Fatimah Ali

Maritcha Lesson

Social Studies Content/ ELA skill focus: Compare and Contrast

Objective:

Students will be able to compare the total experience that Maritcha Leyons had with school in Rhode Island in 1865 to the experience that Ruby Bridges had in New Orleans in 1960 nearly 100 years later.

Read Aloud p 34-39 highlighting specific points to the children and making connections to text along the way. These may include:

-The family having to move to Providence, Rhode Island

Ask children if any of them ever had to move with their families, and how that made them feel.

-Maritcha had nowhere to go to school because there was no high school for blacks at this time (1860s).

Ask children if they could even imagine moving and then not having a school to go to because of their skin or hair color.

-Maritcha and her parents refused to take no for an answer and her case landed up in the hands of the Rhode Island State Legislature. Maritcha even had to speak in front of the lawmakers and plead that she be given the opportunity to go to school.

Do you think this was stressful? Why do you think she continued to try?

-Her efforts paid off and the legislature ruled that she had the right to attend Providence High.

What kind of satisfaction do you think Maritcha at 16, felt? Although she ‘won,’ the experience was bittersweet. Can you explain why?

-Before she could begin school she was questioned and made to take an exam that she had much less time to prepare for. She passed and began school. During her first year she sat alone because her classmates didn’t want to sit near her. She didn’t let the situation stop her from learning and going to school to make something of herself. In 1865 the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished in the United States. By Maritcha’s senior year she was a success. She was a school leader. Even though things seemed to look brighter and she had made one friend, she said that “the iron had entered my soul. I never forgot that I had to sue for a privilege which any but a colored girl could have without asking.” Maritcha went on to become a teacher.

Ask students what they think about the iron in her soul. Does this correlate with scars in our hearts? Can we truly forgive, when we can never forget?

Read Aloud: The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles.

Summary:

Ruby Bridges was the first black child to attend an all white elementary school in New Orleans in 1960. She was only six years old when she faced angry protesters and parents that didn’t want her in their school. She had courage and was escorted by federal marshals to school for her safety. When asked by her teacher why she had stopped to talk to the angry protesters, she replied “I wasn’t talking..I was praying…I was praying for them.”

Using a Venn Diagram or a chart of choice students can compare the experience and responses of both the girls. It is also important to bring up the fact that this was 100 years after slavery was abolished. How much had things changed?

Have fun!