TEACHER GUIDE
The Oakland Museum of California welcomes you and your students to experience All Power to the We need your feedback! After completing a self- People: Black Panthers at 50. This brief guide will guided tour of the exhibition, please complete help you understand what to expect and how to this brief evaluation: support students’ use of the self-guide materials in this exhibition. https://goo.gl/forms/jQyJVGaLz39ghqml1
Teaching and Learning Goals Through the All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50 self-guided materials, students will:
• Come away with a better understanding of the complexities of the Black Panther Party and reflect on their prior assumptions/knowledge about the organization.
• Explore and communicate with one another about important themes of the exhibition, and draw connections to their own lives.
• Feel inspired by the Black Panthers to consider their own role in their communities.
Exhibition Content • As its core, this exhibition is about people—people who came together to battle against systemic racism and to share the struggle for justice. While it examines many aspects of the Black Panther Party, this exhibition is not intended to be a comprehensive, definitive look at the organization.
• The exhibition takes as a departure point the intentions and founding principles of the Party members, who envisioned it as an organization to protect and support the community and address specific challenges of the time including access to education and public resources, police brutality and other issues.
• This exhibition contains some challenging content and may bring up a wide range of emotional reactions. To help you better prepare, please consider reviewing the online resources recommended on the next page and/or visit the exhibition prior to your class visit.
• This exhibition may not provide resolution on these topics for you or your students. You are encouraged to continue conversations in the classroom and connect the exhibition experience and materials with classroom learning.
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Understanding the Self-Guides These guides:
• Promote student-driven work including student choice and interests. Students are prompted to consider particular topics/themes, but are given the opportunity to choose what to focus on within the exhibition.
• Encourage student conversation and reflection about these topics to help students process their experience in the exhibition.
Facilitation Suggestions • Encourage student conversation and exploration in the exhibition, and lend support only when needed or requested.
• Allow students to work in pairs or small groups. If any student(s) seems to be struggling with the prompts, check in with them and encourage them to work with a peer to solve any challenges.
• Try to create a safe space for dialogue. The guide encourages students to work with a partner, however, participation in dialogue should be voluntary. Please do not push any student to participate in ways that may make them uncomfortable.
• If your group is in eighth grade or above, allow pairs to move through the exhibition freely. If they encounter challenges or have completed the guide, have them check-in with you. If younger, work as a group and establish a system for moving through the exhibition together.
The following online resources may help you better prepare to facilitate your students’ exhibition experience:
• Teaching Tolerance: Let’s Talk! Discussing Race, Racism and Other Difficult Topics With Your Students webpage
• Queens College, City University of New York: Handbook for Facilitating Difficult Conversations in the Classroom pdf
• Facing History and Ourselves: Preparing Students for Difficult Conversations Lesson Plan
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Vocabulary List Some of the following words or phrases may appear in the exhibition or come up during student conversation around the topic of the Black Panther Party. It may be valuable to discuss some of these with your students ahead of time, and/or do research on any that are less familiar to you:
Activism Diversity Racism #BlackLivesMatter Equity Radical Black Nationalism Ideology Redlining Black Power Movement Institutional Racism Repression Capitalism Integration Revolution Civil Rights Oppression Segregation Coalition Power Socialism COINTELPRO* Privilege Surveillance Colonialism Race Survival Programs
*Counter Intelligence Program
Websites to learn more about these and other terms:
• The following webpages provide excellent definitions of terms: Racial Equity Tools: Glossary General Commission on Religion and Race: Race Glossary of Terms
• The following websites offer extensive information on the Black Panther Party, its origins and enduring legacy: It’s About Time... Black Panther Party Legacy & Alumni Stanford University: The Black Panther Party Research Project PBS: A Huey P. Newton Story
• Learn more about the #BlackLivesMatter movement at the BlackLivesMatter website
Resources for Students In response to this exhibition, the Oakland Public Library has produced a Black Panther Party syllabus to connect students and teachers with the library’s extensive resources. This syllabus includes suggested readings and multimedia resources for grades 3 to 5, 6 to 8, and 9 to 12, and can be accessed at: www.oaklandlibrary.org/BPP50Syllabus.
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