These activities help students focus on key elements that led to success in the Belton v. Gebhart trial.

The Lesson

Procedures

1. Ask students what the defense arguments were in support of segregation? Read the Defense Opening Statement carefully. Discuss its implications in terms of current events today. How have things changed since the 1950s in the areas of equal access to opportunity, resources, work, and personality and recognition on a community-wide level. Are the problems with equal opportunity mentioned in the opening statement still problems today?
   
   
2. Examine the reproduction of the comic from Plaintiff's Exhibit 1. Write a story to go along with the picture. How are images of race conveyed in this comic? What are the stereotypes of that day used? What is the message of the comic? Who is the audience and what is its ultimate purpose? After the students turn in their stories, have them read about Wertham's arguments in the Belton v. Gebhart trial about the mental health issues raised because of segregation.
   
   
3. What is the main point of the letter addressed to Fred Bulah from the State Board of Education?
   
   
4. In Delaware, black children were not allowed to ride in the same buses as white children. They could not ride the same bus, even if it went directly past the segregated schools African-American children were required to attend. The black school children in this case had no buses to take them to school. How does this situation apply to ideas of separate-but-equal at issue in this case?
   
   
5. Have students read Judge Seitz's Opinion. Ask students to deduce why his decision in this case was such a tremendous victory against segregation. Then have them read the text explaining his decision.

   Liza R. Rognas is a librarian and historian at The Evergreen State College Library in Olympia, Washington.
   
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