How can primary source documents help us understand the lives of people in the past?
Subject(s): African Americans, Literature, Science and Technology, and US History
Time Period(s): (1945-Early 1970s) Postwar United States and (1968 to the Present) Contemporary United States
Grade level(s): 0-2 and 3-5
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Ron’s Big Mission, a children’s book by Rose Blue, tells the story of Ronald McNair, who as a child challenged segregation in the Lake City, South Carolina public library by insisting on checking out books, a privilege denied to African Americans in 1959. This primary source set includes documents that help students make connections between the story and historical people and events.
Supporting question(s):
How do primary source documents help us understand the time period in which Ronald McNair, the main character in Ron’s Big Mission, lived?
How were libraries/media centers of the past different from libraries/media centers today? How are they similar?
What type of science interested Ron? How does the science in the book relate to Ron’s future career?
Source Set
- Brooklyn Public Library, Children's Room, from librarians' desk
- School integration. Barnard School, Washington, D.C.
- Independence Day, 1964
- North Carolina, South Carolina with special maps of Great Smokies and Southeast United States, 1958
- Photograph of Woodrow Crockett with airplane Daisy Mae in Ramitelli, Italy, 1945
- Space Transportation System, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Harris County, TX
Description
1941 photograph of the children’s room of the Brooklyn Public Library
Description
Photograph shows a line of African American and white school girls standing in a classroom while boys sit behind them, 1955.
Description
An African American family watches fireworks representing the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in public places like public libraries
Description
The Esso tourist map from 1958 shows highways, rivers and lakes, and major cities in the Southeast United States.
Description
Woodrow Crockett, a pilot with the “Tuskegee Airmen” stands on his plane Daisy Mae in Italy at the end of World War II.
Description
This set of drawings explains how the space transportation system, which launches the space shuttle into the earth’s orbit, works.
Additional resource(s):
NASA Biography of Ronald McNair
American Libraries Magazine Article “Desegregating Libraries in the American South”
YouTube Video: Eyes on the Stars (Carl McNair’s remembrance of his brother Ronald, cartoon)
Arkansas Frameworks(s):
W.2.8 Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.
H.13.2.3 Gather information from different kinds of sources in response to a compelling question about a significant historical event or person
C.3.2.2 Examine successful and unsuccessful attempts to improve communities