Exploring African American History with Library of Congress Teacher Resources

The Library of Congress continually adds new classroom materials and teacher blogs to help educators and their students explore the many facets of African American history. In honor of Black History Month, we’re featuring a few of these teacher resources, which have been developed over the past year.

Classroom Materials
A number of new classroom materials have been developed, which include primary source recommendations as well as teaching strategies:

• The Reconstruction Primary Source Set features items designed to help students examine the historical period following the U.S. Civil War.
• The Great Migration Primary Source Set highlights sources related to one of the largest internal migrations in U.S. history: the movement of millions of African Americans from southeastern states to the north and west between 1910 and 1970.
• Finally, the Presidential Elections and Voting in U.S. History presentation includes a stand-alone section that helps students examine how African Americans reaffirmed and protected their constitutional right to vote.

Teaching with the Library Blog
Several new teacher blog posts were added over the past year. For example:

• Political Parties and Primary Sources: Civic Participation highlights resources and strategies for using oral histories to reflect on civic participation.
• Rosa Parks’ Writing and Activism: “The Struggle Continues” examines how studying Parks’ writing can lead to insights regarding the civil right icon’s ongoing commitment to the struggle for rights.
• Inventions and Innovations: Entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker features newspaper articles and advertisements showing how Walker became one of the most successful African American businesswomen of her time.
• Exploring the History of Chain Gangs with Library of Congress Primary Sources explores the complicated relationship between African Americans and the U.S. criminal justice and law enforcement systems.

Timeless: Stories from the Library Blog
Finally, the main Library blog also added several new posts celebrating the contributions of African Americans:

• Scott Joplin & the Magical “Maple Leaf Rag” examines how a a little-known pianist and composer changed the face of American popular music.
• Ralph Ellison, Photographer celebrates the photography of one of America’s most important 20^th century writers.
• William Crogman’s Daring “Race Textbook” of 1898 tells the story of a pioneering educator who dared to think of a revolutionary idea: a textbook of African American history, which featured significant achievements won against overwhelming odds.
• Du Bois and the Paris Exposition of 1900: Three Pictures looks at several portraits of unidentified Black women at three different stages of life — adolescent, adult and senior – that Du Bois chose to feature for a very specific purpose.

For more resources related to African American history at the Library of Congress, explore these classroom materials, teacher blogs, free-to-use sets, and research guides. Let us know which ones and your students found to be helpful!

A sampling of Library of Congress teacher resources related to the study of African American history, which have been developed and published over the past year.  

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