CommonLit
Common Lit: Akron at Night by Teri Ellen Cross Davis
Teri Ellen Cross Davis is a poet who draws upon small, personal moments to explore large themes. Common subjects in her poetry include the experiences of women and people of color in America. This poem is from her 2016 collection Haint....
Yale University
Living Pictures Representing the History of Black Dance
A brief history of black dance in America, includes dance pioneers in jazz dance, ballet, and modern dance.
PBS
Pbs: The Perilous Fight: America's World War Ii in Color
Online home of the PBS documentary "The Perilous Fight" provides access to an eclectic array of color photographs and films of World War II at home and abroad. Overviews, contextual clues, maps, letters, and similar resources can be...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: America in Class: Becoming Modern: America in the 1920s: The Age
A collection of primary source material from the modern age, explores the 1920s and how it relates to today. Section includes introductory notes, classroom discussion questions, and supplemental links to related resources.
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: What Is Jazz?
This eight-page tutorial on jazz answers several basic questions (what is jazz, how did it develop) and keeps the topic of the tutorial focused within the realm of the African American understanding of jazz and focusing on its impact on...
Country Studies US
Country Studies: The Latino Movement
Latinos in the US, like African Americans, were oftentimes discriminated against and forgotten about. Noticing African American activist techniques for recognition, many Latinos in the US began to organize and pressure the government for...
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Harcourt: Biographies: Benjamin Bradley
Learn about inventor and African-American slave, Benjamin Bradley, developer of a steam engine large enough to run the first steam-powered warship.
Alabama Humanities Foundation
Encyclopedia of Alabama: History: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Learn about the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., with links to many related topics about the struggle for equality in America.
Georgia Humanities Council and the University of Georgia Press.
New Georgia Encyclopedia: Atlantic Slave Trade to Savannah
Encyclopedia article describing slavery in Colonial Georgia and the role that Savannah played in slave trade from 1755 to as late as 1858.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Aftermath: Postcards, African Americans Picking Cotton
Though given the right to vote, African-American men and women faced discrimination and racist practices that often prevented them from voting in the early 20th century. Read about some of these practices, and how, for example, the Texas...
Other
African Postcolonial Literature in English: Achebe's Fiction
A short synopsis on Achebe's use of language to combat politics in Africa. With a quote from his essay "The Novelist as Teacher."
OpenStax
Open Stax: Urbanization 1870 1900: Great Migration and New European Immigration
What caused the influx of African Americans and European immigrants into urban centers in the late 19th century? Learn about some of the discriminatory and anti-immigrant laws that were enacted to restrict their rights. Includes a chart...
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History: Lives on the Railroad: Salisbury, North Carolina 1927
Replica of the Salisbury, North Carolina railway station teaches about riding and working on the railroad in the 1920s when railroads were a central part of American life. Railroad lines crisscrossed the country. They carried people,...
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Becoming Visible: James Baldwin
James Baldwin is presented in this biography as a great African American contributor to the literary world during the civil rights movement. See "James Baldwin Activities" for more information.
Other
Amistad Digital Resource: Harlem Renaissance
Read about the Harlem Renaissance, the 1920s rebirth of African American arts centered in the Harlem neighborhood in New York City.
Other
The New Orleans Museum of Art
The New Orleans Museum of Art features Faberge jewels and Louisiana art and decorative arts, Asian, Native American, Oceanic, and African art, along with paintings and photographs from Europe and America. Click on the highlights of the...
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: The Two Williamsburgs
This lesson plan on daily life in Colonial Williamsburg challenges students to compare and contrast the lives of the African and European populations.
Towson University
Towson University: Eaach: Colored Farmers Alliance
An encyclopedia entry for the Colored Farmers' Alliance, founded in Texas in 1886. Discusses the history of this alliance in depth.
Curated OER
Wikipedia: National Historic Landmarks in New York: Lemuel Haynes House
Last home of Lemuel Haynes, first African-American preacher ordained in America.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Social Realism: Booker T. Washington
Focused on his personal racial and civil philosophy, Booker T. Washington moved mountains making the public aware of the injustices and inequalities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Click "Booker T. Washington...
Library of Congress
Loc: Slaves and the Courts
Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860 contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and...
CommonLit
Common Lit: "I Have a Dream" by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to over 250,000 people from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In this speech, King discusses racial...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Africans Ii, American Beginnings: 1492 1690
Three illustrations and five documents about slave codes, master-slave power dynamics, and free blacks within French and Spanish settlements of the Caribbean.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica: George Moses Horton
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features George Moses Horton, an African American poet who wrote sentimental love poems and antislavery protests. He was one of the first professional black writers in America.