PBS
Explore Art and Movement Inspired by Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series
Panel 58 from Jacob Lawrence's "Migration Series" of paintings provides middle schoolers with an opportunity to sharpen their observation and analytical skills. After engaging in a warm-up activity that introduces the concepts of...
Curated OER
Free Black Entrepreneur
Students research using the Internet, study books, reference sources, newspapers, and magazines for information about successful black business people and write a research paper. They may also interview entrepreneurs in their community...
Curated OER
The Great Migration: Pushed By The South, Pulled By The North
Students identify key features of the Great Migration. They explain the concepts of push and pull factors for migration. They create an art project which shows an understanding of the push and pull factors.
Curated OER
How Do Artists Effectively Relate Historic Events?
Young scholars explore African American migration. In this black culture and history lesson plan, students use a map to identify northern and southern states in which African Americans lived in the 1900s. Young scholars observe and...
Smithsonian Institution
Art to Zoo: Life in the Promised Land: African-American Migrants in Northern Cities, 1916-1940
This is a fantastic resource designed for learners to envision what it was like for the three million African-Americans who migrated to urban industrial centers of the northern United States between 1910 and 1940. After reading a...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series: Removing the Mask
Describe, analyze, compare and contrast poets from the Harlem Renaissance. Critical thinkers analyze the imagery, characterization, tone, symbolism, and historical context of Jacob Lawrence, Helene Johnson, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. A...
Curated OER
"ART ZOO 'Blacks in the Westward Movement', 'What Can You Do with a Portrait', and 'Of Beetles, Worms, and Leaves of Grass'"
Students study black history, examine portraits and portrait making and create their own portraits, and investigate their natural environment. This humanities lesson provides a text that can be used to teach lessons in black history,...
US House of Representatives
“‘The Negroes’ Temporary Farewell,” Jim Crow and the Exclusion of African Americans from Congress, 1887–1929
New ReviewDespite some advances made during the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, the period from 1887 through 1929, African Americans serving in Congress suffered severe setbacks due to Jim Crow Laws and voter suppression. Class members...
Curated OER
Following Muddy's Trail
Students view the AMERICAN MASTERS film "Muddy Waters: Can't Be Satisfied" and research him using the Guided Reading strategy. They examine the influential musician's childhood and trace his journey from the Mississippi Delta to...
US House of Representatives
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
New ReviewGroups select a photograph from one of the four eras of African Americans in Congress and develop a five-minute presentation that provides background information about the image as well as its historical significance. The class compares...
US House of Representatives
Keeping the Faith: African Americans Return to Congress, 1929–1970
New ReviewThe third lesson in a unit that traces the history of African Americans serving in the US Congress examines the period from 1929 through 1970. After reading a contextual essay that details the few African Americans elected to Congress...
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...
Via Sapientiae at DePaul University
The Great Depression of the 1930s
A 10-lesson unit takes young historians through a study of The Great Depression and life in the 1930s. The crash of the stock market, the Dust Bowl, unemployment, and mass migration west are all addressed through the analysis of primary...
Curated OER
Heaven, Hell, and Baltimore
This lesson allows pupils to research and compare the city of Baltimore to other northern cities of interest during the Great Migration. After reading a narrative entitled Return South Migration and conducting extensive research,...
Curated OER
Home Ties
Students explore the reasons people choose to migrate including political, economic and familial motivations. They interview family members and compare their ancestors own reasons for migration to those of African American urban migrants.
Curated OER
The Harlem Renaissance Births a Black Culture
Students examine the men and women who were a part of the Harlem Renaissance. Individually, they recreate their favorite pieces of art from the time period and create their own original works after reading poem from the movement. In...
National Park Service
Hibernation-Migration-Fascination
What's the difference between hibernation and a good nap? Find out with an engaging life science activity that compares the hibernation habits of grizzly bears and marmots. After learners read an informational passage about each mammal,...
Curated OER
OK in Oklahoma? All-Black Communities
Students read to discover the African-American migration to Oklahoma following the Civil War and the eventual settlements of thirty-two all-black towns. To present their findings, students will write position papers and participate in...
Curated OER
Parallel Studies of the Afro-American and Puerto Rican Experience in America
Pupils compare/contrast the Afro-American and Puerto Rican experience as they migrated and assimilated in the U.S. They research and discuss the reasons for migration and the historical significance of economic autonomy and oppression.
Curated OER
OK in Oklahoma? All-Black Communities
High schoolers read a narrative on western migration. They examine the early segregation laws adopted at the time of Oklahoma statehood, and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of single-race communities.
Curated OER
Massachusetts Blacks in the American Revolution
Eighth graders examine the experiences blacks were having in Massachusetts before and after the American Revolution. They also discover that many blacks migrated to Canada in search of a better life.
Anti-Defamation League
Women's Suffrage, Racism, and Intersectionality
The Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote—as long as they were white. High schoolers read articles and essays about racism in the suffrage movement and consider how intersectionality played a role in the movement. Scholars...
Global Oneness Project
Citizen Photojournalism
Matt Black's photo essay, "The Geography of Poverty" provides a shocking reminder of the poverty that exists in the United States. The resource not only focuses attention on poverty but also conditions that have given rise to situation...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
History of Immigration Through the 1850s
Everyone living in the United States today is a descendant from an immigrant—even Native Americans. Learn about the tumultuous history of American immigration with a reading passage that discusses the ancient migration over the Bering...