Pauli Murray's America Unit 5

19 Mar 2025

Learning Objectives:

  • Students analyze the role of historical myth

  • Students learn methods and strategies to engage in independent primary source research from trusted institutions

Key Civics Themes: 

  • Role of the Individual: In March of 1940, while traveling by bus from New York City to Durham, NC, Murray and their traveling companion, Adelene McBean, were arrested in Virginia for refusing to give up their seats on a segregated bus to white passengers. Their act of incidental activism and civil disobedience resulted in them being charged for disturbing the peace and arrested; and their arrest was publicized in The Carolina Times, “Jim Crow Bus Dispute Leads to Girls Arrest”. 

  • Rights and Responsibilities: What were the possible motivations for law enforcement officials to arrest Murray and McBean for disturbing the peace and not for violating Jim Crow segregation law? 

  • Power and Politics: Despite the fact that the NAACP visited Murray and McBean in jail by the evening of their arrest, the NAACP declined to take their case because they were not charged with violating the segregation law. In contrast, 15 years later, the planned strategy by the NAACP in Montgomery, AL, ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus. 

  • Active Engagement: What types of civil disobedience do we see in today’s world? What are the Foundations of United States Government connected to these acts of civil disobedience?

Activities:

Reflection and/or Discussion Questions:

Why was the NAACP not able to use Pauli Murray’s and Adelene McBean’s arrests to fight Jim Crow laws? 

What were the possible motivations for law enforcement officials to arrest Murray and McBean for disturbing the peace and not for violating a Jim Crow segregation law?

  • Rosa Parks was NOT an example of incidental activism, but rather a historical myth. The common misunderstanding, or historical myth, associated with Rosa Parks is that she had incidentally (citing being tired) refused to move her seat.

    • What is the benefit of this historical myth?

    • Why is it important to understand both the truth and also the strategy behind proliferating this historical myth, and historical myths more broadly?

  • Introduce Guidance for Students on How to Research Digital LGBTQ Primary Sources (below)

  • Students engage in independent primary source research to discover additional examples of incidental activism in the United States from 1910 to 1970.

 

Suggestions for Guiding Students’ Independent Research of Primary Sources

 

1. Custom Google Search: Create your own search engine, using only the sites you want students to explore. This is an excellent tool to help students practice searching trusted institutions and sources and discovering subject headings and keywords. https://programmablesearchengine.google.com/ 

Note: Although the term "homosexual" is understood as a pejorative term today, many primary sources will be searchable using the keyword "homosexual" as it reflects the time period students will be researching.

 

2. Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/: Use different parts of the site to help focus student research, or to find certain primary source formats. Examples:

 

3. Digital Transgender Archive: https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/

 

4. Google Book Example: The Crisis: https://books.google.com/books/serial/ISSN:00111422?rview=1&lr=&sa=N&start=330

 

5. Arts and Culture Examples:

 

6. New York Public Library Digital Collections: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/ 

 

7. Example from Project Gutenberg: Fire!! https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71448 

 

8. Digital Public Library of America

Examples of Primary source sets curated by educators: https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/visual-art-during-the-harlem-renaissance

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