8th Graders Explore Civil Rights!

By. Laela Zaidi

Emmett Till, a fourteen year old boy, was slaughtered and murdered in 1955, and his complicated case, as claimed by historians, sparked the Civil Rights movement. He was murdered for doing something common, whistling at a girl…or at least that’s what the rumors were.

This famous case in history is just one of the many topics that students in Mr. Randy Turner’s 8th grade communication arts are diligently working on. Every year, Mr. Turner gives his classes the famous “Third Quarter Research Project” that everybody has been dreading about, or at least that’s what they thought. Though the research paper is to be 1,000 words long, students have been reconsidering their original “UGH!” thoughts on the paper.

“It’s really not that hard, and it was actually interesting. Like how the people who killed Emmett Till were boasting over their murder in the Look magazine. I found this as a very interesting fact,” commented Preston Carpenter on his paper.

Celeste Graves has a more emotional side to this paper. “I feel that doing this project has enlightened me in a way that nothing else can, and it has help me connect with my past family.” Celeste Grave’s great-grandma was the counselor at the Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas, when the famous Little Rock Nine were the first black students at the all white school.

So, all in all, students are finding this paper to be more enjoyable then they thought. Coincidentally, the third quarter research project is in February, Black History Month.