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Lesson 1

How did the photographic images of Charles Moore define the American Civil Rights Movement? We will examine photographs by Charles Moore from the civil rights era to see what we can learn from the images. To build context and background knowledge, we will then watch a brief, award-winning, student-created documentary about the Civil Rights Movement.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I identify the individuals and explain the events depicted in a collection of civil rights-era photos?

  • Can I gather and organize relevant and sufficient evidence from a set of photographs and a corresponding documentary to demonstrate understanding in order to support claims and develop ideas?

  • Can I recognize points of connection among photographs to make logical, objective comparisons?

Texts

Core

  • Digital Access
    • Artist Charles Moore, Charles Moore, International Center of Photography
    • “No More: The Children of Birmingham 1963 and the Turning Point of the Civil Rights Movement,” McKay and Miranda Jessop, YouTube, 2013

Materials

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: View – Discuss

We will examine a set of photographs by photojournalist Charles Moore and discussquestions about the photographs.

Step 1

Join a study team of four students. Your teacher will assign your team a photograph by Charles Moore from the International Center of Photography’s collection. In your groups, examine the assigned photo and discuss the questions below. Make notes in your Learning Log about what your group observes and learns from the photo:

  1. What do you see? Describe the people and objects appearing in your image.

  2. When do you think this photo was taken?

  3. What about the photograph allows you to deduce this date or time period?

  4. Where do you believe this photo was taken?

  5. What about the photograph allows you to deduce the location or region?

  6. What does this image tell you about what was occurring at the time the picture was taken?

Step 2

As a study team, develop a hypothesis about the photograph and what it depicts. Explain your hypothesis to the class, noting details in the photograph that support the inferences you have drawn.

Compare your hypotheses as a class, and develop some class observations about the photojournalism represented in the set of images you have examined.

Take notes as your teacher briefly introduces you to the American photojournalist who took these pictures, Charles Moore. You will be studying his work and documentation of the Civil Rights Movement in this section of the unit.

Activity 2: View – Discuss – Write

We will watch a brief, award-winning, student-created documentary and respond to questions about the civil rights movement in class discussion.

Step 1

Watch "No More: The Children of Birmingham 1963 and the Turning Point of the Civil Rights Movement," a student-created video.

Discuss the following questions as a class, making notes in your Learning Log about what you learn from the video and the discussion:

  1. What happened in Birmingham in 1963. Why?

  2. How did the Supreme Court ruling in 1954 impact segregation in America?

  3. What was Birmingham’s nickname during this time? Why?

  4. What prompted Charles Moore to get involved in the events of Birmingham in the 1960s?

  5. Why didn’t parents or adults protest?

  6. What might have been the impact of children protesting, rather than adults, on the surrounding events and the images that captured them?

  7. What sort of emotional impact might the images of the time have created?

  8. What does it mean to counter violence with nonviolence? What would doing so look like?

Step 2

At the end of the discussion, write a short paragraph that describes your emotional reactions to what you learned about the children of Birmingham, to the student-produced video, and to the photographic images from Charles Moore in the video.

Activity 3: View – Write

We will review the photos from the first activity in this lesson and revisit our responses to them, as well as preview some of the questions of the upcoming lesson.

Review all of Charles Moore’s photographs from the initial activity of this lesson. Consider those photos and independently respond in your Learning Log to the following questions:

  1. How might a photograph influence viewers and their perceptions of social issues?

  2. In what ways might an image serve as a catalyst to propel a social movement forward and create a positive public perception of that movement?