The Freedom Riders Banner
The Freedom Riders Banner Home The Freedom Riders Banner Overview The Freedom Riders Banner About the Riders The Freedom Riders Banner Online Exhibition The Freedom Riders Banner Classroom Resources The Freedom Riders Banner
The Freedom Riders Banner Acknowledgements
The Freedom Riders Banner The Freedom Riders Banner The Freedom Riders Banner The Freedom Riders Banner The Freedom Riders Banner
The Freedom Riders Banner

Classroom Resources

This portion of the website is to provide K-12 teachers with resources for their classrooms. A variety of lesson plan ideas, websites, and exceptional books on the civil rights and the Freedom Riders can be explored below.

Lesson Plans

PBS.org provides teachers with a variety of classroom resources. The PBS Afterican American World Website includes an interactive timeline of the civil rights era and related lesson plans.

The Library of Congress has a wealth of resources including their own online exhibition of the civil rights called the Voices of Civil Rights with an entire Learning Page for classroom use.

The University of Mississippi has created a website to supplement the movie, The Children Shall Lead. Their website on the Freedom Riders includes lesson plan ideas, photographs, and much more... Click here to begin your exploration.

   

The Associated Press released this map and text that describes the freedom rides in 1961. The Library of Congress published this information on their website. Click here to see this American Treausre of the Library of Congress.

The WGBH Educational Foundation published multimedia resources for classroom and professional development. At the Teacher's Domain, teachers can download a video of James Farmer speaking about the Freedom Rides and see how it may be used in conjunction with the National Standards. Click here to visit this rich website.

Visit the Franklin Middle School Website to see how one group of students learned about life before Brown verses the Board of Education.

Background Map of 1961 Freedom Rides
Background Map
[New York]: Associated Press News feature
Printed map and text, ca. 1962

Geography & Map Division (84.6)

Back To Top  

Websites

 

Ben Cox Receives Giraffe award

Ben Cox won the Giraffe Award at Urbana Middle School. The Giraffe Award is awarded to people who stick out their neck for the good of others. Ben Cox, having been one of the original Freedom Riders, was honored to receive the award.

Read more about the Giraffe Program. It might be something that you bring into your classroom or school. The Giraffe Heros Project

BBC News Website
Race activists finally pardoned. Alabama has voted to pardon those who protested against race segregation, some 50 years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. Click here to read the article.

CNN
On the CNN Website, you can read a transcript of Hank Thomas Recounting his trip on the bus during the freedom ride. Click here to read the transcript. [Aired May 12, 2001]
Need more basic information about the Freedom Riders? Wikipedia provides a general overview of the freedom riders. Click here to read the general overview.
The Freedom Riders 40th Reunion In 2001, The Freedom Riders held their 40th Reunion in Jackson Mississippi. This site provides general information about the Freedom Riders along with photos and artifacts. Click here to Visit the Reunion Site.

David B. Fankhauser a Professor of Biology and Chemistry at U.C. Clermont College has put together a collection of images from the freedom rides and the Civil Rights era. Click here to visit his site, Freedom Rides: Recollections by David Fankhauser.

The Congress of Racial Equality was founded in 1942 to provide service for Racial Equality. Click here to visit the CORE website.
Freedom Ride Button
In this article published in the Summer 2001 issue of Tulanian, Suzanne Johnson reports on her visit with Hank Thomas one of the original Freedom Riders. Click here to read her article titled, The Stand.
The Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride Coalition provides a wealth of information to education yourself about the freedom rides. Click here to visit their website. Also, if you visit the FindLaw website you can read the U.S. Supreme Court case Cox v. Louisiana. Click here to read the case.
Back To Top
 
Exceptional Books

Arsenault, Raymond. Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Pivotal Moments in American History). Oxford University Press, January 2006. [Read more]

Bausam, Ann. Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement. National Geographic Children's Books, December 2005. [Read more]

Clar, D., David Garrow, Gerald Gill, Vincent Harding eds. The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader : Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle (Eyes on the Prize). New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1991. [Read more]

Engelbert, Phillis. American Civil Rights: Biographies. Detroit, Michigan: UXL, 1999.[Read more]

Lewis, John. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. Simon & Schuster, 1998. [Read more]

Suggested Readings from the Library of Congress: Click here to "Learn more about it".

Thomas, Velma Maia. We Shall Not Be Moved. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2002.[Read more]

Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Right Years 1954-1965. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2002. [Read more]



Back To Top

Office of Continuing Education
302 East John Street, Suite 202
Champaign IL 61820
217-333-1462 or 877-455-2687

http://www.continuinged.uiuc.edu/