Courtesy Library of Congress
Courtesy Library of Congress
Student Activity Sheets and Teacher’s Lesson Plans—Grades 5-12
Cover, middle: This 1874 print
commemorates the struggle
to pass the 1875 Civil Rights
Act, and shows the promise of
equality it represented. Seen
here are: black Congressman
Robert B. Elliott speaking on
behalf of the bill (center), black
troops in the Civil War (top),
statue of Abraham Lincoln
(left), statue of civil rights
advocate Charles Sumner
(right), free blacks working on
a black-owned farm (bottom),
and black soldiers (bottom
left) and sailors (bottom right).
Unfortunately, much of the
equality legalized by the Civil
Rights Act was nullified
during the Jim Crow era.
Not until the modern Civil
Rights Movement did African
Americans again make civil
rights gains.
Cover, bottom: Photo of
1963 civil rights march.
Direct action by courageous
citizens made many civil rights
gains by calling the nation’s
attention to legal, social, and
economic injustice.
Courtesy Library of Congress
This 1881 print features center
portraits of Blanche Bruce,
Frederick Douglass, and Hiram
Revels. Douglass had escaped
slavery, written a powerful
autobiography, and become a
prominent abolitionist and
spokesperson for African
Americans. Bruce and Revels
were the first African Americans
elected to the U.S. Senate. The
three portraits are surrounded
by depictions of black life and
pictures of other men who had
contributed to black freedom
and citizenship rights.
Introduction
This selection of student activities and lesson
plans is part of the exhibit project America
I AM: The African American Imprint. The
exhibit responds to a question asked by
W. E. B. Du Bois in 1903: “Would America
have been America without her Negro people?”
Visitors will see a wide-ranging collection of
rare objects, maps, documents, prints, and
other historical items illustrating the ways
in which African Americans had a profound
impact on the nation.
These educational materials have been
designed to prepare your students for a visit
to the exhibit, but can also stand alone as a
history unit with links to other curricula such
as social studies, economics, math, art, and
literature. Included here are a series of six
activity sheets for students in each of three
age groups: middle school (grades 5-8), junior
high (grades 7-9), and high school (grades
9-12). Accompanying lesson plans include
historical background, supplemental activities,
and alignment with national standards. For
each activity, there is also a special section
about the related imprint made by African
Americans. A substantial bibliography concludes this teacher’s guide. The entire package
is available in print form or online from
exhibit venues.
Grades
5-8
Activity 1
The Slave Ship
Read the definitions below. Then use the words in bold type to label the parts of the slave ship.
The main-mast is the tallest mast of the ship. The mainmast holds the main-sail.
Hatches are entrances to lower areas, such as the hold
and captain’s cabin.
The bowsprit is a pole that stretches out over the sea from
the prow of the ship.
Cannons are big guns aimed at the sea, for fighting pirates,
and ships from anti-slavery nations.
The fore-mast is the second tallest mast of the ship. It
stands between the main-mast and the bowsprit.
The barricado is the thick wall between the captain’s cabin
and deck. If they fought from behind this wall, the crew
might hold off a slave mutiny.
The mizzen-mast is the third tallest mast of the ship, near
the captain’s cabin.
Swivel guns are aimed through holes in the barricado.
The deck is the open-air working area for seamen.
The cargo area is between the men’s prison and the
women’s prison. It held trade goods as well as food for captive Africans.
Coppering protected the hull from destructive worms.
The area under the deck is the hold, for storing cargo. It
was also a prison area for African captives.
Netting is a woven mesh placed around the deck, above the
rail, to keep the Africans from leaping into the sea.
The captain’s cabin is the ship’s most comfortable living
space. It often had large windows looking out to sea.
In West Africa, the ship had to rest in deep waters, but the
rowboat took men to shore and brought captives back.
The African men’s quarters are in the hold, between the
main-mast and the fore-mast.
Sharks are flesh-eating fish that followed the ship across
the Atlantic. They fed on the bodies thrown into the sea.
The African women’s quarters are in the hold
between the main-mast and the mizzen-mast.
1
Grades
7-9
Activity 1
Who Profits from Slavery?
Courtesy Library of Congress
People in America earned
money from many different
kinds of products. Among these
were lumber, rice, ships, banking,
raw cotton, cotton cloth, rum,
iron, sugar, clothing, indigo,
and tobacco. Make your own
pictographs for these items.
Then read the paragraphs below.
Use what you learn to label a
map of the United States with
your pictographs.
Enslaved people used the cotton gin to remove seeds from cotton bolls.
Across the South, slaves tended their owners’ crops. Along
the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia, vast fields of rice
grew. Tobacco was a major crop in Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, South Carolina, and Kentucky. Indigo, a plant
that yielded a rich blue dye, grew in Maryland, the Carolinas,
and Georgia. In Louisiana, fields of sugar cane soaked up
the sun.
to businessmen to buy the ships and outfit them. Factories
in Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts
made rum, iron bars, and trinkets to be traded for captives
on the west coast of Africa.
