Parents & Educators

1619 is a New York Times audio series, hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, that examines the long shadow of American slavery through storytelling 

The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery.  It grew out of the idea that perhaps, in order to truly understand our nation’s history, we need to place slavery at the center of the narrative. It’s comprised of a series of essays, the first being an introduction that sets up the thinking behind the project. Alongside the essays are a number of writings by contemporary writers that use poetry and fiction to address the issues taken up. Nicole Hanah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize for the project which started as a website in 2019 to commemorate the 400 year anniversary of slavery in what is now the US.  Curricular Resources have also been created to supplement this project.

Black History 365 / BH365  is an interactive history textbook that may be used independently or as supplemental text and includes instructor resources such as:

 • Curriculum planning guides

 • Instructional tools

 • Family and community engagement and restorative/wellness activities

 • Audio/visual supplements

 • Electronic assessments

Black History 365 is a U. S. History textbook documenting the unique stories of Black persons, groups, and cultures in North America, beginning in Ancient Africa continuing to modern events and movements. This interactive history/social science textbook can be used independently or as supplemental text and includes interactive instructor resources that will engage all learners. The gateway to connecting history to daily life, this transcendent approach to American history allows students of all ethnicities to engage in meaningful conversations with teachers, peers, and their families...through the lens of Black History.  

Black History Month Guide 1 & Guide 2.  These lists lead to a wide variety of resources. Compiled by the Center for Racial Justice in Education. 

Beyond the Bus  helps educators to recognize and fill instructional gaps when teaching about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Go beyond the typical Rosa Parks narrative with this guide. Also available are guides on teaching the Civil Rights Movement. Resources from Learning for Justice. 

Black Heroes in History: Grades K-5 Learning Activities by  Kaitlin Kamalei Brandon. June 7, 2020. Includes links to a learning plan, worksheets, and research links for different grade levels. A guide from Colorful Pages. 

Celebrating Black History With The New York Times by The Learning Network  Feb. 1, 2017  Updated: Feb. 3, 2020. From The Learning Network.

This website focuses on the Combahee River Collective, a group of Black feminists that focused on making Black feminism, classism, and lesbianism a part of the feminist movement since it had previously been dominated by heterossexual white middle class women. You can read about the history of the naming of the group, which was an ode to a raid organized and carried out by Harriet Tubman to free slaves, as well as the statement that they put out in the late 70s to explain who they were, what they believed, the challenges they faced, and the work they were taking on.

The Equal Justice Initiative public education materials include reports, discussion guides, short films, and other materials to help community groups, churches, students, and others learn more about the issues they address. 

Facing History and Ourselves  is a nonprofit international educational and professional development organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry.  In addition to a variety of historical topics, this site also includes a Current Events collection for strategies and teaching ideas to connect current events to your curriculum for middle and high school students.

Freedom Stories: Unearthing the Black Heritage of Appalachia, Presented by the International Storytelling Center with major support from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Freedom’s Story: Teaching African American History and Literature.  Essays by leading scholars from the National Humanities Center. 

Historical Foundations Of Race. The term “race,” used infrequently before the 1500s, was used to identify groups of people with a kinship or group connection. The modern-day use of the term “race” is a human invention. The concept of “race,” as we understand it today, evolved alongside the formation of the United States and was deeply connected with the evolution of two other terms, “white” and “slave.”  Resource from the National Museum of African American History & Culture. 

History of the Race Construct contains a small sampling of U.S. laws, court decisions, and other acts which lay some of the groundwork for constructing race as a hierarchy with white at the top. This page also includes other resources (ex. cartoons, films) related to understanding the construction of race and racism.

A History of Racial Injustice Timeline, provides an article about a specific event for each day of the year. You can look at an entire current month, or an individual day within the current month. From the Equal Justice Initiative.

History of Slavery is divided into sections:  The Transatlantic Slave Trade, West Africa, Europe, the Middle Passage, the Americas, and Abolition. International Slavery Museum, Liverpool England.

Through musical animated shorts, The History of White People in America examines how skin color has come to define race in our country. The shorts (each well under 10 minutes) capture the truth of what it means to be American – that “us” and “them” are constantly redefined, that our racial history deserves contemplation, and that above all else we are bound by our rich differences in experience and identity.

