Primary
NBC

Nbc Learn: Finishing the Dream: 1964: Spotlights

For Students 9th - 10th
A collection of archival video clips highlighting the African American struggle for equal voting rights in 1964. Looks at the Mississippi Freedom Summer where college students helped to register black voters, the murder of three of those...
Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: Others Demand Equality

For Students 5th - 8th
Many other groups learned how to push for their civil rights from African Americans' civil rights movement. Read about the Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and gays as they worked to achieve equal treatment under the law.
Website
Library of Congress

Loc: African American Odyssey: The Civil Rights Era (Part 1)

For Students 9th - 10th
This exhibit on the African American culture and history ranges from the 1948 desegregation of the military to Hank Aaron's breaking of Babe Ruth's homerun record in 1974. Includes images of historical photographs and documents.
Website
Digital History

Digital History: Martin Luther King & Malcolm X on Violence & Integration [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were strong African-American leaders in the Civil Rights movement. Read about the differences in their approach to gaining civil rights for African-Americans. Find charts that compare their ideas on...
Article
Other

Afgen: Ralph David Abernathy

For Students 9th - 10th
Baptist minister, Ralph David Abernathy is featured in this brief biography for his work with his friend Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: New Hope?, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
An article that critiques the early civil rights efforts of the Kennedy administration. It explores the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's effect on the lives of African Americans.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: From Negro to Black, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
A painting that expresses the darkening hopes of the civil rights movement. It explores the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's effect on the lives of African Americans.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Soul, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
An article that expresses the late 1960s disillusionment of the civil rights movement. It explores the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's affect on the lives of African Americans.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Singing, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Students 9th - 10th
An analysis of the role music played in the civil rights movement. The well known spiritual, "We Shall Overcome," is referenced as playing a key role in supporting this movement.
Lesson Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Marching, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This resource by the National Humanities Center discusses the role of physical protest in the civil rights movement. Its primary focus, the print "Freedom Now," by Reginald Gammon (1921-2005), depicts the massing of bodies in the name of...
Handout
Alabama Humanities Foundation

Encyclopedia of Alabama: Ralph David Abernathy

For Students 9th - 10th
This brief biography of Ralph Abernathy highlights his contributions to the Civil Rights Movements.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Desegregation Integration, Making of African American Identity: V.3

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource presents James Farmer (1920-1999), a major figure in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, and the distinction he draws between integration and desegregation, two terms often used interchangeably and often confused.
Unit Plan
Curated OER

National Park Service: Names, Names, Names [Pdf]

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
A lesson plan for K-1 about important people in the Civil Rights movement. Requires Adobe Reader.
Lesson Plan
Alabama Learning Exchange

Alex: Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

For Teachers 6th - 8th
This lesson introduces students to Rosa Parks and the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. After considering the impact of Ms. Parks' heroism, students will explore its relevance to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement....
Article
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Attacking Stereotypes, Making of African American Identity: V. 3

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Two images that express the growing militancy of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. This article explains how Joe Overstreet (1934-) and Betye Saar (1929-) went head to head with the formidable Aunt Jemima and with wit and irony...
Website
Other

Civil Rights Movement 1955 1965: Mississippi & Freedom Summer

For Students 9th - 10th
Take a look at Mississippi in the early 1960s to understand why the focus of African American voter registration targeted that state. Read about the organization and implementation of the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964. See also the...
Handout
Other

Africana Online: Civil Rights Timeline

For Students 9th - 10th
A concise Civil Rights timeline that begins with the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision and ends with the 1992 LA riots in response to the Rodney King trial.
Article
Siteseen

Siteseen: American Historama: Civil Rights Act of 1957

For Students 9th - 10th
Informative article on the Civil Rights Act of 1957 that was intended to protect the right of African Americans to vote.
Website
Library of Congress

Loc: America's Story: Amazing Americans

For Students 3rd - 8th
Checklist of inventors, politicians, performers, activists, and ordinary people who made America. Meet Harry Houdini, Langston Hughes, Buffalo Bill Cody and dozens of other famous and interesting American adventurers, presidents,...
Primary
PBS

Pbs: African American World History

For Students 9th - 10th
Featuring an excerpt from a memoir written by Ruby Bridges telling of her experience as the first African American child to attend an all white elementary school in New Orleans in the year 1960.
Handout
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of American History: Students "Sit" for Civil Rights

For Students 3rd - 8th
Read the book, "Freedom on the Menu" about the Greensboro Sit-Ins and use the background information and follow up activities provided to enhance the story.
Handout
Wikimedia

Wikipedia: Rosa Parks

For Students 9th - 10th
This site from the encyclopedia Wikipedia provides a brief biography of civil rights activist Rosa Parks and details her refusal to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
Handout
Digital History

Digital History: Simple Justice

For Students 9th - 10th
Follow the civil rights quest for integrated schools from the beginning in 1849 through the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education and the struggle that ensued for decades following in the most reluctant...
Article
PBS

Wnet: Thirteen: Freedom: A History of Us: Webisode 14: Let Freedom Ring

For Students 9th - 10th
Series episode covers the civil rights movement and the struggle for equality in post-World War II America.