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.
Growing Resistance Meets Growing Repression
Investigate the resurgent wave of international and domestic anti-apartheid activism that led to increased violence before both sides compromised over a legal conclusion to apartheid.
Transition to Democracy
Examine the continuing struggle for South Africa as it creates a representative democracy, attempts to heal from the legacy of apartheid, and searches for a new, inclusive identity.
The Individual and Society
How does our society shape the way we define ourselves and others? Explore some of the dilemmas people experience when others perceive them differently than they define themselves.
We and They
Discover how societies throughout history have defined membership based on ideas about human similarities and differences, such as race, religion, and nation.
The Role of Carpetbaggers
Alexander White, a white congressman from Alabama, describes the role that “carpetbaggers” and “scalawags” played in Reconstruction politics.
Savannah Freedpeople Express Their Aspirations for Freedom
Read an excerpt from the transcript of the Savannah Colloquy, a meeting between Union officials and Savannah’s Black community in January 1865. This reading is available in Spanish.
Sharecropping Contract
In this sharecropping contract, farmer Thomas J. Ross agrees to employ Freedmen to plant and raise a crop on his Rosstown Plantation in Shelby County, Tennessee.
South Carolina Freedpeople Demand Education
Read an excerpt of the resolution passed at an 1865 convention of freedmen in South Carolina that demanded, among other rights, education.
Speech by President Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address
This is the full text of President Lincoln's second inaugural address, which took place March 4, 1865.
Speech by Senator Charles Hays Reaffirming the Rights of African Americans (1874)
Republican congressman Charles Hays of Alabama, a former slaveholder, shares his views on a new civil rights bill that would end segregation of public transportation and public accommodations.
Two Names, Two Worlds
Jonathan Rodríguez reflects on his name through poetry. How does his name “place him in the world”?