racism can operate through institutions, policies, laws, and systems.
What is systemic racism?
Enslaved African Americans resisted oppression in many ways. Name TWO.
Accept:
Escape
Rebellion
Work slowdowns
Preserving culture
Maintaining family/community
Religious practices
Breaking tools
Secret communication
Refusing orders
Other historically accurate examples
Match each amendment with its major change:
13th — ?
14th — ?
15th — ?
13th: Abolished slavery
14th: Citizenship and equal protection
15th: Voting rights regardless of race/color/previous condition of servitude
This activist became associated with the phrase "Black Power" and emphasized Black political power and self-determination.
Who is Kwame Ture/Stokely Carmichael?
Name ONE major similarity between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
Accept:
Both challenged racism.
Both opposed white supremacy.
Both wanted greater freedom for African Americans.
Both encouraged Black political awareness/power.
Both criticized racial inequality.
Both became influential leaders during the Civil Rights era.
A city creates a housing policy that appears race-neutral but consistently makes it more difficult for Black families to obtain mortgages. What concept could help explain this situation?
What is systemic racism?
Why is it inaccurate to describe enslaved African Americans only as victims?
Because enslaved people also created communities, maintained culture, resisted oppression, built families, practiced religion, preserved traditions, and exercised agency despite the system of slavery.
These laws were passed by Southern states after the Civil War and restricted the rights, movement, and economic opportunities of African Americans.
What are the Black Codes?
This legal scholar developed the concept of intersectionality, which examines how different identities and systems of inequality can overlap.
Who is Kimberlé Crenshaw?
Name ONE major difference between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X's approaches to racial justice.
Possible answers:
King:
Nonviolent direct action
Civil disobedience
Mass protest
Coalition-building
Integration/equal citizenship
Malcolm X:
Self-defense
Black self-determination
Black nationalism during much of his earlier career
Political/economic independence
Explain why studying power is important when studying systemic racism. Does not need to follow the "What is...?" format.
An acceptable response should explain that power allows institutions, governments, and other groups to create or maintain rules, policies, and practices that can produce unequal outcomes.
Explain how African American culture developed under conditions of enslavement.
A strong response should explain that African Americans created and maintained culture through:
Family and community
Religion
Music
Language
Foodways
Storytelling
Cultural traditions
African cultural influences
New cultural practices developed in America
Explain this statement:
"The end of slavery did not mean the end of racial inequality."
Students should connect emancipation to the development or continuation of systems such as:
Black Codes
Jim Crow
Disenfranchisement
Racial violence
Segregation
Economic discrimination
Housing discrimination
Identify the activists and movement connected to each description:
A. Grassroots organizing
B. Black Power
C. Intersectionality
D. Black Lives Matter organizing
A — Ella Baker
B — Stokely Carmichael
C — Kimberlé Crenshaw
D — DeRay Mckesson / Patrisse Cullors
Why is the statement, "MLK was peaceful and Malcolm X was violent," an oversimplification?
What is because it reduces two complex thinkers to stereotypes?