In this article, Colleen Call Smith explores the complicated history of the Thanksgiving Holiday and offers ideas as to how to celebrate appropriately.

The Intersectionality Wars by  by Jane Coaston Vox, May 28, 2019. This article looks at the concept of intersectionality, its origins vs its current use, how and why it is criticized by some on the right, and what’s missing from those critiques 

This collection of twelve lesson plans for Grades 6 - 8 and 9 - 12 focuses on Black history and culture in antebellum Kentucky. The lessons tell the story of Black enslaved people and their courage, resilience, joy, and sorrow. Learn about the contributions enslaved people made to Kentucky while fighting for their freedom.

Learning About Slavery With Primary Sources–   In this lesson, students will use primary sources from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture to better understand the history of slavery in the United States. A Lesson plan from the New York Times -- the Learning Network.

The  Learning for Justice mission is to help teachers and schools educate children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. Learning for Justice provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use their materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants. 

The Learning Network: Teach and Learn With The Times: Resources for Bringing the World Into Your Classroom. The Learning Network publishes about 1,000 teaching resources each school year, all based on using Times content — articles, essays, images, videos, graphics and podcasts — as teaching tools across subject areas. Most of our resources are free (only our lesson plans are limited to five per month for nonsubscribers).  Our intended audience is middle and high school teachers and students (teenagers 13 and up). That said, we know that our content is used in elementary schools and colleges as well, and much of it is appropriate for both.

Let’s Talk about Our Dream is a publication encouraging educators to engage students in “Writing New History” projects. Included are lists of suggested people to research based on three themes  -- STEMulating Freedom and the Future, Breaking Barriers, and Take A Stand To Keep A Seat --  plus guidance on how to plan the time segments of a presentation to share what students learn with their larger community. From the  400 Years of African American History Commission.

Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror - Interactive Website that include video from impacted families, a report  and a downloadable lesson plan.  From the Equal Justice Initiative. 

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center: Revealing Stories of Courage, Cooperation, and Perseverance offers online learning resources including activities, lesson plans, online exhibits, and information on modern day enslavement, and implicit bias. 

Racism 101: Understanding Race and Racism explaing racism, and also includes information on the history of racism and links to articles that also shed light on that history. Resource from Showing Up for Racial Justice. Some resources from SURJ require a member log in, but many do not.

Reconstruction in America: Racial Violence after the Civil War examines the 12 years following the Civil War when lawlessness and violence perpetrated by white leaders created an American future of racial hierarchy, white supremacy, and Jim Crow laws—an era from which our nation has yet to recover. Included are an under- 7- minute video, a report  and a downloadable Visual Reading Guide .   Additional videos can be found on this page . From the Equal Justice Initiative.

Seeing White, an audio documentary. Where did the notion of “whiteness” come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for? Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a deep dive into these questions, along with an array of leading scholars and regular guest Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika, in this fourteen-part documentary series, released between February and August 2017. 

Segregation in America (interactive website) includes a report, quotes from segregationists, video footage from the segregation era, and more. From the Equal Justice Initiative.

A comprehensive guide for teaching and learning this critical topic at all grade levels.  A resource from Learning for Justice.

Writing About Slavery? Teaching About Slavery? This May Help by P. Gabrielle Foreman, et al.  is a community sourced guide created by senior slavery scholars of color for use by editors, presses, museums, journalists and curricular projects as well as by teachers, writers, curators, archivists, librarians and public historians.  It includeslanguage to consider adopting/preferred terms, language to consider avoiding, principles to consider, practices to adopt, and pieces to consult that are about, or grapple with, language.

The Zinn Education Project approach to history starts with the premise that the lives of ordinary people matter — that history ought to focus on those who too often receive only token attention (workers, women, people of color), and also on how people’s actions, individually and collectively, shaped our society. Why? When we look at history from the standpoint of the workers and not just the owners, the soldiers and not just the generals, the invaded and not just the invaders, we can begin to see society more fully, more accurately. The more clearly we see the past, the more clearly we’ll see the present — and be equipped to improve it. You’ll find materials grouped by theme, time period, and resource type.