For Teachers, Home School - African American History Month Freebies

Put the power of primary sources to work in the classroom. Browse ready-to-use lesson plans, student activities, collection guides and research aids.

The Library of Congress

• Civil Rights (Themed Resources)
  
• Frederick Douglass: Online Resources
  
• Slavery Resource Guide
  

National Archives (“Teaching With Documents”)

• The Fight for Equal Rights: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
• Photographs of the 369th Infantry and African Americans during World War I
• Frontiers in Civil Rights: Dorothy E. Davis, et al. versus County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia
• Documents Related to Brown v. Board of Education
• An Act of Courage, The Arrest Records of Rosa Parks
• Beyond the Playing Field - Jackie Robinson, Civil Rights Advocate
• The Many Faces of Paul Robeson
• Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

National Endowment for the Humanities

• Birth of a Nation, The NAACP, and the Balancing of Rights
• Teacher's Resource Book from the Picturing America Initiative
• Lesson Plan for sculptor Martin Puryear's work entitled Ladder for Booker T. Washington (PDF)
• Lesson Plan for painter Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series: Removing the Mask
• Slavery and the Founding

National Gallery of Art

• Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment
  • More teaching activities about the Shaw Memorial
  • Borrow free teaching packet, video, and education resources about the Shaw Memorial
• Horace Pippin - Counting on Art
• The Art of Romare Bearden: A Resource For Teachers
  • Teaching Packet (PDF)
  • Micro-site
  • Borrow free teaching packet, video, images, jazz CD, and other education resources about Romare Bearden
• Teaching Art Since 1950 (PDF)
  Includes artists Sam Gilliam and Martin Puryear

National Park Service

• War for Freedom: African Americans in the Era of the Civil War Each War for Freedom unit guides students to do research with original historic documents, to re-create moments of drama and personal choice, to understand the relevance of the struggle for their own lives, and to synthesize their learning and imagination in creative collaborative projects.
• Teaching with Historic Places uses properties listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places to enliven history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects. TwHP has created a variety of products and activities that help teachers bring historic places into the classroom.

For Kids

• Inside Scoop: Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment (PDF)
  Artists pay tribute to heroes by creating memorials. A memorial keeps the memory of a person or event alive. At the National Gallery of Art, you can visit the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens' Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. The Shaw Memorial is a relief sculpture that honors a group of brave soldiers who fought in the American Civil War.
• Inside Scoop: Romare Bearden (PDF)
  Romare Bearden's remarkable curiosity, intelligence, vivid imagination, and constant experimentation made him one of the most unique artists of the twentieth century.
• Children's Guide: The Art of Romare Bearden (PDF)
  Printable guide from past exhibition at the National Gallery of Art
• Family Guide: Martin Puryear (PDF)
  Printable Guide from past exhibition at the National Gallery of Art

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