Kentucky Center for African American Heritage

 

 

  
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11.8
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High School – Grade 11
    

 

 

 

 

 

Core Content Guide

2.1.1
Philosophy, religion, values, technology, and behavior patterns help define culture.

3.4.1
An entrepreneur is a person who organizes and manages a business and/or enterprise usually with considerable initiative and risk.

5.1.1
Interpretations of history are subject to change as new information is uncovered.

5.1.2
Primary sources allow individuals to experience history from the perspectives of people who lived it.

5.2.6
After World War II, America experienced economic growth (e.g., suburban growth); struggles for racial and gender equality (e.g., Civil Rights Movement), the extension of civil liberties, and conflict over political issues (e.g., McCarthyism, U.S. involvement in Vietnam).

    

 

11.8 Tell Me Your Story

Pre-Visit
Students initiate a community oral history project.

Students interview family members or people in their community about topics related to civil rights as they remember significant events or time periods. Document the interviews by audio or video recording or written transcript. After the interviewing process, students think-pair-share in the classroom. The types of topics and questions will vary according to the age of the interviewee.

For people over the age of 65:
Tell me about the community in the years right after World War II. Where did you go for shopping, entertainment? What kind of music did you enjoy? Did you ever visit Walnut Street in Louisville? What did you do there? Do you remember when blacks and whites had separate places to sit, eat, play? What were those times like?

For people aged 50-65:
Tell me about your community in the 1950s and 1960s. What did you do for entertainment during this time? Where did you like to eat? Who were the leaders in the community? Do you remember when people participated in sit-ins, marches, and other demonstrations for rights? What kinds of issues were they fighting for? What do you remember about those times? Do you remember when key national leaders were assassinated? What was that like?

For people aged 35-50:
When you were younger, did the community have mostly black and mostly white neighborhoods? Has this changed? How? Do you remember schools before desegregation? What was it like to have mostly black and mostly white schools? Did you have both black and white teachers when you were in school? Did you have experience with court-mandated busing? What kind of experiences did you have? Did schools change at this time? How?

In the Museum
Students look for connections to the stories they have gathered in the exhibits and place the experiences in a time line. Students consider various ways that the Center presents information.

Post-Visit
Students use interpretive devices in the Center to inspire them as they create a method for sharing the interviews with others.