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Articles on Civil rights era

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Martin Luther King Jr. (bottom right) listens to gospel singer Mahalia Jackson during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Bob Parent/Getty Images

Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson made a suggestion during the 1963 March on Washington − and it changed a good speech to a majestic sermon on an American dream

As the “Queen” of gospel music, Mahalia Jackson sang two songs during the historic March on Washington. But her most famous line may have been a suggestion to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
A U.S. Federal Marshal escorts Gail Etienne to her first day of school on Nov. 14, 1960. Underwood Archives/Getty Images

A New Orleans community center rises from its ugly history as a segregated school

In the early 1960s, the McDonogh 19 school was the site of fierce opposition to racial integration. The building is now owned by one of the Black girls who first integrated the school.
In this 1998 photograph, former Iowa teacher Jane Elliott, center, speaks with two Augsburg University students about the problems of racism. Jerry Holt/Star Tribune via Getty Images

A second look at the blue-eyes, brown-eyes experiment that taught third-graders about racism

Jane Elliott wanted her white students to experience what it was like for Black students. But instead of teaching about the root causes of racism, she engaged in cruelty and shame.

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