Resource Library
Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.
We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.
Introducing Our US History Curriculum Collection
Draw from this flexible curriculum collection as you plan any middle or high school US history course. Featuring units, C3-style inquiries, and case studies, the collection will help you explore themes of democracy and freedom with your students throughout the year.
What the Black Man Wants (en español)
In Spanish, Frederick Douglass demands voting rights and civil equality for Black Americans in an 1865 speech.
Statistics from the War (en español)
In Spanish, this reading features statistics on the number of deaths during the Civil War.
Family Names
In Spanish, learn how filmmaker Macky Alston learned about the history of his family name and its connection to his family's legacy in the United States.
A Strength of My Neighborhood
In Spanish, a high school student describes how his neighborhood in Los Angeles helps him feel connected to the traditions of his family’s “old world” heritage in Mexico.
Black Officeholders in the South (en español)
In Spanish, these tables provide data about African American officeholders in the South during Reconstruction.
Changing Names (en español)
Three formerly enslaved people discuss their names and the changes they underwent after Emancipation. This reading is in Spanish.
Collaborators and Bystanders (en español)
Historian Eric Foner explains the various ways white Southerners showed support for the Ku Klux Klan during the Reconstruction era.
Election Violence in Mississippi (en español)
In Spanish, Robert Gleeds, an African American candidate for sheriff in Lowndes County, Mississippi, describes the violence that occurred on the eve of the 1875 election.
The Fourteenth Amendment (en español)
In Spanish, this is the full text of the fourteenth amendment to the US Constitution, which granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” including former slaves recently freed.
Freedmen’s Bureau Agent Reports on Progress in Education (en español)
In Spanish, this is an excerpt from a January 1866 Freedmen’s Bureau report on the state of education for freedpeople in the South, written by Freedmen’s Bureau inspector John W. Alvord.
Freedpeople Protest the Loss of their Land (en español)
In Spanish, The Committee of Freedmen on Edisto Island, South Carolina wrote a letter to Freedmen’s Bureau Commissioner O.O. Howard responding to President Johnson’s land policy.