NAACP's Anti-Lynching Campaigns: The Quest for Social Justice in the Interwar Years

The NAACP's Anti-Lynching Campaigns: The Quest for Social Justice in the Interwar Years unit module has high schoolers investigate the anti-lynching campaigns of the NAACP in the 1920s and 1930s. For the first instructional activity, scholars research the arguments for and against the 1918 Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill presented to Congress and then use what they have learned in a simulated debate. The second lesson in the unit asks young historians to examine the anti-lynching campaigns sponsored by the NAACP in the 1930s. Once again, learners research the history of the anti-lynching campaign, determine why it was not successful, and why the NAACP decided to shift to focus from anti-lynching to a campaign to end segregation.