Lesson 3.10: Social Movements and Equal Protection
Enduring Understanding:
The Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause as well as other constitutional
provisions have often been used to support the advancement of equality.
Learning Objectives:
Explain how constitutional
provisions have
supported and motivated
social movements.
Essential Knowledge:
Civil rights protect individuals from
discrimination based on characteristics such
as race, national origin, religion, and sex; these
rights are guaranteed to all citizens under the
due process and equal protection clauses
of the U.S. Constitution, as well as acts
of Congress.
The leadership and events associated with civil,
women’s, and LGBT rights are evidence of how
the equal protection clause can support and
motivate social movements, as represented by:
- Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and the civil rights movement of the 1960s
- The National Organization for Women and the women’s rights movement
- The pro-life (anti-abortion) movement
Debrief: Letter from Birmingham Jail ACT Reading
Activity #1: Civil Rights Break Up
In each of your groups, you will be presenting on one of the topics from Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. In order to do this, we will create a poster with the following information: Who was involved, What happened or what is it, Why it happened, When and Where it happened. Then we will present to the class. Here are the topics we will look at:
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. The Board of Education
- LGBTQ Issues
- Voting including the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments
- Affirmative Action
- Americans with Disabilities Act
Then we will Present!
