Black History

A Quest for Full Citizenship

The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship showcases the African American collections of the Library of Congress, with more than 240 items, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings.

This on-line exhibit is divided into 9 sections...

• Slavery--The Peculiar Institution
• Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period
• Abolition
• The Civil War
• Reconstruction
• Booker T. Washington Era
• World War I and Postwar Society
• Depression, New Deal, and World War II
• Civil Rights

African American History Month – Teacher Resources

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have joined together to pay tribute to the generations of African Americans with a rich web resource full of exhibits, collections and audio & video resources.

They have a special section dedicated to teachers, showing how to put primary sources to work in the classroom. You'll find ready-to-use lesson plans, student activities, collection guides and research aids.

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA). The Library of Congress has digitized the narratives and scanned 500 original photographs to create this online collection.

Included in the collection are images of actual bills of sale, a bell rack (used to prevent slaves from running away), and portraits of former slaves.

Posting some of these images around the classroom could bring the reality of slavery home in a way that mere words will never do.

50 Powerful Pictures From Black History That Speak For Themselves

BuzzFeed News has assembled 50 high resolution images showing Black History in America from before the Civil War to the present.

Highly recommended.

Black History Figures, Events, Pictures & Videos

Each year in the United States, February is dedicated as Black History Month. What began as the grassroots effort of African-American historian Carter G. Woodson has grown into a national time to honor the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout history.

The History Channel has assembled a wide range of pictures, videos and accounts. looking at Black History and the origins of Black History Month. A large portion of the resources are contemporary, covering the last 75 years.

The Freedom School

In the summer of 1964, over forty Freedom Schools opened in Mississippi. These schools were part of Freedom Summer, a project of the Southern Civil Rights Movement, with the goal to empower African Americans in Mississippi to become active citizens and agents of social change.

This site archives the curriculum of the summer Freedom Schools, a series of documents that, taken together, was felt to offer the best example of a progressive, experiential curriculum that emphasized student-centered teaching and learning-by-doing.

Patchwork of African-American Life

Patchwork indexes a number of other resources including treasure hunts, webquests, sample activities and more.

Oh Freedom! Teaching Art and the Civil Rights Movement

Oh Freedom! is an interdisciplinary resource from the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. It helps K–12 teachers and students discover the history, influence, and legacy of the Civil Rights movement by exploring more than three dozen artworks.

Vintage Photos Of Black History Being Made In America

NewsOne has also assembled a collection if Black History month resources. Some of the pictures on this page are a hard to see, and should probably be limited to grades 7 or 9 thru 12. But they do show the reality of living Black in America over the last century.