Making Sense of Historical Letters When are letters a good way to communicate?
SOL Connections: USII.8 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the key domestic issues during the second half of the twentieth century by examining the Civil Rights Movement and the changing role of women.
VUS.13 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s by identifying the importance of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the roles of Thurgood Marshall and Oliver Hill, and how Virginia responded; describing the importance of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the 1963 March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
GOVT.11 The student will demonstrate knowledge of civil liberties and civil rights by explaining every citizen’s right to be treated equally under the law.
Directions
1. Choose one of the “Making Sense of Letters” primary source analysis tools. Read the letter from Daisy Bates to Roy Wilkins once. What can you learn from your first reading? Begin completing the analysis tool you chose.
2. Now read the bibliographic record from the Library of Congress, the information about Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine and examine the photograph. Reread the letter. Complete the rest of the analysis tool.
3. Why do you think this letter was written? Do you think this letter is an example of a good way to communicate? Why or why not?
REFLECTION (consider these questions)
4. What analysis strategies are students using in this activity? Are these strategies useful as reading strategies?
5. How could you use this activity to introduce a new reading activity? How could you use this activity to introduce a writing activity?
Making Sense of Letters
1. Circle the date the letter was written.
2. Underline any words you don’t recognize or can’t read.
3. Reading what you can in the letter, go back and write in words that you think make sense for some of the words that you underlined.
4. Choose one sentence from the letter you think is important and rewrite it here:
______
5. What do you think this letter is about?
6. After reading the printed version of this letter, listening to a reading of this letter, or reading more information about the author, what new information do you have about the letter?
7. What questions do you have about this letter?
8. How could you go about getting answers to the questions you wrote above?
Making Sense of Letters First Reading Second reading
Who wrote the letter?
Who was the letter written to? How does the writer know the person they are writing to?
When was the letter written?
What is letter about?
What questions do you have about the letter? Include words you can’t decode or understand as well as questions about the subject of the letter.
What research would you need to do to widen your understanding of this letter?
Daisy Bates and The Little Rock Nine
Daisy Bates, publisher of the newspaper The Arkansas State Press and president of the Arkansas NAACP Branches, led the NAACP's campaign to desegregate the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Thurgood Marshall and Wiley Branton served as counsel. The school board agreed to begin the process with Central High School, approving the admission of nine black teenagers. The decision outraged many white citizens including Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock to ensure the protection of the nine students, and, on September 25, 1957, they entered the school. In the midst of the crisis, Daisy Bates wrote this letter to NAACP Executive Daisy Bates to Roy Wilkins on the Director Roy Wilkins to report on the students' progress. treatment of the Little Rock Nine, December 17, 1957. Page 2 Typed letter. NAACP Records. Manuscript Division (127) Courtesy of the NAACP
Daisy Bates and The Little Rock Nine
Arkansas- born Daisy Bates worked as a crusading newspaper owner- journalist, becoming president of the Arkansas NAACP.
After the The Little Rock Nine, ca 1957-60. 1954 Brown Copyprint. Daisy Bates to Roy Wilkins, school- NAACP Collection, Prints and Photographs Division. December 17, 1957, on the treatment desegregation Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-119154 (9-18b) of the Little Rock Nine. decision, Courtesy of the NAACP Holograph letter. NAACP Collection, Manuscript Little Rock Division. (9-18a) school board officials decided to begin desegregation of Central High School in September 1957.
Arkansas governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to preserve order, a euphemism for keeping the nine prospective African American students out. However, on September 25, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and deployed paratroopers to carry out the desegregation orders of the federal courts. Bates supported the students throughout the year and with them received the NAACP's Spingarn Medal in 1958. PREVIOUS NEXT NEW SEARCH
African American Odyssey
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Daisy Bates to Roy Wilkins, December 17, 1957, on the treatment of the Little Rock Nine.
NOTES Holograph letter.
RELATED NAMES NAACP Collection
PART OF African American Odyssey
REPOSITORY Library of Congress Manuscript Division Washington, D.C. 20540
DIGITAL ID mssmisc ody0918a
RELATED DIGITAL ITEMS (Daisy Bates and The Little Rock Nine)
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December 17, 1957
Dear Mr. Wilkins, BACKGROUND OF LETTER Conditions are yet pretty rough in the school for the children. Last week, Daisy Bates was born in Arkansas in Minnie Jean's mother, Mrs. W.B. Brown, asked me to go over to the 1914. She and her husband, L.C. Bates, school with her for a conference with the principal, and the two assistant were editors and publishers of the principals. Subject of the conference: "Firmer disciplinary measures, and Arkansas State Press, a Little Rock the withdrawal of Minnie Jean from the glee club's Christmas program." weekly newspaper that campaigned for The principal had informed Minnie Jean in withdrawing her from the civil rights for blacks. Through her program that, "When it is definitely decided that Negroes will go to school involvement with the desegration of here with the whites, and the troops are removed, then you will be able to Central High School, Daisy became an participate in all activities." We strongly challenged this statement, which advisor to the "Little Rock Nine" - the he denied making in that fashion. first African American students to attend We also pointed out that the treatment of the children had been getting the school. This letter was written to Roy steadily worse for the last two weeks in the form of kicking, spitting, and Wilkins, an NAACP official, on general abuse. As a result of our visit, stronger measures are being taken December 17, 1957, and is an example of against the white students who are guilty of committing these offenses. one of her many efforts in the civil rights For instance, a boy who had been suspended for two weeks, flunked movement. Daisy Bates continued her both six-weeks tests, and on his return to school, the first day he knocked fight for equal rights for blacks Gloria Ray into her locker. As a result of our visit, he was given an throughout her life and received many indefinite suspension. awards for her work. Read the rest of her letter and view a photograph of Daisy Bates with the "Little Rock Nine." Related items >
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African American Odyssey
[Little Rock Nine and Daisy Bates posed in living room].
Layne, Cecil, photographer
CREATED/PUBLISHED [between 1957 and 1960]
NOTES Forms part of: Visual Materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records. Collection finding aid available.
SUBJECTS Bates, Daisy. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People--People--1950-1960. Afro-Americans--Education--1950-1960. Portrait photographs--1950-1960. Group portraits--1950-1960. Photographic prints--1950-1960.
MEDIUM 1 photographic print.
CALL NUMBER LOT 13088, no. 38
REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USZ62-119154 DLC (b&w film copy neg.)
PART OF African American Odyssey
REPOSITORY Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
DIGITAL ID (b&w film copy neg.) cph 3c19154
RELATED DIGITAL ITEMS (Daisy Bates and The Little Rock Nine)
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