SarahsLongWalkResources

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 * Images Related to Sarah's Long Walk**

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**Suggested Websites** If There is No Struggle...Teaching a People's History of the Abolition Movement [] A role play lets students "become" members of the American Anti-Slavery Society and grapple with the strategic dilemmas of this pivotal U.S. social movement

Historic Black Schools Restored as Landmarks [] This timely article from the //New York Times// highlights the work of many individuals and organizations to restore historic black schools, conduct and share oral histories and preserve artifacts.

Words of Thunder Teacher's Guide [] "This 24-page teacher's guide explores the heroic contributions of women and men, black and white, as they fought against the injustice of slavery. Whether you are just beginning a unit on the abolitionist movement, or would like to add depth to what you already teach, this guide is a dynamic tool to help middle and high school teachers explore the abolitionist movement in Boston. To engage students, the guide contains a variety of primary source documents, images, and other artifacts for students to examine and analyze."

"Judgement Day, 1831-1865." Africans in America [] Extensive resources including many images and primary sources on slavery and abolitionism.

Long Road to Justice: The African American Experience in the Massachusetts Courts [] This website from the Massachusetts Historical Society addresses the Roberts case and highlights topics of slavery, education, and civic and political participation.

Abolitionism, 1830-1850 University of Virginia [] "This University of Virginia Web site presents a gallery of images (both pro- and anti-abolition), a section on connections between abolitionism and women’s rights, and literary responses to slavery."

[] This is a link to a forty-minute video interview with Stephen Kendrick, author of //Sarah's Long Walk// and minister of First and Second Church, Boston. In it he discusses the history behind the famous case of Sarah Roberts.

[] Here is a link to George R. Price and James Brewer Stewart, “The Roberts Case, the Easton Family, and the Dynamics of the Abolitionist Movement in Massachusetts, 1776-1870,” //The Massachusetts Historical Review// 4.NA (2002): 48 pars. 19 Dec. 2009. Included here is the first paragraph of the article.

“AS ONE OF BOSTON'S most militant "black" abolitionists, Benjamin Roberts surprised no one when he filed a desegregation lawsuit against the city school committee in 1848. This familiar and important story ultimately set formidable precedents in the struggle for racial equality and in the history of American law. The plaintiff in Roberts v. the Boston School Committee sought admission of his five-year-old daughter, Sarah Roberts, into the city's all-"white" public school system and an end to the grossly inferior facility reserved exclusively for "colored" Americans (as these Bostonians preferred to call themselves). By demanding the integration of all Boston public schools—and six hundred dollars in damages—Roberts's suit began a seven-year battle that led first to stinging defeat and then to unexpected victory. After Massachusetts Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw issued his infamous decision against Roberts that enunciated the doctrine of "separate but equal," the controversy moved into the streets. Demonstrations, boycotts, and petitions mobilized the state's abolitionist community and antislavery-minded politicians. In 1855, the state legislature finally passed a law forbidding segregated education within the Commonwealth. Benjamin Roberts and his allies deserved the credit for this unprecedented victory for equal school rights. Segregationists ultimately triumphed on the national level, however, when, in 1896, the United States Supreme Court cited Shaw's "separate but equal" doctrine as its leading precedent in its Plessey vs. Ferguson decision that legalized segregation throughout the country. Not until 1954, of course, did the Supreme Court overturn that doctrine in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a historic decision that helped mark the emergence of the modern Civil Rights movement.”

[] Mass Moments HS Unit I: Free But Far From Equal: The African American Experience in Massachusetts, 1780–1863 Lesson C: The Fight for Equal Education, 1800–1855: Two Case Studies of School Desegregation

[] The Museum of African American History is dedicated to preserving, conserving and accurately interpreting the contributions of African Americans in New England from the colonial period through the 19th century.

[] This is a link at the Museum site to an interactive slideshow on African American schools in Boston. Focus is on the Abiel Smith School.

[|www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7869-2005Apr21.html] Link to an interesting //Washington Post// article about //Sarah’s Long Walk// when it first came out.

[|www.nps.gov/boaf/historyculture/the-phillips-school.htm] National Park Service Phillips School Historic site

[] Website maintained by the UMass Lowell Center for Lowell History on the history of African Americans in Lowell.

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