Heroes and Good Citizens – Harriet Tubman Hector P. Garcia Ruby Bridges

 Harriet was born a slave in Maryland around 1820 (Locate Maryland on a U.S. map.)  slavery: the owning of a person by another person

 Harriet began working all day in the fields when she was a child.  She was a hard worker but was considered to be rebellious by her masters and was often beaten.  What does it mean to be rebellious? What kinds of things do you think a slave could do to be rebellious?

 She was always willing to stand up for others. At the age of 15, she tried to help a runaway slave. She was hit in the head with a heavy weight and knocked out.  When she was 24, Harriet married a free black man named John Tubman, but she still remained a slave.

 Fearing that she would be sold and shipped to the South, Harriet was determined to escape to freedom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  She followed the North Star by night and made the 90-mile trip with the help of a network of people who were part of the Underground Railroad.

 Was a group of people who helped slaves escape along secret routes to the North or to Canada; it was organized and secret.  Locate Canada on the map.

Routes of the Underground Railroad

 Harriet risked her life by returning to the South many times to guide more than 300 slaves along the Underground Railroad to freedom.  conductors – the guides who led the slaves along the Underground Railroad  stations – the houses, barns, churches, stores and other places where runaways hid along their journey

 Harriet Tubman: Animated Classic  x.cfm?guidAssetId=1B1523CD-0DD4- 4CDE-A06B EFBCE x.cfm?guidAssetId=1B1523CD-0DD4- 4CDE-A06B EFBCE

 social_studies/documents/FollowtheNorth Starrdrtheater.pdf social_studies/documents/FollowtheNorth Starrdrtheater.pdf  social_studies/documents/AuntHarrietsSt oryrdrtheater.pdf social_studies/documents/AuntHarrietsSt oryrdrtheater.pdf

 A Picture Book of Harriet Tubman – David A. Adler  Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky – Faith Ringgold  Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt – by Deborah Hopkinson  Under the Quilt of Night – Deborah Hopkinson  Young Harriet Tubman: Freedom Fighter – Ann Benjamin  Harriet Tubman and the Freedom Train – Sharon Gayle

 How did Harriet Tubman show responsibility in daily life?  How did she show courage?  Do you think she ever felt both brave and afraid at the same time?  Do you think she was a hero? Why, or why not?

Hector Garcia

 a physician, decorated war veteran, civil rights leader  A teacher once told him “No Mexican will ever make an “A” in my class”  With the support of his parents who were both teachers and his family, he became educated and fought for equal rights for all Americans.

 He was born in a small town in Tamaulipas, Mexico, in 1914  His family came to Texas in 1917 to escape the Mexican Revolution  He graduated from the University of Texas and became a medical doctor.

 During World War II, he served in the Army in Europe and North Africa and was awarded the Bronze Star.  He met and married his wife, Wanda, while serving in Italy.  After the war, he returned to practice medicine in Corpus Christi, Texas.

 He soon realized that the war did not change how Mexican Americans were treated in Texas.  Anglo neighborhoods, restaurants, theaters, swimming pools, and even hospitals continued to be off limits to Mexican Americans.  In 1948, he and other Mexican American leaders founded the American GI Forum to improve veterans’ benefits and medical attention for them.

 It soon grew into addressing other problems concerning Mexican Americans such as discrimination in education, housing, health care, voter registration, and employment.  As he fought for the rights for Mexican Americans by peaceful means, his life was threatened.  Today, the GI Forum is in 24 states and continues to help all Americans in these areas.

 His true passion was in the area of education  He felt that education was a way out for those living in poverty.  In the 1950s, the American GI Forum began filing lawsuits to help desegregate Texas schools.  Till his death, Dr. Garcia continued to support and fight for equal education for all students.

 Dr. Garcia was the first Mexican American to serve on the US Commission on Civil Rights (appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968)  He was the first Mexican American to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom (awarded to him by President Ronald Reagan in 1984).  In July of 1996, Dr. Hector P. Garcia died in his hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas.

Ruby Bridges

 Ruby Nell Bridges was born in Mississippi in  When she was four, her family moved from a farm to the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.  When she was a child, African American children and white children attended separate schools.  In 1960 the city of New Orleans had been ordered to desegregate their schools.

 When Ruby was old enough to go to school, her family volunteered her to participate in the integration of the public school system in New Orleans by attending an all-white elementary school.  She is the first black child to attend William Frantz Elementary School, as well as the first African American child to go to an all-white elementary school located in the South.

 On November 14, 1960, Ruby Bridges was scheduled to enter William Frantz Public School.  There was a huge crowd of people surrounding the school, shouting and throwing things.  Once Ruby made it into the school, escorted by federal marshals, she spent the entire first day sitting in the office with her mother.

 During the day, parents continued to show up, pulling their children out of school because they refused for their children to be educated alongside a black child.  All of the teachers, with the exception of one, Ms. Barbara Henry, refused to teach Ruby.

 She became Ruby’s teacher, and her only student for the entire year was Ruby.  Ruby and Ms. Henry became very close, but Ms. Henry’s decision to teach Ruby caused her to be ostracized from the rest of the staff who treated her badly.

 Each day Ruby continued to walk through the jeering crowds of people.  One woman threatened to poison Ruby.  Another woman in the crowd held a coffin that had a black baby doll inside.  Ruby’s mother suggested that she begin praying on her way to school, so Ruby did do this.

 A child psychiatrist named Robert Coles provided counseling for Ruby while she was at William Frantz Elementary.  He met with her once a week in her home and later wrote a book about her called The Story of Ruby Bridges.

 By the end of the first year, a few white children had returned to the school, but they were not with Ruby.  They had their own classes. Ms. Henry was not asked to return, so she moved back to Massachusetts.  She never forgot about Ruby, and the two were reunited in adulthood.  Ruby is now Ruby Bridges Hall, and she still lives in New Orleans today.

 She worked as a travel agent and then later became a fulltime mom to her four sons.  She is currently the head of the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which was created in  Its goal is to teach tolerance, appreciation of differences, and respect.

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