The Color of Courage

LESSON PLAN

Prepared by
HEURISTIX
Laurie Blass and Pam Elder,
Instructional Designers
Corte Madera, CA
415.924.0283

CURRICULUM AREAS
History, Social Studies, English/Language Arts, Research Skills

OBJECTIVES
Students will examine various aspects of race relations and learn how the U.S. justice system has responded to some of the issues regarding African Americans' civil rights. They will use information from The Color of Courage and independent research to create a graphical timeline, write a story or screenplay, and/or engage in an action group simulation to apply what they've learned.

BACKGROUND
Based on the true story of a landmark civil rights case, Sipes vs. McGhee, The Color of Courage chronicles the friendship that bonds a white woman, Anna Sipes with an African American woman, Minnie McGhee.

In 1944 Detroit, race riots break out, while World War II rages on. Benjamin Sipes is worried that the nearby rioting will spread, but his wife Anna feels that the races have always gotten along in the area. Despite their differences, Benjamin, a blue-collar worker, buys a home in a nicer neighborhood in Detroit.

Then Mac McGhee, a light-skinned African American man who works in a newspaper office, and his wife, Minnie, a postal worker, buy a house in the new neighborhood. Anna, a homemaker, immediately befriends Minnie, but when Benjamin and the others in the neighborhood discover that the McGhees are African American, they tell Mac he has to move due to restrictive neighborhood association covenants.

When the neighborhood association sues Mac, the NAACP provides legal support for the McGhees to stay and fight. Anna finds herself constantly fighting with her husband, as her daughter Maggie becomes the voice of a young civil rights advocate.

The community wins in court but the NAACP appeals, based on the rights granted under the Fourteen Amendment, and Mac and Minnie gain another year in their house. Anna realizes that she can't side with her racist husband and pointedly intensifies her relationship with Minnie. As the McGhees remain in their home, Anna continues to spend time with Minnie. This causes a huge rift between Anna and Benjamin, but Anna remains defiant. When the McGhees lose their appeal, both Minnie and Anna are distraught. Benjamin feels triumphant-until daughter Maggie points out that the Sipes themselves are a blue collar family amidst a white collar community and because of that, will always be viewed differently as well.

This hits home with Benjamin, and he realizes that he's only part of the white fraternity when they need him. Later he and Mac find themselves drinking at the same bar and both men realize they are far more alike than they originally thought.

The NAACP decides to appeal to the Supreme Court, which agrees to hear the case. Benjamin drops out of the lawsuit and says that the McGhees should be allowed to stay in the neighborhood. Thurgood Marshall, who was 28 years old at the time, argues one of the first big cases of his career and wins, allowing the McGhees to keep their house.

The script for The Color of Courage was written by a McGhee granddaughter.

RESOURCES
The following movies, books, and websites provide additional background on the themes, events, and issues presented in The Color of Courage.

Movies

4 LITTLE GIRLS (1997), documentary, not rated
THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN (1995), PG-13
NIGHTFIGHTERS: THE TRUE STORY OF THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN (1994) educational, not rated
THE LONG WALK HOME (1991), PG
MISSISSIPPI BURNING (1988), R

Books

1001 THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY by Jeffrey C. Stewart; Doubleday, 1997.
AFRICAN AMERICANS AND CIVIL RIGHTS : FROM 1619 TO THE PRESENT by Michael L. Levine; Oryx Press, 1996.
AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE LIVING CONSTITUTION by John Hope Franklin and Genna Rae McNeil, editors; Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.
AMERICA IS ME : 170 FRESH QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON BLACK AMERICAN HISTORY by Kennell Jackson; HarperCollins, 1997.
BEFORE THE MAYFLOWER : A HISTORY OF BLACK AMERICA by Lerone Bennett; Penguin USA, 1993.
FREEDOM BOUND : A HISTORY OF AMERICA'S CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT by Robert Weisbrot; E P Dutton, 1991.

Websites

THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION BRIEFING PAPER ON RACIAL JUSTICE (outlining events in the struggle for racial equality): http://www.aclu.org/library/pbp11.html
BROWN V. THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA, KANSAS, a webpage created by students for the online learning activity design contest, Thinkquest: http://library.advanced.org/10718/index.htm
NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM at http://www.midsouth.rr.com/civilrights/
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP): http://www.naacp.org/
JIM CROW/RACE RELATIONS IN THE 1930S, a webpage created by an Arkansas State University student, at http://www.csm.astate.edu/~dean/sbpgjjl.html (Note: This site provides valuable references and information, but the "Jim Crow" laws it lists are not individually referenced. For an interesting research project, refer to books in the author's bibliography to find these references.)
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE'S HISTORIC PLACES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT sites:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/ and http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/sitelist1.htm

ACTIVITIES

Before You Watch
Before you watch The Color of Courage, discuss the answers to these questions in small groups:
1. What are civil rights?

