"The Supplemental Units for a Course of Study in Social Studies": Madeline Morgan and the Black Women Intellectual Activists of World War II Chicago

Madeline Morgan and her colleague, Bessie King, commenced work in 1941 on a Black history curriculum that would highlight the contributions that African Americans had made to all areas of American society. Officially known as “The Supplemental Units for a Course in Social Studies,” Morgan’s curriculum was a mandatory component of instruction in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) from 1942-1945, making it the first Black history curriculum to be implemented in a U.S. public school system. My paper addresses how Morgan designed her curriculum and how she got it approved in a strictly segregated city over a decade before Brown v. Board of Education. I argue that the domestic mobilization needs of providing support for and later fighting a war against fascism created a favorable climate for the approval of the curriculum.