Mr. Franklin: okay Frankie why do you have
that sad look on your face?
Frankie: because Mr. Franklin the school takes
forever to get us new stuff.
Mr. Franklin: Well Frankie you have to relax.
Change doesn't always happen overnight.
Frankie: I guess not.
I should already know that after what we are
studying right now for history.
Mr. Franklin: really.
Where are you at in class right now?
Frankie: Right now we are studying the African
American civil rights movement.
Mr. Franklin: oh I love reading about the
stories of African Americans fought for their
freedom.
What have you learned so far?
Frankie: well for starters it took over a
hundred years for African Americans to begin
to be treated as equals.
Mr. Franklin: yes it is so sad how African
Americans were treated throughout American
history.
Frankie: I know.
We learned in class about people who were
called abolitionists.
They fought against African Americans being
kept in slavery.
Mr. Franklin: yes I know.
During this time of history African Americans
were used for labor as slaves and people who
didn't agree with that were called abolitionists
and they wanted to stop slavery.
That's where the Civil War started.
Frankie: yes because of the Civil War Abraham
Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation
which freed slaves.
It wasn't long after that, that the North
won the Civil War.
Mr. Franklin: You're right Frankie but even
after that in southern states African Americans
were still treated unfairly.
This is where laws were created in the south
that were called Jim Crow Laws.
These laws would force African Americans to
be separate from White Americans.
Meaning they couldn't be in the same places,
restaurants and things like that.
It was so unfair.
Frankie: Yeah Mr. Franklin.
We learned African American leaders at that
time named W.E.B.
Du Bois and Ida B wells who formed the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored
People also known as the NAACP in 1909.
Mr. Franklin: Oh yeah.I remember this well
when I learned it in college.
This was the time in history where people
like Booker T. Washington helped start schools
that allowed African American to receive education.
Frankie: that's right Mr. Franklin.
My teacher also taught me about another woman
named Mary McLeod Bethune who helped to form
schools to help educate African American girls
too.
Mr. Franklin: well it sure does sound like
you have been busy Frankie.
Frankie: I have Mr. Franklin.
Today we finished learning about the march
on Washington with Dr Martin Luther King Jr
and stories like Rosa Parks a woman who refused
to take being treated unfairly on the bus
and that started the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Mr. Franklin: are on its Frankie.
It is because of people standing up and fighting
for equality that in 1964, the Civil Rights
Act was signed into law by President Lyndon
Johnson.
Frankie: That's right Mr. Franklin.
The Civil Rights Act stopped Jim Crow laws
of the south and outlawed discrimination because
of race, national background, and gender.
Mr. Franklin: well Frankie even though you
worked on an old tablet it sounds like you
learned a lot today my friend.
Frankie: you're right Mr. Franklin and I also
learned a ton about the African American Civil
Rights Movement for kids.
