10.16.19 Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice (retired) This one-day workshop will focus on teaching tools to meet current needs in social studies instruction through civics. Teachers will learn to strengthen their students’ civic literacy skills through primary source analysis and cultivating disciplinary thinking skills. Primary source material will focus on women who changed the course of history in the United States, and activities can be customized for use with any historical figures. This symposium kicks off Vulcan Park and Museum’s Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemoration. Please visit our upcoming exhibit Right or Privilege? Alabama Women and the Vote, opening January 17, 2020 in the Linn Henley Gallery. Sponsored By Additional Support From CCR Architecture Vulcan Industrial LaRhonda Magras Contractors Joiner Sprinkler Witt Chiropractic Clinic Sain Associates Yellow Bicycle (lunch) SCHEDULE 9:00 - 9:20 am Registration, Coffee, Meet & Greet 9:20 - 9:30 am Brief welcome by Vulcan Staff 9:30 - 10:45 am Session I, presented by Dr. Jeremiah Clabough 10:45 - 11:00 am Break 11:00 - 12:00 pm Session II, presented by Dr. Jeremiah Clabough 12:00 - 1:00 pm Lunch and Keynote - The Honorable Sue Bell Cobb, Chief Justice (ret),Supreme Court of Alabama, “Two Grandmothers: Differences in Voting” 1:00 -1:30 pm Discussion of morning sessions, presented by Dr. Jeremiah Clabough 1:30 - 2:30 pm Work Session 2:30 - 3:00 pm Wrap-up DON’T FORGET: Check-In is Required to Receive Your CEU Credits. Additional resources provided by National Issues Forums Institute. KEYNOTE SPEAKER CHIEF JUSTICE SUE BELL COBB 2018 gubernatorial candidate Sue Bell Cobb was the first woman chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, serving from 2007-2011. Cobb began her judicial career when she was appointed as a judge in Conecuh County District Court. She was elected to this position in 1982 and re-elected in 1988. Cobb took trial judge assignments all over Alabama, hearing cases in 40 of 67 counties over her career. During her nearly 14 years in the position, she focused on the safety of Alabama’s children, public safety, and sentencing reform. In 1994, Cobb ran for and was elected to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, where she spent two terms as a criminal appellate judge (1995-2007). During this time, Cobb worked to streamline legal processes and increase the number of active drug courts in the state. By the end of her tenure, 66 of Alabama’s 67 counties were operating their own drug courts. Chief Justice Cobb remains passionate about children’s issues, and is active on the board of the advocacy group Alabama Children First. She has written a book about the work of herself and others on behalf of children, There Must Be a Witness: Stories of Abuse, Advocacy, and the Fight to Put Children First. 1 Hour One: SOLDIER ONE ABIGAIL ADAMS 1. Students start by reading the first two paragraphs of theDeclaration of Independence and answer the following questions http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. 1. What rights do citizens have in a democracy? Use evidence to support your arguments. 2. According to the Declaration of Independence, are laws unchangeable in a democracy? Use evidence to support your arguments. • Have students discuss their answers to these questions. These questions help students grasp basic rights that citizens are supposed to have in the United States. • Then, transition to having students look at one of the earliest advocates in U.S. history for women’s rights: Abigail Adams. 2 • In pairs, students read pages 43-44 from Who was Abigail Adams? and a summary of Abigail Adams’ letter to her husband to “remember the ladies.” This summary can be found at https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/abigail-adams-urges- husband-to-remember-the-ladies. An excerpt is found below. In a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John Adams, urging him and the other members of the Continental Congress not to forget about the nation’s women when fighting for America’s independence from Great Britain. The future First Lady wrote in part, “I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” Nearly 150 years before the House of Representatives voted to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, Adams’s letter was a private first step in the fight for equal rights for women. Recognized and admired as a formidable woman in her own right, the union of Abigail and John Adams persists as a model of mutual respect and affection. They have since been referred to as “America’s first power couple.” Their correspondence of over 1,000 letters written between 1762 and 1801 remains in the Massachusetts Historical Society and continues to give historians a unique perspective on domestic and political life during the revolutionary era. • After pairs, read these two short sources, then complete the following supporting questions. 1. What was Abigail’s argument to John Adams about women’s rights? Use evidence to support your arguments. 2. What issues does Abigail believe the U.S. government needs to address? Use evidence to support your arguments. • This activity helps students see how the new U.S. government left many issues unaddressed. This includes women’s rights. 3 SOLDIER TWO SUSAN B. ANTHONY • The teacher starts by reading Susan B. Anthony by Alexandra Wallner. The teacher needs to stop at multiple points to discuss content in this trade book about Susan B. Anthony. Reading this trade book gives students background knowledge about Susan B. Anthony and her beliefs about women’s rights. • This sets students up to read The Declaration of Sentiments that came out of the Seneca Falls Convention. The Declaration of Sentiments can be accessed at the following website: https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/declaration-of-sentiments.htm THE DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course. We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same 4 object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled. The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.