The African Slave Trade

Two lessons focus on making a beat. Using popular African American music of its time, scholars listen and analyze the rhythm then recreate it with hands drums, and cups. 

Students explore slavery by reviewing the written laws intended to keep African Americans subservient. In this U.S. slavery lesson, students analyze a time-line of the history of African Americans. Students discuss the patterns of the...

Who were the enslaved people in colonial America? Using ads from enslavers looking to recapture escaped people, young historians put faces and identities to them. Primary sources, such as wanted ads, help scholars reconstruct who these...

Through the journals written by Harriet Jacobs and Elizabeth Keckly, young readers gain insight into the lives of two enslaved children on nineteenth-century plantations.

Students investigate African American culture by reading aloud an African folk tale and illustrating the tale. They use their illustrations to create a book or a bulletin board that retells the folk tale.

How do you introduce the topic of slavery to your youngest learners? The Sneetches, by Dr. Suess, is a great introduction to the idea of being different. Read the story to your class, and discuss desegregation in public buildings. This...

To gain insight into the American institution of slavery and how African Americans were viewed during this time, groups examine run-away slave ads and slave auction broadsides. Teams use the provided worksheet to record their impressions...

Learners access oral histories that contain slave narratives from the Library of Congress. They describe the lives of former slaves, sample varied individual experiences and make generalizations about their research in journal entries.

Third graders examine the life of the African American in the Pee Dee region during slavery.  In this slavery lesson, 3rd graders explore primary and secondary documents related to the topic and create a timeline of when slavery first...

Students are introduced to the characteristics of folktales and their purpose. As a class, they listen to a folktale, answer questions about the characters and share which part they enjoyed the best. In groups, they compare and...