...despite recent progress, society is still not fully open [to people with disabilities], and opportunities are not so easily made equal. There is still a serious need for strong advocacy, a need for champions of inclusive programs, and a need for broad-minded and nurturing mentors. Success is not guaranteed. The ability to make career moves, to respond to opportunities, and to be where decisions and relationships are made, are all the more difficult for people with disabilities because appropriate housing, transportation, and important private environments are not accessible to everyone.

—Ronald L. Mace in a paper presented at the National Forum on Careers in the Arts for People with Disabilities, June 1998

The workshop has focused thus far on the struggle of African Americans and American Indians in North Carolina for equal rights. But many others, including ethnic communities, women, people with disabilities, religious groups, gays and lesbians, and senior citizens, have sought equal protection under the law. Learn about those who have taken up the fight by completing one option below. Submit your assignment to jessica.humphries@ncmail.net. You will earn technology credits with either option.

Option 1
You’re one of the more than 31,000 people who moved to North Carolina from another country between July 2002 and July 2003. As a legal immigrant, you know that you’re entitled to many of the same rights as citizens, such as equal access to housing and employment and protection from hate crimes. But you have faced job discrimination, and you know that others from your country have experienced housing discrimination. You want to become an advocate for your fellow immigrants, but you don’t know how to begin.

A friend has given you the names of some successful civil rights activists in North Carolina. These people have used diverse methods to accomplish their goals. Research their methods using only the Web sites below, then create a flyer to entice others to join your cause. Outline in the flyer the different methods these activists have used in their fight for equal rights and discuss one or more ways to advance your group’s goals in today’s political and social climate.

Option 2
You are a journalist in North Carolina in the year 2054. Your newspaper has just acquired the latest technology, a time machine. The one hundredth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education is approaching, and the newspaper has several related stories in the works. You propose to take the new time machine for a spin to interview several lesser-known civil rights activists in the state’s history. Your editor accepts your proposal (in part, she admits, to use you as a time-travel guinea pig).

After visiting only the Web sites listed below, write an interview article on the activists, focusing on their accomplishments. Because you have “interviewed” your subjects, you may make up quotes for them. You may also incorporate actual quotes from speeches, written works, or interviews you find on the Web sites.

Gertrude Weil
Best known as an important women’s rights activist in the state, Weil also fought for rights for Jews and African Americans and campaigned for labor reform.
http://www.jwa.org/exhibits/wov/weil/over.html

Harry Golden
Golden, a Charlotte journalist, was an advocate for the rights of African Americans and Jews. 
http://www.cmhpf.org/essays/moore-golden.html
http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/erarchive/1999/April/erapril.12/4_12_99ghiglione.html
http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/ncawards/nca2.asp?bn=hgolden

Kue Chaw
A Laotian immigrant and community leader in Hickory, Chaw has helped many Hmong settle in North Carolina.
http://www.searac.org/vbdigest-8-18-03.html#IV
http://www.ffrd.org/indochina/summer02news.html#symposium

John Herrera
Herrera has been influential in local politics and banking as a spokesman for the state’s growing Latino population.
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2000-11-22/cover2.html
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2001-09-12/triangles.html

Ronald L. Mace
Mace was an architect and advocate for people with disabilities who worked to make the built environment and products accessible to everyone, regardless of age, ability, or status in life. His work started in North Carolina, but his influence has been felt throughout the world.
http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_us/usronmace.htm
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/forum/papers/mace.html
http://www.ragged-edge-mag.com/1198/a1198ft1.htm#AITEM

These are but a few civil rights advocates in North Carolina history. Post information about others on the workshop’s Bulletin Board.

 

This prosuffrage poster (left) attempted to remind men who already had the vote where they came from. Gertrude Weil (above, far left), president of the state's Equal Suffrage League in 1920, rallies with other prominent North Carolina suffragists.

Beginning in the 1880s, North Carolina women fought for many years for the right to vote. The woman’s suffrage movement in the state saw little activity until 1913, however, when the Equal Suffrage League of North Carolina first met. This time the movement was well publicized and better organized. By the end of 1914, sixteen league chapters, which counted men among their members, had formed in towns around the state. Although the movement's numbers grew, particularly after WWI, the General Assembly ontinually thwarted their efforts. When Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote, suffragists in North Carolina rallied for their cause. Only one more state needed to ratify the amendment for it to become part of the Constitution when both North Carolina and Tennessee scheduled special sessions to vote on the amendment. On August 17, 1920, after four days of debate, the North Carolina General Assembly voted to postpone the vote until the regular legislative session the following year. “It was quite a sensation to be a young southern woman just slapped in the face by her state,” commented Nell Battle Lewis, reporter for the Raleigh News and Observer. The next day, Tennessee became the final state needed to ratify the amendment. In a meaningless gesture, the North Carolina General Assembly finally ratified the amendment in 1971.

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