Preparing to Journey to the Mississippi Delta

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Reflect on Discussions about Safety with Parents/Elders

Begin by asking students to respond to the following prompt in their journals: 

Consider a talk your parents/elders have had with you about how you need to behave in order to keep yourself safe. What was the situation? What was their advice? How did you feel about their advice at the time? What aspects of your identity did the conversation raise?

After students have had a few minutes to write and reflect, ask for a few volunteers to share their responses. To respect students’ privacy if their reflection pertains to a personal experience, we do not recommend requiring them to share aloud. 

Activity 2: Read Mamie Till-Mobley Excerpt

Explain to students that today they will examine a conversation that an African American mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, had with her son Emmett before he traveled from Chicago to Mississippi in 1955. Ask students if they are familiar with the name Emmett Till. Explain that over the next six lessons, they will study how his murder would inspire a generation of young activists to pursue justice in the grassroots civil rights movement. Emphasize that this unit isn’t just about a murder. It isn’t about injustice. It’s about how people were inspired to stand up to injustice. Learning about how people stood up in the past will give us tools to stand up to racial injustice today.

Explain that as Emmett Till prepared to visit Mississippi in 1955, his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, thought she needed to prepare him for how he would need to behave in order to be safe there.  

Distribute the reading “I Knew I Had to Give Him the Talk” and read Mamie Till-Mobley’s account aloud. Then give students a few moments to highlight a phrase or sentence that they think is particularly important or feels especially meaningful to them. 

Activity 3: Process “The Talk”

After students have highlighted a phrase or sentence in Mamie Till-Mobley’s account, instruct them to write a few sentences about why they chose it and make connections to their own knowledge and experiences. They might write about what it means to them or what it reminds them of, or they might connect it to something that has happened in their own life, in a film or book they have seen or read, or in history or current events.

Next, have students share the phrase or sentence they chose with a partner using the Think, Pair, Share strategy. Ask volunteers to share their sentences and reflection with the class.

Activity 4: Watch a Clip from The Murder of Emmett Till

Next, tell students that they will watch a video clip to learn more about Emmett Till and the historical context of Jim Crow Mississippi into which he traveled in 1955. Distribute the handout Viewing Guide: The Murder of Emmett Till. Students will answer the questions on the viewing guide as they watch the video.

Show the video clip from The Murder of Emmett Till (4:00–14:48). Because the clip includes brief images of lynchings and other violence (specifically at 5:30–5:55), give students a moment after it is over to write privately in their journals about any thoughts or feelings that came up for them while they watched.

See the A Note to Teachers section (Teaching Note 1: Teaching the History of Lynching) for more details on how to best support students and for an alternate activity for students who do not want to watch the video.

Then discuss the following questions from the viewing guide. Timestamps are included to indicate when you may want to pause the video to give students time to respond to each question. 

• What was life like for African Americans living in Mississippi? (7:46)
• Mamie Till-Mobley told Emmett that “Mississippi is not Chicago.” What did she mean by this? How was Chicago different? Why did she need to explain this to him? (12:37)

• By the time Emmett traveled to Mississippi in the summer of 1955, why were race relations tense? (13:51)

By the end of the discussion, be sure that students understand the violent backlash to the Brown v. Board of Education decision as an effort to maintain the white supremacist power structure (i.e., economic and political power over Black citizens).

Activity 5: Complete a 3-2-1 Prompt

Finally, at the close of the lesson, ask students to return to their journals and reflect on what they’ve learned from the lesson by completing the following 3-2-1 prompt.

In your journal or on a separate piece of paper, write down the following:

• Three ways that racism impacted the daily lives of African Americans in the South
• Two questions you have in response to this lesson 
• One comment on or connection you made with “the talk” that Emmett’s mother had with him or how it resonates with you