Unsung Heroes

Name:__________________________________________________________________Period:____

Unsung Heroes

Choose an individual who stood up for racial or gender justice.  Perhaps this individual worked to end slavery, for women’s right to own property or to vote, for farmworkers’ rights, or to integrate schools in the South.  You don’t have to agree with everything this person stood for or agree with how he or she went about working for change.  The only requirements are that the person tried to make this a better place to live and also significantly affected society.  You may choose an individual (or group) who attended the “Hello My Name Is” activity or come up with one of your own.  If you choose one on your own, please check with me first.

Your goal will be to find out as much about your assigned individual as possible.  Try to answer the following questions – and be sure to look for specific stories from their lives:

1.  What significant events in this person’s life shaped their social commitment?  What happened in their life to make them willing to take the risks they took?

2. What did the person want to accomplish or change?

3. What did they accomplish?

4. What methods did this person use to try to effect change?

5. What, if anything, about their life reminds you of something in your life?  Is there anything in their life that you relate to, or that is similar to feelings or experiences you’ve had. 

6. What meaning does this person’s life have for today?

7. Find at least three quotes from the individual that you agree with or think are somehow significant.

In your final write-up, all of these questions will need to be answered fully.  The information you gather in this part of the project will help you to write the first-hand account – but we will cross that bridge later.

Frederick Douglass	Harriet Tubman	John Brown	Elaine Brown	Jeannette Rankin	Soldiers of 54th Massachusetts Regiment
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn	Cesar Chavez	Carlos Bulosan	Harvey Milk	Fred Korematsu	Susan B. Anthony
Henry David Thoreau	Nat Turner	Emma Goldman	Marcus Garvey	Bernice Johnson Reagon	Fannie Lou Hamer
Delores Huerta	Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman	Elizabeth Cady Stanton	Leonard Peltier	Black Panther Party for Self Defense Member	Melba Patillo Beals
Malcolm X	Queen Liliuokalani	Sojourner Truth	Jackie Robinson	Rosa Parks	William Lloyd Garrison

Link to article and biographies of the Unsung Heroes

"Unsung Heroes"