Lee Yick: Equal Justice Under Law
45 min
Walk-In-The-Shoes Questions
As you read, imagine you are the protagonist.
- What challenges are you facing?
- What fears or concerns might you have?
- What may prevent you from acting in the way you ought?
Observation Questions
- What was Lee Yick’s role in the civil rights movement? By fighting for justice decades before the nation’s focus on racial equality in the 1950s, how was Yick’s effort important?
- What was Lee Yick’s purpose for challenging San Francisco’s unequally enforced city ordinance?
- Why did Yick think it was important to challenge the system?
Discussion Questions
Discuss the following questions with your students.
- What is the historical context of the narrative?
- What historical circumstances presented a challenge to the protagonist?
- How and why did the individual exhibit a moral and/or civic virtue in facing and overcoming the challenge?
- How did the exercise of the virtue benefit civil society?
- How might exercise of the virtue benefit the protagonist?
- What might the exercise of the virtue cost the protagonist?
- Would you react the same under similar circumstances? Why or why not?
- How can you act similarly in your own life? What obstacles must you overcome in order to do so?
- Students will evaluate the injustices resulting from discriminatory laws and their enforcement in the United States.
- Students will analyze an 1886 Supreme Court decision that supported civil rights against the discriminatory enforcement of law.
- Students will analyze methods by which they can promote justice in their own lives.
- Students will apply their knowledge of justice to their own lives.