Most people have heard of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, but few have heard of Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. Who were these guys and what did they have to do with this famous landmark event in...

Bass drum, snare drum, tom-toms, cymbals. Perched behind their drum sets, wielding their drum sticks and wire brushes, drummers lay the grove and are the heartbeat of a band's performance. A dynamic lesson introduces young musicians to...

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is difficult to read and difficult to teach. The novel is so highly regarded that it is one of most often listed as an option for the AP Literature and Composition exam. The materials in this packet from PBS...

Any study of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement would be incomplete without an examination of the life of Malcolm X. Class members view a short biographical video and analyze primary source documents to gain an understanding of the...

How do nineteenth-century texts by African American and Native American writers contribute to the country's ideals of freedom and individuality? Learners explore the topic by watching and discussing a video, reading biographies, writing...

Celebrate diversity with a toolkit designed to inspire young poets to develop their own voices. After examining poems by African American poets, individuals craft their own poetic stories. The packet features poems by Gwendolyn Brooks,...

This, the sixth in a series of 10 related resources, examines the life and works of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, an African American author, born in 1825, who advocated literacy for both free and enslaved African Americans.

Was nonviolent resistance the best means of securing civil rights for black Americans in the 1960s? In this highly engaging and informative lesson plan, your young historians will closely analyze several key documents from the civil...

An excellent resource defines the African-American Civil Rights Movement from the early 1900s through the legacy left in modern times. Every major date, event, and key player is described under clear overarching categories. The NAACP,...

There are countless civil rights resources, but this one really stands out. Social movements as they relate to human or civil rights are completely discussed in the context of the Southern Freedom Movement. Slides contain connected or...

To better understand the cultural achievements of the Harlem Renaissance and become familiar with its major figures, class members examine a painting by Aaron Douglas and a poem by Langston Hughes and compare how the artists develop...

Learners put themselves in the shoes of students who integrated Little Rock High School in 1957-58. Note: The primary resources in this activity provide powerful and poignant descriptions of what those students faced.

Pupils analyze a variety of primary source materials related to lynching (news articles, letters written to or written by prominent Americans, pamphlets, broadsides, etc.) in order to assess the effectiveness of the anti-lynching...

African-American history is an integral part of what America is. Learners examine important events, read informational texts, and create quilts depicting specific eras in African-American history. Each image created for the quilt will be...

Students study the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Through studying primary source materials from American Memory and other online resources, students of all backgrounds study the relationships between blacks and whites.

While most people are familiar with the transatlantic slave trade, there is less knowledge of another major external African slave trade in world history: the trans-Saharan slave trade. Pupils work in groups to read informational texts...

How did colonial enslaved people in America struggle to defend themselves and maintain their African heritage?

No need to look any further. This resource has everything for a solid exploration of the role of African Americans in the Vietnam War. Class members read primary sources, including a Martin Luther King speech, political cartoons of the...

After reading the article "Kings Dream Everyday," class members conduct a Socratic seminar discussion of Martin Luther King's contributions to the civil rights movement. They then read and respond to a passage from Michael Eric Dyson's...

It's been a long time coming! In 2020, MLB Commissioner Robert D. Manifred, Jr. stated that "the Negro Leagues would be recognized as official major leagues." Middle schoolers investigate the history of the Negro Leagues and use evidence...

High schoolers research the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, as well as other primary source documents, to determine Reconstruction's impact on the North and South. The 34-page inquiry-based lesson includes a staging question and...

To understand African Americans' involvement in the United States Civil War, high schoolers gather evidence from primary source images, census reports, and documents. As a summative performance task, individuals craft an argument,...

Young scholars show what they know about Rosa Parks and the incident on one of the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Groups discuss and identify where they receive most of their information. They examine the importance of having a complete...