Lesson Plans

Updated June 2, 2020 Black Lives Matter: An Activist Movement Black Lives Matter is an activist movement which began as a hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenager killed in Florida in July 2013. The movement became more widely known and popularized after two high-profile deaths in 2014 of unarmed African-American men (Eric Garner in Staten Island, NY and Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO)…

Updated February 2022 U.S. Women's Soccer Team Files a Gender Discrimination Suit On March 8, 2019 (International Women’s Day), the U.S. women’s soccer team filed a gender discrimination suit against the U.S. Soccer Federation, which governs soccer in the U.S. The soccer team’s complaint alleges pay inequities, and inferior support and working conditions. In their statement released by the team, the players described “institutionalized gender discrimination&rdquo…

Athletes Protest and Take a Stand on Injustice After the grand jury in Cleveland, Ohio failed to indict the police officers who shot twelve-year old Tamir Rice (who was shot while carrying a pellet gun in November 2014), activists and followers on social media urged Cleveland Cavaliers icon LeBron James to sit out games in protest. This incident and many others have moved athletes to speak out, protest and call for justice. In August 2016, NFL San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin…

In November 2018, a nine-year old girl named Riley Morrison of Napa, CA wrote a letter to Stephen (Steph) Curry, a professional basketball player who plays for the Golden State Warriors. Riley wrote to ask Curry why his Under Armour basketball sneakers, the “Curry 5s,” weren’t available in girls’ sizes. She pointed out that they were available in boys’ sizes and customizable too. In her letter, she wrote, “I know you support girl athletes because you…

Historical Photographs and Old Movies Artistically Situated in Present Day In July 2018, a painting called The City I, was placed on display at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. The City I, by Vincent Valdez, is a four-part canvas that portrays a group in Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods on a hill overlooking a metropolis at night. The black-and-white palette recalls the look of historical photographs and old movies, but details such as an iPhone, a can of Budweiser beer, and a new…

Zero-Tolerance Policy for Migrant Families In May 2018, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new, expanded “zero-tolerance policy” for migrant families seeking to cross the border. This policy indicated that all migrants seeking to cross the border without documentation would be referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for prosecution of a crime, rendering their children unaccompanied minors. Children accompanying adults would be separated from their parents to be…

On September 5, 2017, President Trump ordered an end to the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This program shields some young undocumented immigrants —who often arrived at a very young age in circumstances beyond their control—from deportation. The President also urged Congress to pass a replacement before the administration begins phasing out DACA’s protections in six months. This means that as early as March 2018, some of the 800,000 young adults brought…

More than 150 years after the Civil War, there is a new drive to remove Confederate monuments. In April and May 2017, the New Orleans City Council voted to remove four Confederate monuments from their city. This decision came on the heels of other cities such as Austin, TX and Louisville, KY, who also voted to remove their statues; additional cities are also considering removing them. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu championed the effort to take down the four Confederate monuments, stating, …

On January 27, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order called “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” which he says is to screen out “radical Islamic terrorists.” The executive order is quite controversial and many of its critics refer to it as a “Muslim ban” because it temporarily bars the entry of even visitors from seven majority Muslim countries. Within 23 hours of the order being signed, immigration agents…

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black teenager who was about to start college, was allegedly shot multiple times and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Following the shooting, hundreds of people gathered at the scene of the shooting to organize vigils to remember Michael Brown as well as protest to demand answers as to why he was shot. Over the course of the next several days, these protests, the majority of which were…