Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: African Americans in the British New World: The Middle Passage

For Students 5th - 8th
A description of the Middle Passage, the leg of the triangular trade that brought slaves from Africa to America. Read descriptions of the way slaves were transported in the ships across the ocean.
Handout
Library of Congress

Loc: America's Story: Juneteenth Celebration

For Students 3rd - 8th
This resource is a brief article about Juneteenth, or Emancipation Day, which celebrates the day when Union soldiers arrived in Texas and spread the word that slaves were free.
Interactive
PBS

Wnet: Thirteen: Slavery & Making of America: Imagining Freedom During/after Civil War

For Students 9th - 10th
In this interactive game, students are presented with a political drawings and cartoons from the period 1860-1877, and they must choose which historical event related to the end of slavery best matches each image.
Handout
The History Cat

The History Cat: History of Colonial America: Jamestown Colony

For Students 9th - 10th
Describes the struggles of the Jamestown Colony to survive in its first years. Many died from disease and starvation, and things only began to turn when the colonists started to grow tobacco. The use of indentured servants and later,...
Activity
Other

Understanding Slavery: The Lives of Eighteenth Century African Americans

For Students 9th - 10th
Comprehensive description of slaves in South Carolina. Click on the topics on the left to take you to a wealth of information about the lives of slaves in South Carolina.
Handout
Library of Congress

Loc: America's Story: Plessy v. Ferguson

For Students 3rd - 8th
The decision of the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson kept black and white people separate in all public areas for many years. To find out what that meant, and to see some actual photographs, visit this page.
Handout
Library of Congress

Loc: America's Story: South Carolina

For Students 3rd - 5th
Explore how South Carolina moved from a "plantation culture" in 1670 to a "growing research center and banking state" today. South Carolina played a major role in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.
Website
Library of Congress

Loc: America's Story: Great War & Jazz Age (1914 1928)

For Students 3rd - 8th
This Library of Congress time-line series surveys World War I and the Jazz Age. When World War I broke out in Europe, many changes were going on in the United States. Women were voting for the first time and African-American culture was...
Article
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: Religious Pluralism in the Middle Colonies

For Students 9th - 10th
Essay looks at the phenomenon of religious pluralism in the middle colonies. Author discusses religious sects in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, as well as African Americans and Native Americans.
Handout
Other

American Forces Press Service: Interest Grows in Music Pioneer James Europe

For Students 9th - 10th
Article from the U.S. Department of Defense commemorating James Reese Europe for both his contribution to the 369th Infantry Regiment in World War I and his place in jazz history before and after the war.
Unit Plan
Mariners' Museum and Park

Mariners' Museum: Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade

For Students 9th - 10th
Online exhibition from the Mariners' Museum chronicles the plight of African slaves from the beginning of their journey when they are torn from their homeland all the way to the shores of the Americas. Caught up in the lucrative...
Website
American Academy of Achievement

Academy of Achievement: Lloyd Richards

For Students 9th - 10th
A biography of Lloyd Richards, an African American director who introduced Broadway theater audiences to the African American experience through their eyes. He nurtured the talents of some of the best playwrights of the time. Includes a...
Graphic
Other

University of Southern Maine: Biblical Jewish Diaspora

For Students 9th - 10th
This site interprets the ancient documents that recorded Jewish diaspora. Discover the trails of these ancient peoples from throughout history. Interesting information about ancient Jewish and African cultures.
Handout
National Women’s History Museum

National Women's History Museum: Ruby Bridges

For Students 9th - 10th
A biographical look at Ruby Bridges who became famous at six years of age by being the first Black child to attend a desegregated school in America.
Activity
Other

Vanderbilt University: Heard Library: R. P. Warren: Who Speaks for the Negro?

For Students 9th - 10th
An extensive archival collection of material that formed the core of Who Speaks for the Negro?, a book Robert Penn Warren published in 1965 of his interviews with prominent African American writers and activists whose ideas were critical...
Article
Ohio State University

E History: Clash of Cultures: African American New Women

For Students 9th - 10th
An article on the cultural and political experiences of African American women in 1920s America.
Handout
National Endowment for the Humanities

Neh: Picturing America: Saint Gaudens: Robert Shaw Memorial [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
Analysis of a memorial sculpture dedicated to the 54th Massachusetts, the first regiment of African Americans recruited for service in the Union Army.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Slave, Making of African American Identity: V. 1

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource provides nineteenth-century black narratives that address what it meant to be enslaved and how slaves' identity was formed and changed over time.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Community, Making of African American Identity: V. 1, 1500 1865

For Students 9th - 10th
Twenty nine primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore how enslaved individuals and families coped with, adjusted to, maintained communities within, and opposed the system of oppression.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Entrepreneurs, Making of African American Identity: V. 1

For Students 9th - 10th
Six mid-nineteenth century accounts by free-born black entrepreneurs about their economic activities and struggles. Links to documents describing each trade are provided within this well-developed resource.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Civil War I: Slaves, Making of African American Identity: V. 1

For Students 9th - 10th
Photographs of slaves during the Civil War and war memories of former slaves during that conflict. Links to two separate resources can be found here, each focusing on the war memories of former slaves.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Sale, Making of African American Identity: V. 1

For Students 9th - 10th
Two nineteenth century depictions of the emotional brutality of slave auctions-by an enslaved (formerly free) black man and by former slaves-and several recollections of being sold by former slaves recorded during Depression era...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Resistance, Making of African American Identity: V. 1

For Students 9th - 10th
Recollections of slave resistance by observers like Frederick Douglass, narratives of slave resistance collected during the Depression, and mid-nineteenth century accounts by former slaves calling for resistance to and overthrow of the...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Enslaved Family, Making of African American Identity: Vol. 1

For Students 9th - 10th
This site offers two letters and a memoir from the mid-nineteenth century, and interviews from the early-twentieth century, about the importance and the roles of enslaved families.