“What Is Your Real Name?”

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a vignette classroom discussion of the primary source YouTube video of Malcolm X's City Desk interview March 1963 with student reactions and teacher commentary taken from classroom experience. Malcolm X is a lynchpin for introducing divisions in Black activism concerning race, policing, and education occurring in 1963, continuing in legacy movements after 1963, and reemerging in the modern push for social justice. Malcolm X holds a place in our collective historical memory that is at the same time recognizable and often misrepresented. This goal for analyzing this specific source is to provide lesson planning of the Long Civil Rights Movement focusing on Malcolm X and his legacy through a detailed sample lesson based on the digital primary source interview of Malcolm X. The larger significance is to ensure secondary classrooms keep pace with history scholarship to illustrate distinct civil rights goals rather than presenting a monolithic Civil Rights Movement.