In addition to comparing states using a standardized rubric, we took a closer look at the kind of content they required. Some states went into a surprising amount of detail in their civil rights-related requirements. Sometimes these details were specific to events in a state (e.g., the Tallahassee bus boycott in Florida); at other times, they did not seem to have a particular relationship to a state’s particular history (e.g., Massachusetts’ requirement that students learn about the Nation of Islam).

The table below shows all required details found in the state documents for all the states, ranked first by frequency and then listed by category. These details were included if they were mentioned in required content, regardless of context. This means the table fails to capture nuance in state standards; unfortunately, for most states there was little nuance to capture, as these requirements tended to appear in lists rather than as part of meaningful and well-constructed learning expectations.

There are a number of ways that this list surprises. Only 19 states require students to learn about Brown, while 18 include Martin Luther King Jr. Not even a quarter of states include requirements to learn about key legislation (i.e., the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act). Only four include the 24th Amendment as essential content. One state (California) requires students to learn about the Ku Klux Klan when they learn about the civil rights movement.²¹ This is consonant with the overall low state scores in the rubric’s “opposition” category and serves as some confirmation of the “sanitization” hypothesis advanced by Epstein and others.

States require students to learn about very few female figures in the civil rights movement. Although Rosa Parks is frequently included in suggested state content, only 12 states require students to learn about her. Only three states require students to learn about Watts and other urban uprisings in the “long, hot summers” of 1964-1968. And only one requires students to learn about the Kerner Commission. These latter omissions likely reflect periodization of the civil rights movement as well as the well-documented tendency of history standards to become more vague as they approach the present time.

In general, state requirements are few and scattered. Even when states agree about the need to teach the civil rights movement, they do not agree about the essential knowledge needed to understand the movement.

Specific requirements from state mandates

Ranked by frequency

Listed by category, then ranked by frequency