2. What are our civil rights guarantees under the Constitution?

3. How have civil rights been tested in the past?

4. What are today's civil rights issues?

5. What are some of the arguments for and against affirmative action?

As You Watch
As you watch The Color of Courage, take notes on examples of role, gender, status, and racial conflict that you observe. Use these questions as a guideline:

1. Which of the characters did you empathize with most?

2. What kinds of injustice did the McGhees experience in The Color of Courage?

3. What can you infer about the role of white women during the 1940s from the behavior and attitudes of Anna Sipes?

4. How did the roles of white women and black women differ during the 1940s?

5. What did Anna Sipes and Minnie McGhee have in common?

6. What did Benjamin Sipes and Mac McGhee have in common?

7. What happened to the McGhees' older son? How was he treated in school?

8. What happened when Mac returned to his old neighborhood? How did he feel?

9. How did Benjamin Sipes change after the McGhees lost their appeal? What brought about this change?

10. What happened after the Supreme Court heard the McGhees' case?

After You Watch
Do the following activities after you watch The Color of Courage. Make sure you discuss the questions in Talk It Over; then choose Activity 2, 3, or 4 as a follow up.

Talk It Over
1. Discuss the questions you took notes on while you watched The Color of Courage.

2. Discuss with the class the role model characterizations of marriage partners, parents, and children as depicted in the film. How are they similar or different today?

3. Imagine the Sipes and McGhee families in the years following the decision: How do you think the relationship between the two families progressed? What might have happened to the McGhees' sons? What might have happened to Maggie? How might the adults have changed over the years? What other incidents of discrimination do you think the McGhees might have experienced throughout their lives?

Look Back
Use a variety of sources (see Resources) to find out about the major events, people, and legislation that have affected segregation and African American civil rights issues in the United States from the country's origins to the present. Follow these steps:

1. Get into small groups.

2. Choose one of the following periods: 1600 - 1800; 1800 - 1900; 1900 - 1960; or 1960 - present. (Note to the teacher: If necessary, you can further divide the class by assigning groups within the time periods specific subjects to research such as "people," "events," and " laws.")

3. Gather the information for your time period. Discuss your data with your group members.

4. With everyone in the group contributing art work, create a poster or collage to represent your group's findings.

5. Present your poster to class.

6. Finally, arrange all the posters in sequential order. Display this visual timeline of the history of civil rights in your classroom or school library.

Think Ahead
Write your own story or screenplay as a sequel to The Color of Courage. Follow these steps:

1. Brainstorm for ideas for your story or screenplay alone or with two or three partners. Consider the following questions and jot down your ideas to use later in shaping the story:

What do you think might have become of the families, to their neighborhood, to Detroit, to restrictive covenants in other areas?
How did the relationship between the two families evolve?
How do you think the members of each family changed as they grew older? (Though your answers are speculative, how might you actually find out about some of these things?)
How do you think Anna changed as she grew older? Did she go to work? How did her relationship with Benjamin evolve?
What happened to their daughter Maggie?
Do you think Ben and Anna might have gotten to know other African Americans over the years?
What happened to Mac and Minnie McGhee ? What jobs did do you think they might have had over the years? Did they have other white friends?
What happened to Reggie? Orselle? What did they do when they grew up? Where did they live?
Do you think any members of either of the two families might have worked for civil rights? If so, when and how? In what ways might things have improved or worsened for them in the 50s, 60s, and 70s?
In what ways are things similar or different for the Sipes' and McGhees' grandchildren today?

2. To prepare for writing, create an outline of the plot and the characters for your story. Write brief sketches of the settings and create some interesting dialog.

3. Now write a draft of your story. Have a classmate read it and offer suggestions to improve it.

4. Rewrite a final draft and share it with the class. Discuss the best aspects of one another's stories.

5. Publish your stories in a class magazine. Or, rewrite them as screenplays or scripts and perform them for your class or school.

Take Action
In this activity, you will imagine that you are part of a government task force appointed to analyze the current state of racial discrimination in particular areas. Follow these steps:

1. Get into small groups.

2. Choose one of the following areas to investigate: the United States, your community, or your school.

3. Form a hypothesis about the state of racial discrimination in the area that you chose. For example: "Racial discrimination still exists in the United States today" or: "Racial discrimination does not exist at [your school]."

4. Think of ways that you could gather evidence to prove your hypothesis, for example, by doing research, by observation, by interviewing people, etc., and discuss the relative merits of each method.

5. Assume your hypothesis is correct and that you have an accurate system for gathering support data.

6. If needed, make recommendations for improving the situation.

7. Report your findings and your recommendations in an oral report to the class.

8. Evaluate each other's reports.

EXTENSIONS
1. The McGhees lived at 4610 Seabrook Street, Detroit. Find out what Detroit and the area described as "the other side of Tarman Avenue" is like today. If possible, find issues of the Detroit Free Press or the Detroit Register and research news of the area fifty years ago and today. Write a human interest news story about it.

2. Write a movie review of The Color of Courage. Summarize the plot, give historical background, and say whether you liked it and why.

3. Watch a film from the Resources list and compare in writing or in an oral presentation to The Color of Courage.

4. See if you can find the actual case featured in The Color of Courage in U.S. Supreme Court records online or in the library. Make a copy of it, read it, and summarize its conclusions regarding protections of citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. Discuss with the class the possible reasons other communities today may continue to exercise similar discriminatory practices.

back to Cable in the Classroom