Dec. 15, 1791: Bill of Rights Ratified

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 6 pages.
A lesson on the countless colonial laws enacted to create division and inequality based on race. This helps students understand the origins of racism in the United States and who benefits.

Article. By Bill Bigelow. If We Knew Our History Series.
Teaching about the Constitution requires a critical and nuanced exploration — one that is alert to the race and class issues at the heart of our governing document.

Working as a social studies teacher for almost two decades, I have noticed a predictable and perennial pattern. A study is published showing some alarming deficit in the knowledge of people in the United States. Cue the calls for reform: “a return to the basics,” stricter standards, high school exit exams, more civics education. Yes, let’s teach civics. But let it be a civics that arms our students with an honest account of our nation’s political DNA, so they may have the wisdom to actively transform it into one worthy of our embrace.

Teaching Guide. By Nancy Murray. 2006. 69 pages.
A free, downloadable, student-friendly booklet on the Bill of Rights, available in English and Spanish.

Marie Equi entered San Quentin prison to serve a one-year term for her anti-war protests.

The “Hollywood 10” directors, producers, and writers who refused to testify at HUAC were held in contempt of Congress.

The Free Speech Movement was launched at UC–Berkeley.

A group of students wore black armbands to school to protest the war in Vietnam. The school board got wind of the protest and passed a preemptive ban.

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Tinker v. Des Moines that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”