OpenStax
Open Stax: Contesting Futures: America in 1960s: Lyndon Johnson and Great Society
Read about the reforms and legislation undertaken through Lyndon B. Johnson's concept of the Great Society. These included economic and educational reforms, consumer protection, changes to immigration laws, and the Voting Rights Act of...
OpenStax
Open Stax: Fighting the Good Fight in World War Ii 1941 1945: The Home Front
Discusses how America prepared for war, the impact on the work force in the United States, how women and other civilians supported the war effort, and how the war affected race relations.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: V. 1, 1500 1865
One hundred and sixty primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the conditions of slavery, the search for identity, the development of a sense of community while enslaved, and the struggles for...
Countries and Their Cultures
Countries and Their Cultures: Multicultural America: South African Americans
Provides an overview of the traditional culture and lifestyle of South African Americans. (Note: Content is not the most current.)
CommonLit
Common Lit: "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Changing America" by Barbara Radner
This is an informational article about how Martin Luther King Jr. worked toward changing America in the 1950s and 1960s. It includes a short bio of Dr. King and a reading purpose: As you read, take notes on the problems that African...
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: American Civil War: African American Lives
Collection of digital resources gathered from public libraries, archives, and museums about African American lives in the Civil War. Here you can discover the variety of African American experiences of the Civil War.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: African American Soldiers in World War I
This primary source set emphasizes the experiences of African American doughboys during the war while also highlighting how they were perceived by white Americans. Use the sources to determine how racism and patriotism shaped the...
PBS
Pbs American Masters: Scientific American: Following Muddy's Trail
This site has a lesson plan on Muddy Waters focused on the American Masters documentary about him. Parallels the Great Migration with the growth of the blues music movement in America. Click on Muddy's name to access a detailed biography...
National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art: The First African American Regiment
Students will be introduced to the first African American Regiment that fought in the Civil War through a memorial sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. They will compare and contrast the experiences of these soldiers through their...
CommonLit
Common Lit: "Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America" S. Robinson
Selected (17) reading passages (grades 5-11) to pair with "Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America" by Sharon Robinson. In Promises To Keep, Sharon Robinson, daughter of the baseball legend, shares memories of her famous...
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Women in the 1950s
Looks at what life was like for women in 1950s America. Examines the tension between the expectations of conformity and domesticity and an emerging discontent as many women chose to continue working after World War II. Meanwhile, African...
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Colonial Williamsburg: Colonial African American Life
Provides a few statistics on slaves in Maryland and Virginia and then contrasts the lives of field hand vs household or urban slaves.
University of Illinois
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign: Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion: Collections
The Krannert Art Museum provides a great collection of artwork from all over the world. Click on "collections" to access images of African, Egyptian, America-Pre-Columbian, USA, Ancient Gandhara, China, India, Japan, Thailand, Greece,...
CNN
Cnn: Fidel Castro Laid to Rest in Private Funeral
Following the traditional nine days of mourning, Fidel Castro's ashes were placed in a granite mausoleum Sunday morning during a private ceremony attended by Castro's little-seen family and a handful of Latin American and African...
John F. Kennedy Center
The Kennedy Center: Blues Journey
Trace the history of the blues in America through the play, Blues Journey, based on the book by Walter Dean Myers. You can see video clips of the stage play, listen to blues radio shows, and learn about different types of blues music.
University of North Carolina
Unc: History of the Negro Church: Electronic Edition
This website is quite unique, in that it compiles historical data in a segmented form of the birth and evolution of Black Christianity in America. Carter G. Woodson, one of the most respected names relative to the anthology of the Negro,...
Library of Congress
Loc: Teachers: Segregation: From Jim Crow to Linda Brown
Lesson from the Library of Congress on "the era of legal segregation in America, from Plessy v. Ferguson (1897) to Brown v. The Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas (1954)."
PBS
Pbs: American Roots Music
If teaching a unit about the history of popular music in America, this PBS web site supporting their four-part TV broadcast of a few years ago would make a great resource. Includes lesson plans and oral histories too.
PBS
Pbs: Jazz Timeline
With this timeline, learn about how the history of slavery, Jim Crow laws and other forms of racial oppression impacted the rise of jazz in America. Also highlights the achievements of women, including Viola Smith in this world of music....
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: The Slave Experience: Living Conditions
This PBS series site reveals the diverse circumstances and living conditions experienced by slaves and indentured servants in America by reading documents dating to the Colonial, Antebellum, and Reconstruction periods.
Varsity Tutors
Varsity Tutors: Web English Teacher: Langston Hughes
This resource focuses on the works of famous African-American author, Langston Hughes.
Columbia University
Columbia University: The Unfinished Dialogue of m.l. King, Jr. & Malcolm X [Pdf]
A scholarly article examining the issue of whether Malcolm X and Dr. King could have ever reconciled their different visions of Black America.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: World War I
Excerpts from "The Official History of the American Negro in World War I" by Emmett J. Scott, depicting the impact of the Great War on African Americans at home. The doubts that whites voiced about African Americans' loyalty and military...
Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago: Art Access: African American Art
The Art Institute of Chicago's collection of African American art provides a rich introduction to over 100 years of noted achievements in painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Ranging chronologically from the Civil War era to the Harlem...