The Dirksen Center wants to help teachers teach better by giving them the opportunity to use technology to create, customize, and share online learning activities in their classrooms. The Center wants to help students learn more by bringing educational resources together in one place that provide new ways to learn about Congress interactively.

* NEW * Stand Up for Your Rights

This site talks about civil rights.  It features such subjects as  women and the vote, school desegregation, and religious freedom.  Profiled are Anne Hutchinson, Alice Paul, and Little Rock, Arkansas. Do you think you know a thing or two about civil rights?  If so, while visiting this site test your civil rights brainpower by taking the short, challenging quiz found on the PBS American Experience Game Space.

Find Stand Up For Your Rights at: http://www.congressforkids.net/games/makinglaws/2_makinglaws.htm  

* Stamp on Black History *

In 1940, Booker T. Washington became the first black American to be honored on a U.S. postage stamp issue. Since then, other black Americans have been honored as individuals or depicted as representatives of their race in different categories such as civil rights, sports, science, and music on U.S. stamps.

This site offers a ton of resources including an alphabetical list of stamps, stamps by curriculum areas, information on how individuals are chosen to appear on U.S. stamps, stamp collecting as a hobby, philatelic words, terms, and more. It also features a list of stamp dealers, a black history tour, black history quizzes, and a games and activities zone. 

Find Stamp on Black History at: http://www.congressforkids.net/games/Judicial_segregation/2_jud_segregation.htm

** Brain Pop: Civil Rights *

Equality for all! In this BrainPOP movie, Tim and Moby introduce you to the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Find out what this movement was all about and why it was so important! Among other things, you’ll find out about the famous Brown v. Board of Education trial case, and about what happened when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. You’ll also learn about sit-ins, Freedom Rides, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and what he did to contribute to the civil rights movement. America isn’t perfect, but if it ever is, we’ll know whom to thank!

Watch the social studies movie about civil rights by finding Brain Pop: Civil Rights at: http://www.congressforkids.net/games/Judicial_segregation/2_jud_segregation.htm  

* I Have a Dream **

Fill in all the gaps of several excerpts of the speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.

Find I Have a Dream at: http://www.congressforkids.net/games/makinglaws/2_makinglaws.htm  and fill-in the blanks.  Then watch the YouTube video Martin Luther King “I Have a Dream” at http://www.congressforkids.net/games/makinglaws/2_makinglaws.htm

* The Fight for Rights: History Challenge *

Can you finish Martin Luther King’s Montgomery March? 

Find The Fight for Rights: History Challenge at: http://www.congressforkids.net/games/Judicial_segregation/2_jud_segregation.htm  

* Trivia *

Martin Luther King's methods of gradual change seemed outdated by the late 1960s, and many younger blacks demanded a faster pace. For this reason, more radical organizations became popular. Groups such as CORE (Congress for Racial Equality) and the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) began to advocate an aggressive, at times violent, black response to white oppression, an ideal which many young people could relate to. Stokely Carmichael, the new radical leader of the SNCC, coined the phrase "Black Power". In which 1966 demonstration did he famously use this phrase?

1. The Watts Riots
2. The Birmingham Campaign
3. The Meredith March [Answer: The Meredith March was initially a one man march from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. However, both King and the SCLC and the newly radicalized CORE and SNCC soon became involved after hearing of it. "Meredith" was James Meredith, the man who took a stand against the racism he faced upon his enrolment in Mississippi University in 1962. This march is also referred to as the "March against Fear." Soon after this march, there was the predicted white backlash, only this time with a violent black retaliation. Tired of the violence, Martin Luther King asked for President Johnson to intervene, but he refused. It now became hard to see what role King could play in this style of campaign.]
4. The Poor People's Campaign

*Find the answer in next month's issue.

Do you have or know of an online activity you would like The Dirksen Congressional Center to feature on its new Web site for students -- Congress for Kids? The Center is currently seeking online activities that provide new ways to learn about Congress and the workings of the federal government interactively.

If you have questions or suggestions for online activities, contact Cindy Koeppel.