After 1808, it became illegal to sell African captives in the
United States. But the shipyards continued to build and
launch slave ships. Captains still sailed to Africa and bought
captives, but sold them in the Caribbean. This trade was
against U.S. law, but on the high seas the law was rarely
enforced.
After the cotton gin was invented in 1793, cotton became
the most important southern crop. It quickly spread across
Georgia and South Carolina. Frontier areas like Tennessee,
Mississippi, and Alabama were dotted with new cotton
plantations. Some southerners grew rich from the soft,
fluffy material.
Cotton mills in Pennsylvania and New England used countless bales of southern cotton. By the 1830s, mill owners
were making good money by selling cotton cloth. In
Massachusetts, men started companies to make the cloth
into clothing. Some of it was even sold to slave owners
for their workers.
Northern states made money from slavery, too. In Rhode
Island and other areas of New England, shipyards built
slave ships. Workers used lumber from nearby forests,
including those of New Jersey. New York bankers lent money
Without slavery, none of this would have been possible.
2
Grades
7-9
Activity 1
An 1830 Map of the United States
3
Grades
9-12
Activity 1
Slavery’s Influence on American Government
6. Of the first five U.S. presidents,
a. Four owned slaves.
b. Three owned slaves.
c. Only one owned slaves.
d. None owned slaves.
1. One prominent rice
planter was Henry
Laurens. He
a. Owned several
plantations and
thousands of slaves.
b. Served as president
of the Second
Continental Congress.
c. Was a slave trader.
d. a, b, and c.
Courtesy Library of Congress
Answer the following
questions to see how much
you know about slave
owners’ influence on the
structure and laws of the
United States. In each
question, circle the
letter of one correct
answer.
Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner,
was the main writer of the
Declaration of Independence.
8. During the American Revolution, some colonies wanted
to recruit slaves into the Continental Army, but
a. Massachusetts vetoed the idea.
b. Southerners were opposed to the idea.
c. Free black men objected.
d. a and b.
9. Spanish Florida gave freedom to escaping slaves who
reached its borders. As a result
a. South Carolina slaves staged the Stono Rebellion
partly because they wanted to get to Florida.
b. Andrew Jackson had a Negro Fort in Florida seized
and destroyed.
c. Many slave owners wanted the federal government to
take control of Florida and return their runaway slaves.
d. a, b, and c.
2. As American leaders wrote the Constitution, they were
a. Abolishing slavery in the northern states.
b. Setting up a system of income taxes.
c. Changing America from a place where states had all
the power to a nation where there was a balance of
power between the states and central government.
d. a and c.
10. Roger Taney, the Supreme Court justice who decided
the Dred Scott case,
a. Had owned slaves.
b. Said that neither free nor enslaved black people
were U.S. citizens.
c. Said that slave owners could legally take their slaves
into any U.S. territory.
d. a, b, and c.
3. At the Constitutional Convention, northern states had to
compromise with southern states. Southern states would
not join the union unless
a. The Constitution protected slavery.
b. There were no taxes on slaves.
c. The slave trade could continue until 1850.
d. a and b.
4. At the time the Declaration of Independence was written,
a. Only one colony did not have slavery.
b. Only Georgia did not have slavery.
c. All American colonies had slavery.
d. Only southern colonies had slavery.
5. Throughout the colonial and early nation periods, many
slave owners
a. Were elected to local and national office.
b. Helped make local and national laws.
c. Often had more education, money, and power than
other men in their regions.
d. a, b, and c.
7. Of the first eighteen presidents (Washington through
Grant),
a. Twelve owned slaves at some time.
b. Only four owned slaves while they were president.
c. Nine owned slaves at some time.
d. Sixteen owned slaves while they were president.
11. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, he
a. Was a slave owner.
b. Wanted to allow slavery into U.S. territories.
c. Said if he could save the Union without freeing
slaves, he would.
d. None of the above.
4
12. Andrew Johnson, a former slave owner,
a. Freed all the slaves in Tennessee.
b. Wanted to befriend the southern states, and allowed
them to revoke the civil rights of African Americans.
c. Vetoed civil rights bills.
d. a, b, and c.
Grades
5-8
Activity 2
Enslaved People Knew How to Grow Rice
Fill in the blanks below with words from the list below.
At the time of the slave trade, many West African farmers
knew how to grow rice. They brought this knowledge with
them to ___________________. Along the coasts of Georgia
and the Carolinas, there were hot, humid areas perfect for
growing rice.
Africans did the hard, dangerous work of clearing land for
rice fields. First, they cut down bushes and trees in wet,
swampy, _________________ areas. Men, women, and oxen
worked in deep, oozing mud. They stepped carefully to avoid
___________________________. The Africans dug a long
ditch to each field, about five feet deep and five feet wide.
Then they used the mud they had dug out to build a high
embankment around each field. They made a gate in the
embankment, a gate that could be _____________________.
When the tide came in, the workers could _______________
the fields by opening the gates. When the workers
wanted to drain the fields, they waited for low tide and
opened the gates. The ditches carried away the water.
