Week 7 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Ethnic Studies Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 7 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 64–74 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–22 min total)

① A ruling and a movement

Chapter 7, Section “Read Brown v. Board of Education: a ruling is not the end of the story” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Brown and the boycott” · Remember: Brown changed the law in 1954, but segregation did not end at once, and the boycott shows how many people acting over time won change.

School Segregation and Brown v Board: Crash Course Black American History #33 — CrashCourse — an animated episode on the NAACP's decades-long legal campaign, the Topeka family behind the lead case, and the unanimous 1954 ruling, which it reads aloud; notice that it keeps going past the ruling, to a Virginia county that closed its public schools for years rather than desegregate and to Black teachers and principals who lost their jobs. The video's written description dates the ruling to 1955; the ruling came in 1954, and 1955 is the year of Brown II. This builds on Week 6's reading of Plessy v. Ferguson and its separate but equal doctrine. (video, 12 min) (captions: creator)
The Montgomery Bus Boycott: Crash Course Black American History #35 — CrashCourse — an animated episode that starts before Rosa Parks, with earlier riders who resisted and were punished, and shows how the Women's Political Council had planned a boycott for years before her arrest; listen for how carpools and walking groups kept the boycott going for 381 days and how a federal court ruling, upheld by the Supreme Court, ended bus segregation. Use it while completing the Week-7 module overview. (video, 13 min) (captions: creator)

② The 1964 law and the 1965 law

Chapter 7, Section “Read the 1964 law and the 1965 law: rights written into federal law” · Session 1, Segment 2, “The civil rights laws” · Remember: the 1964 law outlawed discrimination in jobs and public places, and the 1965 law enforced the 15th Amendment and banned literacy tests.

Civil Rights Filibuster Ended — United States Senate — a short page from the Senate's own history office on the day a 60-working-day filibuster against the civil rights bill ended, with the cloture vote of 71 to 29; it shows how much it took to get the 1964 law through one chamber of Congress. (reading, 3–5 min)
History of Federal Voting Rights Laws: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 — U.S. Department of Justice — the Civil Rights Division's overview of why Congress passed the 1965 law, how it enforced the 15th Amendment, and how later amendments and court decisions changed it; read the opening sections on why case-by-case lawsuits had failed, and skip the later amendments if you are short on time. (reading, 5–8 min)

③ Redlining, de facto segregation, and fair housing

Chapter 7, Section “Work the lending table: how redlining sorts neighborhoods” · Session 2, Segment 3, “Redlining and the lending table” · Remember: one rating rule applied by every lender is institutional discrimination, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 made it unlawful without undoing what it built.

Redlining — Federal Reserve History — an essay from the Federal Reserve's history site on how federally backed mortgage insurance treated Black and integrating neighborhoods as credit risks from the 1930s into the 1960s, and how the Fair Housing Act of 1968 gave bank regulators the job of enforcing fair lending. (reading, 7–10 min)
Redlining and Racial Covenants: Jim Crow of the North — Minnesota PBS — a public television short on redlining and racial covenants in Minneapolis, including how the 1930s maps marked the lowest-rated areas in red and marked one neighborhood down because of who lived there; it takes on the myth that northern cities had no formal segregation. When an early line names a 1930s housing law, that is not the Fair Housing Act of 1968. (video, 8 min) (captions: automatic)
History, Housing & Health: Redlining — Johnson County Museum — a county museum's short film on how 1930s federal lending maps and neighborhood deed restrictions shaped one suburban county near Kansas City; notice its point that after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed those restrictions, who lived where still did not change overnight, which is the line between de jure and de facto segregation. (video, 7 min) (captions: automatic)
Fair Housing Act | Retro Report — Retro Report — a short report built around the senator who carried the fair housing bill and a Black naval officer who was turned away by 39 landlords near the Pentagon, then a president of the period who opposed what he called forced integration of the suburbs; watch it as a law on paper meeting resistance in practice. Its closing lines give the senator's own view that more remains to be done; read them as his opinion, not as the course's. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)

④ Black Power

Chapter 7, Section “Name Black Power and Black studies: self-determination and a new field” · Session 2, Segment 4, “Black Power and Black studies” · Remember: Black Power was one strand of the freedom movement, stressing self-determination, community control, and cultural pride.

Black Power — Black History in Two Minutes or so — a short film that places the phrase Black Power in the year after the Voting Rights Act, with archival audio of Stokely Carmichael calling for it, and explains that groups across the country gave the phrase different meanings, from running for office to rejecting nonviolence as the only strategy; listen for its link to the Black arts movement and to new pride in the word Black. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) — National Archives — the National Archives' milestone-document page for the decision; read the short introduction on the 1954 ruling and the 1955 order to desegregate with all deliberate speed, and skip the full transcript unless you want the Court's own words. (reading, 3–5 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com