Reexamining the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Toward an Empathetic Pedagogy of the Civil Rights Movement

Injecting cosmopolitanism into the geography classroom

“…All of these literatures share concerns about extending one's circle of compassion both socially and spatially. Surprisingly, however, the pedagogic literature on teaching caring is sparse; while there are several works concerning the instruction of social justice (Merrett, 2000) and transformation (Wellens et al, 2006), there are distressingly few on the empathetic dimensions of such phenomena (but see Alderman et al, 2013). Clearly there is a pressing need for systematic data on the teaching of empathy and cosmopolitan values, including, for example, surveys of how students' perceptions of distant peoples change before and after being exposed to such ideas.…”

“…Given this plethora of examples, it is startling that educators of geography have not joined such efforts, especially given that cosmopolitanism is such a deeply geographical topic. One notable exception is a paper by Alderman, Kingsbury, and Dwyer (2013), which addresses the role of empathy in teaching the Civil Rights Movement.…”

How We Got Here: A Brief History of Voting Rights

“…Although these men were known as the "Big Four," there were many others who also played critical roles in the movement (McElroy, 2013). Women, including Rosa Parks and Dorothy Height (another social worker, who became known as the Godmother of the Civil Rights movement), were often at the forefront when it came to pushing for the right to vote (Alderman et al, 2012;Lott, 2017). These leaders mobilized supporters through community organizing and put their lives on the line to challenge the status quo through political advocacy, marches, demonstrations, sit-ins, and boycotts (Alderman et al, 2012;Lott, 2017).…”

The $15 Wage Movement Moves South: Politics of Region in Labor Union Campaigns

“…In these large signs, organizers highlighted the histories of oppression embedded along the march route while juxtaposing them with the efforts and small successes of “African Americans and reformist whites” to halt city funding for Confederate memorialization. In other ways, organizers and the crowd used the location and discursive strategies to draw connections between the Fight for $15 and the Civil Rights Movement (Alderman et al ). The central banner of the march, carried by a multi‐racial group of organizational leaders from SEIU and the NAACP alongside worker activists, added a new word to the by‐now familiar slogan: “We Fight for $15 | Freedom | Union”.…”