Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Black Psyche, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Woodcuts that explore the effects of segregation on the black psyche. Links to Elizabeth Catlett's "The Negro Woman," a series of fifteen linoleum cuts are provided, as well as a summary of their meaning.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Ambiguity of Integration: Making of African American Identity

For Students 9th - 10th
A painting and a photograph illustrating some of the problems posed by racial integration. Norman Rockwell's illustration is compared to the experiences of Ruby Bridges.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: New Art, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
Artistic expressions of the new black self image inspired by migration to the urban North. This focus of this site is "Song of the Towers", a series of four murals sponsored by the federal Works Projects Administration, outlining black...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Reasoning, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
Brochures and a speech from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference describing the organization's philosophy, its strategy, and its position on voting rights, civil disobedience, and segregation.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Singing, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
An analysis of the role music played in the civil rights movement. The well known spiritual, "We Shall Overcome," is referenced as playing a key role in supporting this movement.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Arming, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource offers a memoir that examines the role of armed self-defense in the civil rights movement. An excerpt from the text "Negroes with Guns", by Robert Williams is made available here, describing his approach towards civil...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Separating: Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
Article summarizes and provides links to audio and text versions of a speech made by Malcolm X one month after he left the Nation of Islam over a disagreement with its leader Elijah Muhammad. Includes questions for discussion.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Theater, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
A manifesto and scenes from a play illustrating black protest in the theater. LeRoi Jones's short manifesto, "The Revolutionary Theatre," and Douglas Turner Ward's, " Day of Absence" encapsulates the mindset of many black writers and...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Community on Film, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
Excerpts from a 1941 film that depicts black and white communities in Kannapolis, NC, by H. Lee Waters (1902-1997). This two part film characterizes the differences in economy, community, and values of two separate cultures.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Community and Culture, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
An attempt to define community as a shared culture. In this article and review, critic, poet, and playwright Larry Neal (1937-1981) applies the principles of self-determination espoused by Stokely Carmichael and others to the arts and...
Primary
National Humanities Center

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

For Students 9th - 10th
Narratives from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries depicting the struggle by blacks to purchase their own freedom and the impediments they faced.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Desegregation Integration, Making of African American Identity: V.3

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource presents James Farmer (1920-1999), a major figure in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, and the distinction he draws between integration and desegregation, two terms often used interchangeably and often confused.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Separation and Power, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
An essay that examines the relationship between racial separation and power. In this essay Stokely Carmichael advocates for the coalescence of political and economic power within the black community in a way that liberates and insulates...
Lesson Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: American Lives in Two Centuries: What Is an American?

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In 1782 Jean de Crevecoeur published Letters from an American Farmer in which he defined an American as a "descendent of Europeans" who, if he were "honest, sober and industrious," prospered in a welcoming land of opportunity which gave...
Article
NPR: National Public Radio

Npr: Marines Confirm Mistaken Identity in Iwo Jima Photo

For Students 9th - 10th
The photograph has been ingrained in American culture since almost the moment it was taken - a steadfast presence in high school textbooks and an enduring symbol of U.S. perseverance. But it appears we've been wrong about Joe Rosenthal's...
Article
NPR: National Public Radio

Npr: Jews & African Americans Built Tradition

For Students 9th - 10th
Read about the history of the Freedom Seder, a Jewish and African-American tradition. Includes an audio version of the story and a video.
Article
University of Groningen

American History: Essays: Philosophy and Literature: Intellectual Climate

For Students 9th - 10th
Discusses the intellectual atmosphere in the 1800s as America struggled to find its identity. The influences of the Enlightenment and Romanticism are described, and the ideas of various writers and philosophers.
Website
Other

Stories of American Community

For Students 9th - 10th
What does it take to make an American community? View the twelve different communities that are profiled through narrative, pictures, and audio.
Website
Other

Americans All

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Historians fear that current and future generations will no longer share their family stories. Americans All is program schools can join to encourage preservation of family legacy to continue history of heritage and culture.
Article
University of Groningen

American History: Essays: Philosophy and Literature: Quest for Nationalism

For Students 9th - 10th
Describes the struggle of Americans to develop a unified sense of national identity in the 1800s.
Website
PBS

Pbs: Alcatraz Is Not an Island

For Students 9th - 10th
An expose on the 19 month occupation of Alcatraz by a group of Native Americans beginning in 1969. They demanded the return of Alcatraz to Indian control and began the resurgence in the American Indian Movement.
Website
Smithsonian Institution

National Portrait Gallery: Asian American Portraits of Encounter

For Students 9th - 10th
Exhibition of the work of seven contemporary Asian American artists considers the genre from a distinctly Asian American point of view.
Website
PBS

Pbs: American Family: What It Means to Be Latino

For Students 9th - 10th
From the PBS series American Family: What it Means to Be Lation the first Latino family drama on broadcast television. What it Means to Be Latino discusses the personal experiences of Latinos in America, as well as their feelings about...
PPT
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Art and Identity in British North American Colonies

For Students 9th - 10th
Consider the English identity of American colonists by examining the sorts of imported goods and decorative arts Americans chose to purchase and display.

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