African American Archives

Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union: Black and White Unite?

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 12 pages.
Role play on farm labor organizing in the 1930s shows how racism had to be challenged to create effective worker alliances.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

Daisy Bates, Little Rock 9, and NAACP officers | Zinn Education Project

Warriors Don’t Cry: Connecting History, Literature, and Our Lives

Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 21 pages.
Role play and writing activities for language arts and social studies on Brown v. Board and the Little Rock Nine. Designed for use with the memoir Warriors Don’t Cry.

Teaching Activity by Linda Christensen

Reading Between the Lines: An Art Contest Helps Students Imagine the Lives of Runaway Slaves

Teaching Activity. By Thom Thacker and Michael A. Lord. Rethinking Schools. 4 pages.
An art contest is used as the basis from which students can examine primary historical documents (advertisements for runaway slaves) to gain a deeper understanding of the institution of slavery in the North.

Freedom’s Unfinished Revolution: Teaching a People’s History of Reconstruction

Article. Background reading for teachers. By Bill Bigelow. 4 pages.
A review of Freedom's Unfinished Revolution, a collection of primary documents for high school on the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

The Election of 1860 Role Play

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 12 pages.
A role play based on the election of 1860 allows students to explore the political debates of the time and the real reasons for the Civil War.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Woman screaming at Elizabeth Ann Eckford | Zinn Education Project

“A School Year Like No Other”: Eyes on the Prize: “Fighting Back: 1957-1962”

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 7 pages.
A companion lesson to the Eyes on the Prize segment on school desegregation.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Slavery and Defiance

Teaching Guide. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 17 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 9 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on black and white resistance to slavery before the Civil War.

Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories

Book — Non-fiction. By Ellen Levine. 1993. 192 pages.
Thirty African-Americans who were children during the 1950s and 1960s tell their true stories of what it was like for them to fight segregation in the South.

On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail

Book — Non-fiction. By Charles E. Cobb, Jr. 2008. 388 pages.
An educational travel guide to historic sites of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Black Upsurge Against Racial Segregation

Teaching Activity. By Tasha Boettcher.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 17 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the long Civil Rights Movement in America.

Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America

Book — Non-fiction. By Lerone Bennett Jr. 2016 (originally published in 1962). 736 pages.
A detailed history and analysis of African American history in the United States.

book cover showing freedom riders protesting near a bus

A Young People’s History of the United States: Revised and Updated

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn, adapted by Rebecca Stefoff with additions by Ed Morales. 2022. 544 pages.
A young adult version of the best-selling A People’s History of the United States, ideal for 6th through 9th grade students.

Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism

Book — Non-fiction. By James Loewen. 2018. 592 pages.
Documents the history of towns across the United States that exclude African Americans (and other racial/ethnic groups) after sundown.

We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball

Picture book. By Kadir Nelson. 2008. 96 pages.
The story of Negro League baseball, in text and stunning imagery.

I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle

Book — Non-fiction. By Charles M. Payne. 1995. 506 pages.
A people's history of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.

Remembering Slavery

Book — Non-fiction and CD. Edited by Ira Berlin, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller. Foreword by Robin D.G. Kelley. 2007. 359 pages.
Oral histories of first-person accounts of slavery.

Scraps of Time 1928: A Song for Harlem

Book — Fiction. By Patricia C. McKissack. 2007. 108 pages.
Story for young readers about a 12-year-old girl's education during the Harlem Renaissance with Zora Neale Hurston as her teacher.