Episode 1: The Long Civil Rights Movement - The American civil rights movement began long before the 1960s and can be understood fully in response to the codification of Jim Crow laws in the late-1800s. In this discussion, Dr. Butler will provide the historical context necessary to understand the Black response to legalized segregation starting with the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. The lecture will highlight the roles World War I, the Great Migration, and World War II played in laying the foundation for the 20th century struggle for racial equality.    

Originally broadcast live on May 16, 2022 at 5:00 p.m.

Episode 2:  The Master Narrative - This topic covers what scholars describe as the movement's "Master Narrative": The momentous decade between the 1954 Brown school integration suit through passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In this lecture, Dr. Butler will discuss the importance of the grassroots nature of the movement, the importance of non-violence as a strategy to obtain legal equality, and why students should understand that the civil rights movement made Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and not the other way around.

Originally broadcast live on May 18, 2022 at 5:00 p.m.

Episode 3:  The Movement Continues - In the final installment of this educational trilogy, Dr. Butler will start with the last major legislative victory of the mainstream movement - passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Yet activists soon realized that legal victories did not bring the degree of racial equality they hoped for, as the struggle against de facto forms of segregation proved more deeply embedded - and more difficult to address - than they imagined. Dr. Butler will use his research on the Pensacola, Florida freedom struggle to demonstrate how the fight for racial equality continues into the twentieth first century and remains central in understanding the current culture wars.

Originally broadcast live on May 23, 2022 at 5:00 p.m.

Episode 4:  Teaching the Movement - In this "Epilogue" to the Long Civil Rights Movement series, master teachers Dustin Webb (Lake City Area Schools) and Kymberli Wregglesworth (Onaway Consolidated School District, incoming MCSS President)  lead a discussion on the pedagogy behind teaching these important historical events.

Originally broadcast live on May 25, 2022 at 5:00 p.m.