LibGuides: Grade 4 Social Issues Unit: Civil Rights

Fiction from our library collection

These are a few titles from our collection. To find more, enter "civil rights" or "civil rights fiction" in the main search page of the library catalog. You could also look for "school integration", "segregation", or "race relations."

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
Call Number: E-HISTORICAL Williams-Garci
ISBN: 0060760885
Publication Date: 2010-01-26
In the summer of 1968, after traveling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.
Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey; Floyd Cooper (Illustrator); Gwen Strauss
Call Number: PIC Ramsey
ISBN: 9780761352556
Publication Date: 2010
When Ruth and her parents take a motor trip from Chicago to Alabama to visit her grandma, they rely on a pamphlet called "The Negro Motorist Green Book" to find places that will serve them. Includes facts about "The Green Book."
Ruby Lee and Me by Shannon Hitchcock
Call Number: E-HISTORICAL Hitchcock
ISBN: 9780545782302
Publication Date: 2016
When a formerly segregated North Carolina town hires its first African-American teacher in 1969, two girls--one black, one white--confront the prejudice that challenges their friendship.

Non-fiction books from our collection

Here are a few non-fiction titles from our collection. To find more, enter any of the words below in the library catalog's search field:

racism
discrimination
segregation
racial relations
school integration

As Good as Anybody by Richard Michelson; Raúl Colón (Illustrator)
Call Number: E 323.1 MIC
ISBN: 9780375833359
Publication Date: 2008
Describes the experiences that influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Joshua Heschels's civil rights activism and discusses the friendship between the two men.
Separate Is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh
Call Number: E 379.2 TON
ISBN: 1419710540
Publication Date: 2014
Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Mendez was denied enrollment to a "Whites only" school. Her parents took action by organizing the Hispanic community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court. Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education in California.
Rosa by Nikki Giovanni; Bryan Collier (Illustrator)
Call Number: E 921 Parks
ISBN: 9780805071061
Publication Date: 2005
Presents an illustrated account of Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, and the subsequent bus boycott by the black community.

Useful database articles

Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education on BrainPop
Tim and Moby talk how the United States stopped segregating white and black students in schools.

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History of civil rights in the US on Britannica Online
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"Marching to Montgomery and Beyond" on Cobblestone Magazine
The article presents an interview with Shirley Jefferson on her experience growing up as an African American girl in Selma, Alabama during the civil rights movement, with details on her role in joining the Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama civil rights march.
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Grade 4 Social Issues Unit: Civil Rights

Fiction from our library collection

Non-fiction books from our collection

Useful database articles

Famous speeches