Thursday, March 12, 2009

Social Solution: Civil Rights Museum

The following is a Social Solution involving part of our Civil Rights unit.  Students in this group designed a Civil Rights Museum proposal (they'll add pictures and put together a presentation at a later date) that they are mailing to the local city council.  The goal will be to get a Civil Rights Museum here in Phoenix that includes a broader perspective than just black/white.  We'll be posting some other group examples at a later date.  Most likely, we'll design a website with each group proposal as a separate page.  Still, here's a preview of what students are advocating.  

Even if we don't get the museum approval, we will take the last three weeks of the school year and design our own Hands-on History Museum.  The goal will be to make it a travelling museum throughout our school district.  


LETTER

To whom it may concern:

We are students here in Frank Borman Middle school. We are writing this letter to inform you of why the people of Arizona should have a civil rights museum. We believe that the Civil Rights museum will be a big influence on people within the western part of the U.S. and to America as well.The museum will also help younger age groups to learn more about history and other cultures. Not only has the youth of Arizona been neglected of this topic but the older age groups too. So it would be better for everyone to have somewhere to learn about civil rights, especially because this is an important subject.


There should be a Civil Rights museum within Arizona because the community should know why we have our civil rights and what many groups, races, and people had to go through for the rights we have, and take advantage of and still discriminate and stereotype.There is a Civil Rights museum in Memphis but it is too far for people who live in the western part of the U.S to travel to.There are no museums that people with out transportation could walk to, most of them are in downtown. There is also a great deal of history that contributes to the civil rights topic here in Arizona. For instance the Native American rights movement had many significant things that happened here. That is a movement that not many people know much about. It's a part in history that is being neglected. It's always important to know the history of our land.Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and our exhibit plans for our museum.

Sincerely,

Melissa, Karina, Rikki, Denise and Alberto 


MUSEUM EXHIBITS

Title:
Inspirational people
Rational:This room is dedicated to all the civil rights leaders that helped organize groups and don't get any credit.

  • have a room for like every leader
  • then we will like put there speeches on the background
  • pictures on walls
  • try to make murals
  • little kid talking and say why they like them
  • put there speeches paint on the wall
  • put the racist test out for people to take
  • have people act out slavery
  • we make a time line with people
Description: While people see the time line they follow the time line and while they follow the time line around the room the come across some speeches. They will also come across some murals of civil rights leaders. They will come across pictures like violent protest and have small videos of interviews of children who tell you why they look up to a certain civil rights leader. There will be like a small voting place where they get to take a racist test. For the act out slavery thing first i think we make them walk in a line and chain up their legs and make them walk in a straight line and make them know how it feels to be a slave.



Title:Segregation room
Rational:Show people that segregation existed.

  • Show a little girl playing in the park and she's African American and she goes to drink water and the Whites fountain is all nice and she has to go to the other fountain and it all ugly and gross
  • Interviews with people who were alive at the time(1960's)or videos of the interview
  • See if we can find more details on the things new American mind that happened during the times
  • Skin charts(authentic charts they used.)
  • We should show the results of a study done with a white and black child choosing a doll where the dolls are different races
  • We can put a statue for a model

Description: Our main idea for this room is to make it a sort of play/film. Having people see the way people were treated back then in person really adds to the intense mood we try to achieve for this room.The child going to the water fountains is a way to show the emotion of the segregation. Authentic skin charts are to show just how racist it was back then. The experiment is to see how much the fresh mind of America has influenced children. By choosing a doll to play with they show the preference they have.


Title: Protesting
Rational: To show the methods used to fight for civil rights.


  • Protests
  • Sit ins
  • walk outs
  • boycotts
  • political wars
  • integration
  • segregation
  • we could make games up about these issues that are fun but they get to teach you a lesson

Description:The room is to inform the public on ways groups would protest. It's also meant to show how much,the people who lived during this era really cared. They were willing to do all of these things so that their voices could be heard. The reason we have forms of protest listed are so that more people will realize all the trouble people went through.To help inspire other groups, and to help civil rights groups know where others have failed and what they could to do to make the ways better.




Title: Native life and dancing during the civil rights
Rational: To show how the Native Americans were treated and ways they are stereotyped.
  • play it out one of the battles
  • Before and After pictures on how the Natives looked like in their own lands and one where they all look the same in the schools
  • how they were verbally portrayed as in savages and dumb and show all the sides of the stories
  • make the tourist dance how they think Native Americans dance and when they're done we bring in a real Native American group and show the tourist how they stereo type Native Americans

Description: This room is to prove that everyone is racist and has a bias. This room will have people interact and realize that t.v. and media are ways they make us stereotype other races. And that it can be passed by word of mouth. This room will also inform people about the Native Americans and their history. Along with their culture. The room will also portray how the Indian Schools were.




Title:
Do I love Lucy?
Rational: To show how people can discriminate against women(or transvestites).

  • separate room by boys and girls where the girls play the boys and they boys play the girl and play each others sides
  • make name tags with last names and tell them this is your new identity all others parts that are part of your identity
  • play the show I Love Lucy and point the wrong parts
  • play music from the movement playing in the background
  • Put a guy working really hard and show a girl doing the same thing and look for any differences
  • we can put a guy working hard on construction and then we show a women working in the house and then we show the pros and cons
  • Video record daily life and see how people treat women
Description: This exhibit is to show how men and women can and will be equal. They don't always have to prove themselves. It also shows how people can treat others just by appearances. Also how shows from the 50's and 60's were discriminating against women. Showing examples from the famous show I love Lucy we hope that people will recognize the stereotypes. That television show has many prejudice in it.



Title: Farmers and Latinos
Rational: Show how farm workers were mistreated and to show that farm workers work really hard got nothing out of it


  • A wall of people who all made a difference parts of the wall covered with the leaders or activist working trying to make a difference like in Dolores Huerta Cesar Chavez making a speech and people all around them
  • Then slides and videos of people who worked in fields in the hot sun and weren't payed enough and show like a small video of a camera man following a farm worker all day in the hot sun and his family and do another short film on a Caucasian worker and his or her family and compare it to the farm workers
  • have the tourist go around in a room and there will be a small booth that says wanted they have to play the part of a Latino and experience being neglected from working
  • We have can get pictures of Chicano park before the Latinos fixed it up and show the difference between them and make people notice how the government treated Latinos
  • Then after tourist have done the Latinos tour they're gonna show a slide of hoe farm workers worked and were treated back then and a video of the present farm workers and ask the tourist if much has changed from the 1960's to the present

Description:
This room focuses on all Latinos and Chicanos and the farm workers rights. It has multiple possibilities for the present. To show that the government and the public are going back to the way they treated the Latinos group and Chicano's group in the 1960's. The Latinos room is to get the idea across that Cesar Chavez wasn't the only one who fought for farm workers right.The public may see this room differently then we do but it's all normal.

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