Bullock Texas State History Museum
Bullock Museum: African Americans
Share in the campfire stories of the people who defined Texas. Read about free people of color, and how the Republic of Texas was between a rock and a hard place.
OpenStax
Open Stax: African Americans in the Antebellum United States
This section of a chapter on "The Antebellum South" discusses the similarities and differences in the lives of slaves and free blacks and describes the independent culture and customs that slaves developed.
Read Works
Read Works: African American Leaders
[Free Registration/Login Required] This informational text passage shares facts about famous African American leaders. This passage reinforces essential reading comprehension skills. Opportunities for vocabulary acquisition are also...
PBS
Pbs: Free Black Revolutionary Patriots
Describes free African Americans who fought in the American Revolution. Also find related text: "Colin Powell on blacks fighting during the Revolutionary War," and a Teacher's Guide.
Read Works
Read Works: Famous African Americans Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
[Free Registration/Login Required] This biographical passage shares information about the famous African American named Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. This passage is a stand-alone curricular piece that reinforces essential reading skills and...
Read Works
Read Works: African American Leaders
[Free Registration/Login Required] Mini-biographical information is shared about the following African American leaders in this passage: Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, and Condoleeza Rice. This passage is a...
Milwaukee College Prep
African American History: North and South, Slave and Free
An overview of the status and experiences of African Americans in the mid-1800s, both free and enslaved. Includes references to Frederick Douglass and his efforts to enlighten people about the discrimination and prejudice faced by...
Curated OER
National Park Service: The Struggle for Education Equality for African American
"Canterbury, Connecticut, and Little Rock, Arkansas, are links in a chain of events representing the long struggle for equal educational opportunities for African Americans. This lesson plan highlights two important historic places and...
Library of Congress
Loc: African American Odyssey: Reconstruction and Its Aftermath
From the Library of Congress, this resource documents the course of post-Civil War, post-slavery life for black Americans. Topics include education, constitutional amendments, voting rights and the many challenges African Americans faced...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Soldiers: Making of African American Identity: 1500 1865
Photographs of and letters from black soldiers-both enslaved and free-from the late-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries that examine military experience for African Americans.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Emancipation: Liberia, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Primary resource provides letters, statements, and photographs of free and enslaved African Americans who journeyed to Liberia to establish new lives and identities. Also includes questions for class discussion.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Free African Americans in the Colonial Era
Read about the ways some slaves gained their freedom and where they often lived once free.
Read Works
Read Works: Famous African Americans: Harriet Tubman and the Ugrr
[Free Registration/Login Required] This passage includes biographical information about Harriet Tubman and her role in leading escaped slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad. It contains questions and a teacher's guide that can...
Read Works
Read Works: Great Americans
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about five famous African Americans: Oprah Winfrey, Robert L. Curbeam Jr., Nikki Giovanni, Savion Glover, and Rosa Parks. A question sheet is available to help students build...
Read Works
Read Works: Famous African Americans Oprah Winfrey
[Free Registration/Login Required] This passage contains biographical informationa about the multi-talented Ophrah Winfrey. This passage is a stand-alone curricular piece that reinforces essential reading skills and strategies and...
Other
Encyclopedia of Arkansas: Ethnic Groups Africian Americans
Perhaps one of the largest ethinc/cultural group to inhabit Arkansas are the African Americans. Follow their first arrival as slaves working the plantations through all the years toward emancipation, and into present times. Highly...
PBS
Pbs Africans in America: The Boston Massacre
From its series entitled "Africans in America," PBS offers a comprehensive overview of the Boston Massacre from the viewpoint of the poor, the oppressed, and enslaved or free Africans. The article highlights how these individuals were...
Other
African American Pioneers: Richard Allen
This page from Afgen.com contains the life history of Richard Allen. Richard was the founding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Library of Congress
Loc: African American Odyssey: Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period
Online exhibit from the Library of Congress features primary source material about free blacks from the Antebellum Period and teaches about individual accomplishments, emergence of the black church, and documenting freedom.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: The Black Press
Selections from a black newspaper, "The Colored American, "from 1837-1838 that detail the numerous issues and agendas confronting enslaved and free blacks.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Artists, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
The artwork of four nineteenth-century free blacks expressed in portraits, landscapes, sculpture, and photography. Links to works from Joshua Johnson, Robert Scott Duncanson, Edmonia Lewis, and Augustus Washington are provided.
Other
The Spread of u.s. Slavery, 1790 1860
Presents population maps of enslaved and free African Americans before the Civil War based on census population.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Slave to Free, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Interviews with and narratives from former slaves who became free and letters from former slaves reflecting on their freedom.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Entrepreneurs, Making of African American Identity: V. 1
Six mid-nineteenth century accounts by free-born black entrepreneurs about their economic activities and struggles. Links to documents describing each trade are provided within this well-developed resource.