The March 23, 2024 Educator Workshop was held during the school year, giving teachers a spring professional development opportunity tied to the ongoing academic calendar. Spring workshops are particularly valued because they allow educators to apply what they learn almost immediately in their classrooms during the final months of the school year, when students are often revisiting key historical periods and preparing for end-of-year assessments. The Museum’s workshops are structured to be immediately applicable, not theoretical, with practical classroom tools, discussion frameworks, and primary source materials that teachers can pick up and use directly.
One collaborative workshop in the series, developed with the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice, explores the fundamental ideas of inclusion and intersectionality through the Disability Rights Movement and the LGBTQIA+ Fight for Liberation alongside the Civil Rights Movement. “Although these movements each have a different focus, they are deeply connected to our lived experience as human beings where markers of oppression and privilege intersect,” the Museum describes. “We will use these stories of opposition and resistance from the marginalized groups of people who had to fight for the bare minimum of equality as models for our own classrooms.” Educators share primary sources that uplift hidden histories and are asked to consider how they create their legacy as role models.
Participants are consistently surprised by how much they learn about the Memphis civil rights story specifically, which is often underrepresented in national curriculum materials despite the city’s central role in Dr. King’s final days, the sanitation workers’ strike, and the broader Poor People’s Campaign. The Museum’s educators and historians bring that local depth to every workshop, ensuring that participants leave with a richer, more complete understanding of the movement. Memphis Shelby County School teachers receive PLZ credits. Contact dlerner@civilrightsmuseum.org to register.