Understanding Jim Crow (Setting the Setting)
David Cunningham, chair of the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University, explores systems of racial separation and institutionalized segregation known as Jim Crow.
When History Failed to Turn
Carol Anderson reflects on why once vibrant neighborhoods and why they became places of poverty and crime. Lack of equal educational opportunities despite the Brown v. Board decision left people poorly prepared to face a changing economy.
After Charlottesville: Public Memory and the Contested Meaning of Monuments
Students investigate the role memorials and monuments play in expressing a society’s values and shaping its memory by studying existing memorials and then designing their own.
Three Visions for Achieving Equal Rights
Students examine the strategies of three key civil rights leaders, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael.
The Debate over Reparations for Racial Injustice
This mini-lesson helps students define the term, learn what forms reparations can take, and consider what reparations should be offered for slavery and other racist policies.
The Hope and Fragility of Democracy in the United States
In this mini-lesson, students learn about the history of democratic and anti-democratic efforts in the United States and examine sources that illuminate this tension from Reconstruction through today.
Art, Imagination, and the Quest for Racial Justice
In this mini-lesson, students learn about the power of art as a tool for social change and explore how Black Lives Matter activists are using art in the fight for racial justice.
The White Citizens Councils
Historian David Halberstam describes the White Citizens’ Councils and their efforts to actively oppose integration in the South in the 1950s.
Letter From Birmingham Jail
Read Martin Luther King, Jr.'s response to suggestions that his nonviolent demonstrations were unwise and untimely in these excerpts from his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Race and Belonging in Colonial America: The Story of Anthony Johnson
Learn about Anthony Johnson, a Black forced laborer who became free in seventeenth-century Virginia.
The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy
Use this rich collection of Reconstruction era primary sources, videos, and a 3-week unit to engage your students in this pivotal period in US history and its legacies today.
February One
This video tells about the men who started the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, NC.
Slavery by Another Name
Challenging the idea that slavery in the US ended with the Emancipation Proclamation, this documentary recounts how following the Civil War new forms of forced labor emerged, trapping hundreds of thousands of African Americans in a brutal system.
The Concept of Race
Students analyze the socially constructed meaning of race and examine how it has been used to justify exclusion, inequality, and violence throughout history.
The Origins of Lynching Culture in the United States
Paula Giddings, professor of Afro-American Studies at Smith College, discusses the history and origins of lynching.
We and They in Colonial America
Learn how race and racism evolved within North America’s first European settlements with the stories of two African Americans who secured freedom in colonial Virginia.
February One
This video tells about the men who started the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, NC.
The Reconstruction Era Primary Sources
Enrich your teaching on the Reconstruction era with these primary source documents and images.
