Overview
In February of 1972, the Florida legislature passed a bill to place a straw vote on the ballet of the upcoming March 14 Presidential primary. The straw vote asked, "Do you favor an amendment to the United States Constitution that would prohibit forced busing and guarantee the right of each student to attend the appropriate public school nearest his home?"

In this lesson, students will use primary source documents to learn about Governor Askew's position on integration and busing.

Objectives
1. Students will discuss what they already know about Governor Askew and his stand on busing and integration.
2. Students will read primary source documents regarding Governor Askew's stand on busing and integration.
3. Students will record on a worksheet the information they have gained from the primary source documents.
4.  Students will discuss what they have learned.

Materials and Preparation
1. Worksheet for recording information.
2. Letter from student in favor of busing.
3. Letter from student against busing.
4. Letter from Askew to the Senate.

Procedure
1. Ask students what they already know about Governor Askew. When was he governor? What kind of governor was he?

2. Give students some background information. He was Florida's governor from 1971 to 1979.

3. Ask students to orient his governorship in terms of their own family history. What were the student's parents doing in those years? Who in their family might have been in high school in the seventies?

4. Ask students what they know about busing and school integration. If necessary, give students background information on desegregation.

Before and after Reconstruction, Southern schools were segregated by law (de jure segregation). Black students were not allowed to attend "white" schools and vice versa. Then in May 17, 1954 in the case of Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, the US Supreme Court outlawed school segregation by race. While small groups of black students and individuals might sue to attend white schools, most students continued to attend either all-white or all-black schools (De facto segregation, or segregation in fact).

In 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court in Swann v. Charlotte- Mecklenburg Board of Education required that the system of segregated schools be actively dismantled .

5. Give students worksheets. Have them answer the first two questions.

6. Give students copies of the student letters. Have them answer the next two questions on the worksheet.

7. Give students copies of Askew's letter to the Senate. Have them answer the last two questions.

8. Discuss what students have learned from reading the primary source documents, and what new questions they may have.