Anti-Defamation League
Major League Baseball and the Negro Leagues: Correcting an Injustice
It's been a long time coming! In 2020, MLB Commissioner Robert D. Manifred, Jr. stated that "the Negro Leagues would be recognized as official major leagues." Middle schoolers investigate the history of the Negro Leagues and use evidence...
Anti-Defamation League
Rosa Parks: Sources of Information
Young scholars show what they know about Rosa Parks and the incident on one of the buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Groups discuss and identify where they receive most of their information. They examine the importance of having a complete...
Learning for Justice
The Color of Law: Creating Racially Segregated Communities
It is pointed, powerful, and painful! The first of three lessons about laws and practices that support inequality looks at how government policies created and reinforced segregated communities. Young social scientists read excerpts from...
Learning for Justice
The Color of Law: Developing the White Middle Class
The final lesson in the "Color of Law" series explores the government's discriminatory economic policies. Young scholars watch videos, read primary source materials, and examine images to gather information. They discuss how what they...
DocsTeach
Compare and Contrast: School Photographs
Separate and very unequal! An interactive presents learners with two images: a photograph of a boys' bathroom at a school in Gloucester County, Virginia, and a second of a girls' bathroom at a different school in the same county. The...
Anti-Defamation League
Building Alliances
Bystander or up-stander? The final lesson in the "Looking Back Reaching Forward" unit asks participants to consider how they can become involved in encouraging change in their school and community.
Anti-Defamation League
Bringing It Home
The "Bringing It Home" lesson asks scholars to investigate segregation and diversity in their school. They research, collect, and analyze local demographics. After reflecting on their personal experiences with cliques and social...
Anti-Defamation League
Sixty Years Later
Has any progress been made in desegregating schools since 1954's Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education? To find out, class members examine charts and graphs representing U.S. schools' racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic...
Anti-Defamation League
With All Deliberate Speed
Has the integration of U.S. schools proceeded "with all deliberate speed?" Has progress been made? Those are the questions young historians must consider as they examine the barriers to and opportunities revealed in a study of timelines...
Anti-Defamation League
The Problem We Still Live With?
Norman Rockwell's painting "The Problem We Still Live With" launches a unit study of racism in the United States and segregation in U.S. schools. In the first lesson, scholars discuss the painting, review key elements of the Supreme...
Penguin Books
Teacher's Guide: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
It's the American Dream! A house of your own, a better life, freedom to be who you want. But what happens when the dream withers? Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama, A Raisin in the Sun, offers some powerful answers to these...
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: "When Fannie Lou Hamer Said" by Mahogany L. Browne
After watching an excerpt from a video of Fannie Lou Hamer's testimony before Congress, pupils do a close reading of Mahogany L. Browne's poem "When Fannie Lou Hamer Said," annotate words and phrases that draw their attention and list...
American Institute of Physics
The Physicist's War: Dr. Herman Branson and the Scientific Training of African Americans during World War II
The mobilization of soldiers for World War II resulted in a worker shortage in the defense industries, especially in the fields of physics and other sciences. The Engineering, Science, and Management War Training program (ESMWT) was...
American Institute of Physics
African American Physicists in the 1960s
Physicists Herman Branson and Tannie Stovall provide young scholars with two very different perceptions of the status of African American physicists in the 1960s. After reading and comparing the bios of these two men, class members read...
PBS
Remembering Nelson Mandela
To learn more about Nelson Mandela, young historians watch a 20 minute video that traces his life from boyhood in a small South African village, to his work as an activist opposed to Apartheid, his imprisonment, and to his leadership as...
American Institute of Physics
Women and the Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a massive undertaking involving multiple sites and thousands of scientists and technicians. To gain an understanding of the women who participated in the project, groups select an oral history of a woman...
American Institute of Physics
Physicist Activist: Dr. Elmer Imes and the Civil Rights Case of Juliette Derricotte
Elmer Imes was not only a brilliant physicist but also a civil rights activist. After an introductory lecture, groups read two articles about a traffic accident that killed one Fisk University student and injured several others. The...
American Institute of Physics
The Physical Sciences at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
The history of science instruction at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) is the focus of a instructional activity that explores the early challenges these institutions faced in accessing equipment for their labs and...
American Institute of Physics
The Tuskegee Weathermen: African-American Meteorologists during World War II
Chances are good that young scholars have heard of the Tuskegee Airmen but few would predict that these pilots had their own support in the form of the Tuskegee Weathermen. These Black meteorologists were recruited and trained to provide...
National First Ladies' Library
Trouble in Little Rock: The Desegregation of Central High School
Middle schoolers study one aspect of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States; the battle over desegregating the public schools. They study the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas by producing a newspaper,...
American Institute of Physics
Meet Four Pioneering African American Astronauts
An out-of-this-world resource introduces young scientists to four African American astronauts: Michael P. Anderson, Ronald E. McNair, Guion S. Bluford Jr., and Jeanette J. Epps. Groups read biographies of these individuals and prepare...
American Institute of Physics
African Americans and Life in a Secret City
Imagine the lure of being offered a job at a secret site, working on a secret project, and earning higher wages! Such was the approach used to recruit African Americans to Hanford, Washington, one of several sites used to develop...
American Institute of Physics
African Americans in Astronomy and Astrophysics
A two-part lesson focuses on the contributions to the fields of astronomy and astrophysics of two African Americans: Benjamin Banneker and Dr. George Carruthers. In part one, scholars learn about Benjamin Banneker by examining his...
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: “Making History” by Marilyn Nelson
What makes an event newsworthy, worth a reference in a news magazine or textbook? Who decides? These are questions Marilyn Nelson asks readers of her poem "Making History" to consider. To begin, class members list details they notice in...