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Curated Video
Standing Up For Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement in America
From the fight to abolish slavery in the 1800s to the efforts to stop segregation in the 1900s, this program chronicles the civil rights movement in America. Students will learn about the courageous leaders of the Abolitionist Movement...
PBS
Sojourner Truth | Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Activist Video
Talk about perseverance! Introduce young historians to Sojourner Truth with a richly detailed lesson plan that includes a video overview of Truth's life, background vocabulary, as well as before and after viewing discussion questions. A...
PBS
Reaction to the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968
A short video features an archival video from a 1968 Boston rally where two speakers respond to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
TED-Ed
"Ode to the Only Black Kid in the Class" poem by Clint Smith
Poet Clint Smith reads his poem "Ode to the Only Black Kid in the Class."
National Woman's History Museum
Women's History Minute: Marian Anderson
A short video spotlights opera singer Marian Anderson's accomplishments alongside her struggles with racism and segregation.
PBS
A Black Writer in the South | American Masters: Alice Walker
Alice Walker discusses the influence the strong women in her family and her experiences growing up on a plantation in Eatonton, Georgia had on her writing. Part of the American Masters series, the short video includes images of her...
PBS
The Color Purple
A clip from the documentary Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth features Walker discussing her writing process and why she chose to write The Color Purple as an epistolary novel. The resource is part of PBS' American Masters...
PBS
Ralph Ellison and the Black Arts Movement
The ideas of the leaders of the Black Arts Movement were in direct contrast to those of Ralph Ellison. A clip from the American Masters film Ralph Ellison: An American Journey clarifies these conflicts between Ellison and the younger...
PBS
Dr. Bledsoe: A Fictional Booker T. Washington
Many critics believe that the character of Dr. Bledsoe in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man was modeled after Booker T. Washington. After watching a clip from the film Ralph Ellison: An American Journey about the Washington Bledsoe...
PBS
Invisible Man: The Trueblood Incident
How is the reader of Ralph's Ellison's Invisible Man supposed to react to "The Trueblood Incident" of Chapter 2? A short clip from the American Master film Ralph Ellison: An American Journey offers differing critical analyses from two...
PBS
Invisible Man: Battle Royal
A film reenactment of the "Battle Royal" scene in Chapter 1 of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man offers readers a chance to compare the film version of the scene to the novel's depiction. The discussion questions ask readers to consider the...
PBS
Invisible Man: Plot Summary
Although labeled as a plot summary, this resource from the American Masters series is so much more. In addition to clips from the American Masters film, the packet contains teaching tips, discussion questions, a background reading, and...
PBS
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Created for the Great American Read series, a short video encourages viewers to vote for Invisible Man. Musician Wynton Marsalis and Dr. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, among others, share their rationale for why Ralph...
PBS
An Introduction to Ralph Ellison
Powerful and painful, Ralph Ellison's acclaimed Invisible Man is a must-read. A short video from the PBS American Masters series introduces viewers to Ellison and the major themes of the novel.
PBS
New Mexico and Las Gorras Blancas
Fence cutters, lost land, and cattle ranchers. The video explains the plight of Hispanic Americans when New Mexico became a state. The video also shows young historians why New Mexico's statehood was less violent than that of Texas.
PBS
Apolinaria Lorenzana and the California Missions
The California missions transformed California. A short video discusses the missions, their purpose, how they eventually lost their power, and what happened to Native Americans when the missions closed.
PBS
GI Forum Mobilizes
The GI Forum, a group of Mexican-Americans focused on getting their fellow citizens to the polls in the 1960 election introduces young historians to Hector Garcia who helped President Johnson create reforms for ethnic minority...
PBS
Rita Moreno and West Side Story
West Side Story—a hit Broadway musical or a true-life tragedy about turf wars in New York City? The video shows young academics the gang wars and violence that led to the creation of the musical. It also describes how discrimination...
PBS
To Kill a Mockingbird Setting: A Portrait of a Southern Town in the 1930s
The characters of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird are formed and informed, in part, by the distinctive historical backdrop of Alabama during the Great Depression. Watch a video that details Lee's experience growing up in...
PBS
Demonstrations of 2006
A brief video examines a demonstration that crossed the nation. After a congressman pushed to criminalize undocumented immigrants, Latino Americans banded together to fight for immigration reform.
Crash Course
Discrimination: Crash Course Government and Politics #31
Too often the majority rules, and the minorities suffer. Scholars investigate how the Fourteenth Amendment deals with the issue of discrimination. A short video, the 31st of a 50-part series, helps individuals analyze the concept of...
Bill of Rights Institute
Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke
How do you create equality in education? Viewers examine the case University of California vs. Bakke to learn about the issues of affirmative action in the college admission process. They see how the case relates to the 14th Amendment...
Crash Course
Do the Right Thing
Did Mookie do the right thing? Spike Lee's film Do The Right Thing, which discusses race violence and community, leaves viewers to decide. The cogent analysis of a film criticism video examines not only Lee's filmmaking techniques...
Macat
An Introduction to Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow
Is the War on Drugs responsible for the inordinate number of black Americans sent to prison for non-violent drug offensives? That's MIchelle Alexander's contention in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of...