Black History

For Black History Month in February, here is a collection of sites relating to African-American history. Use them all year long as you study slavery and resistance, the civil rights movement, African-American art and culture, and more.

Quick Links:  Slavery and Resistance | Civil Rights | Culture | General

Slavery and Resistance

A companion site to the PBS series, Slavery and the Making of America documents the history of U.S. slavery from beginnings in the British colonies to its end in the Southern states. An interactive timeline, primary resources, and a teacher guide are included.

Voices from the Days of Slavery features audiorecordings of former slaves telling their stories and sometimes singing songs learned during enslavement. This Library of Contress site includes photographs and quotes from many interviewees and links to the Library’s relevant American Memory collections.

African Americans in Slavery, from the National Park Service, traces the history of slavery from 1490 through abolition in simple text.

Understanding Slavery is a teaching resource from a consortium of British museums. Learn about slavery and abolition in Great Britain, and find a timeline and resources on topic such as West African History, the Triangular Trade, the Middle Passage, Abolition, and more.

American Visionaries: Frederick Douglass is an online National Park Service exhibit about the famous abolitionist’s life and work.

Let Your Motto Be Resistance from the National Museum of African American History features photographs that highlight African American resistance across 150 years of U.S. history. Portraits and photo essays of many prominent African Americans such include Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Soujourner Truth and many more.

The Old State House Museum features “Them Dark Days”: The Arkansas Slave Narratives. Narratives can be searched by topic—education, punishment, religion, resistance, escape—or by last name.

Aboard the Underground Railroad, from the National Park service, introduces the people and 35 sites associated with the Underground Railroad. A map of common escape routes also is provided.

The Underground Railroad site from National Geographic takes students on a harrowing virtual trip to freedom. The site also includes a timeline, brief biographies, and teaching suggestions.

The Underground Railroad Site, from the University of California-Davis, was designed for student use and includes personal narratives, literature,maps, and a bibliography.

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center provides a timeline of slavery and resistance, biographies of those involved in the underground railroad, and a section where visitors can share family stories.

Learn about Fort Mose, the first free, legally existing African settlement in the United States. Established by the Spanish in current-day Florida, it gave sanctuary to Africans challenging enslavement in the English Colony of Carolina.

Civil Rights

The NAACP Interactive Timeline from Thinkfinity takes users on a multimedia tour of the people and events of the past 100 years of the civil rights movement.

Free at Last, an online book from the America.gov site, recounts how African-American slaves and their descendants struggled to win — both in law and in practice — the civil rights enjoyed by other Americans. A spotlight section highlights the contributions of some of the important men, women and institutions involved in the civil rights movement, such as Medgar Evers, Jackie Robinson, the black church, and others. Also available in Spanish and French.

The America.gov site also features Beyond Dr. King: More Storis of African-American Achievement. The "living books" photo essays and sometimes video about a variety of prominent citizens such as Will Allen, Zora Neale Hurston, Ida B. Wells and others.

The National Museum of American History presents Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education. It includes an extensive history section, timeline, and teacher guide.

Brown v. the Board of Education National Historic Site presents the site at Monroe Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, and gives detailed information about this and many related legal cases.

We Shall Overcome: Historic Places from the Civil Rights Movement, from the National Park Service, takes visitors on an electronic tour of places across the country.

Rosa Parks: Pioneer of Civil Rights includes a biography and the text of a 1995 interview.

Rosa Parks: How I Fought for Civil Rights is an illustrated biography from Scholastic.

The Martin Luther King, Jr., site from the Seattle Times offers information about King and his legacy, including a history of the holiday, audio clips from King speeches, an interactive quiz, and a study guide.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project, from Stanford University, includes a large number of primary and secondary source documents on King.

King's Last March is a radio documentary from American Public Media. The Web site provides information on Dr. Martin Luther King's life and career, with audio excerpts from and complete transcripts of speeches. Students can also listen to or download a podcast of the complete documentary.

Culture

The African Presence in the Americas, from the Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture, is an online exhibit designed to present anaccurate and comprehensive history of the place and role of African peoples in the development of the Americas and the Caribbean. Included are sections on identity, migration, work, culture, and resistance, as well as teacher guide developed by New York City teachers.

Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Cultures in the Americas, from the Smithsonian Institution, is an online exhibit featuring many photos and information on Maroon culture past, present, and future. An extensive teacher guide also is provided.

African Americans in the Visual Arts: A Historical Perspective, from the B. Davis Schwartz Memorial Library, presents general background information and historical context, as well as biographies of notable artists.

The Anacostia Museum’s Speak to My Heart: Communities of Faith and Contemporary African American Life is an electronic exhibit. Photographs and conversations examine the various ways in which African-American Christian churches and congregations of other faiths work in contemporary society.

Also from the Anacostia Museum, Online Academy encourages study of African American material culture. It provides video clips of scholars, collectors, and preservers, along with the database of artifacts in the museum's permanent collection.

The Million Man March Photo Documentary, from the Smithsonian, provides photographs and descriptions of this event.

Melanet’s Kwanzaa Information Center includes an explanation of Kwanzaa history and symbols, a national schedule of events, and multimedia files.

Juneteenth features information about the oldest known celebration for the ending of slavery.

General

African American Odyssey is a comprehensive exhibit from the Library of Congress. The online exhibit displays primary source documents such as manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings.

Black History Month Resources from Thinkfinity include lesson plans, activities and primary sources on African American history and culture.

Aetna’s African American History Calendars online allows users to click on any day to see events in African-American history. A printable version is available. The site also discusses various African-American history topics.

The African American Mosaic presents textual material, photographs, maps, and documents from the from the Library of Congress collection.

The companion Web site to a PBS series, Africans in America covers four periods in African-American history and includes narratives, maps, images, and a teacher guide.

Stamp on Black History is a student-created site that introduces important people in African-American history using U.S. Postal Servicecommemorative stamps.

The Charles H. Wright Education website offers online teaching and learning materials, virtual tours of traveling exhibitions, online catalogs of the library and historical collections, and a calendar of exhibition schedules and educational programs.

African American Freedom Fighters: Soldiers for Liberty profiles African Americans who fought in wars from the American Revolution to the Persian Gulf War, including Sojourner Truth and Colin Powell.

Legends of Tuskegee, from the National Park Service, highlights the lives and accomplishments of George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, and the Tuskegee Airmen.

Find primary source photographs and images of the Tuskegee Airmen at the National Air and Space Museum's Black Wings exhibit. In Tuskeegee Airmen Flight Leader, an immersive 3D role-play game, students can escort B-24 bombers over Germany, confronting the challenges, decisions, and dangers of high-altitude combat.

Texas Buffalo Soldiers tells the story of the African-American troops who were involved in westward expansion of the United States.

Boston African American National Historic Site includes an interactive tour of the Black Heritage Trail and information on important events in black history.

The U.S. Census Bureau Bureau provides Facts and Figures on education, income, population and other demographic statistics on the African-American population.

U.S. African-American Population Statistics has graphs and tables interpreting census data. Good graphics help to make statistics meaningful.

Black History: Exploring African American Issues offers Web-based activities for students.

Black Facts Online enables students to search a database by date, subject, or key word to learn about African-American history.


Created 10/2005
Last updated 6/1/2012