About This Lesson
The Grade 2 unit Civil Rights Leaders celebrates the lives of people who faced injustice with bravery, and were able to make extraordinary changes for good.
The unit explores the growth of equality in the United States through iconic individuals such as Susan B. Anthony, Mary McLeod Bethune, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jackie Robinson. Students learn about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr.,and the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, and Cesar Chavez's fight for the rights of migrant workers. The last chapter gives a broader focus on the leaders Chief Standing Bear; Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, and Mary Jackson; and the poet Juan Felipe Herrera. All of these leaders worked to make America “a more perfect union.”