Enslaved people took 150,000 acres of swampland and
made them into well-tended rice fields.
Word List
flood
North America
snakes and alligators
opened and closed
tidal
African
American workers
in a flooded rice field.
Courtesy
Library
of Congress
Number the tasks below to show how enslaved people grew and harvested rice.
_____ The gates were opened to cover the planted seeds
with water.
_____ In April, seed was sown into the furrows.
_____ Workers poured the grain into a mortar and pounded
it to crack open the hulls.
_____ In the early autumn, workers cut down the rice stalks
and brought them into the barn.
_____ On the barn floor, the rice stalks dried. Then the
grain could be separated from the stalks.
_____ Workers drained the fields over and over to hoe away
the weeds, and then flooded the young plants again.
_____ In early spring, workers used plows to create furrows
for the seed.
_____ Finally, slaves used flat, shallow baskets to toss the
rice into the air. The light husks blew away in the
breeze, and the heavier rice fell back into the basket.
5
Grades
7-9
Activity 2
Graphing Economic Trends
Early landowners in the southern colonies needed workers.
Tidal areas along the eastern coast could be shaped into rice
plantations, but would require a huge labor force. Furthermore, people would have to work in standing water or deep
mud under the hot sun. They would face snakes, alligators,
and insects carrying malaria.
Whites would not work in such terrible conditions. Indians
were sometimes forced into slavery, but they knew the
country and often escaped. Most planters solved their labor
problems by going to Charleston and buying Africans off the
slave ships. These Africans labored and died in the rice fields,
making the planters rich.
The sale price of rice tended to rise from decade to decade.
On another sheet of paper, show this visually by
making a line graph of the information below.
Decade
Price in cents
per pound
1730s
1740s
1750s
1760s
1770s
1.64
1.18
1.56
1.58
1.87
Courtesy Library of Congress
Cost of South Carolina Rice*
Ex-slave Johanna Lesley hulls rice with an
African-style mortar and pestle.
Show how quickly South Carolina’s rice harvests grew.
Use the information below to make a bar graph on another
sheet of paper.
South Carolina Rice Exports*
1730
Amount 10,000
Year
1740
25,000
1763
35,000
1764
40,000
1770
42,000
Exported
in tons
*Figures from Jean M. West, “Rice and Slavery: A Fatal Gold Seede,” Slavery in America at http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_es_rice.htm.
6
Grades
9-12
Activity 2
South Carolina’s Black Population
Courtesy Library of Congress
Rice plantations thrived in coastal areas where fresh
water streams and rivers fed into the ocean. With
swampy land, the rise and fall of tides, and mix of fresh
and salt water near the fields, rice grew well and was
very profitable. It also required large numbers of
workers who could labor in terrible conditions. Landowners usually got these workers by buying slaves. As a
result, South Carolina’s population soon included more
enslaved Africans than whites.
African
American
workers
digging a ditch
to flood a
rice field.
Use the South Carolina population statistics below to
make a double bar graph on another sheet of paper.
Show black and white population in different colored
vertical bars over seventy years.
Population Growth in South Carolina*
1790
Black
Population White
140,178 108,895
Census
1820
White
Black
237,440 265,301
1840
White
Black
259,084 335,314
1860
White Black
291,300 412,320
Mark the following statements with T for true or F for false.
1. ______ Because of the state’s black majority, South
Carolina whites lived in fear of slave revolts.
7. _____ By 1850, South Carolina had more
manufacturing workers than any other state.
2. ______ By 1820, South Carolina had more than a
thousand black college graduates.
8. _____ Rice growing led to a task system, in which
enslaved workers had less supervision than
workers on other kinds of plantations.
3. ______ As a colony and later a state, South Carolina had
very harsh slave laws.
9. _____ By the 1830s, South Carolina was selling
thousands of slaves south and west to new
frontier areas.
4. ______ Enslaved people from certain parts of West Africa
knew how to grow rice. Because of this valuable
skill, some landowners asked slave ship captains
to bring them rice farmers.
10. _____ African Americans in South Carolina and
Georgia rice areas were able to keep alive more
of their African culture than black people in
other parts of the country.
5. ______ Africans were more resistant to malaria than whites.
6. ______ After 1820 in South Carolina, a slave owner
could free a slave only with special permission
of the state legislature.
*Figures are from Michael Trinkley, “Growth of South Carolina’s Slave Population,” South Carolina Information Highway at http://www.sciway.net/afam/slavery/population.html.
7
Grades
5-8
Activity 3
American Democracy in the Making
In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of
Independence. He wrote that “all men are created equal,”
but he did not mean slaves. The Bill of Rights said the
government could not take away a person’s life, liberty, or
property without due process of law. But this protected
slave owners, not slaves. Slaves were not seen as persons,
but as property. Why? Slave owners helped shape the
laws of the period. In fact, four of the nation’s first
five presidents were slave owners. Clearly, American
democracy at the time was different from what it is today.
Courtesy Library of Congress
One of Americans’ most important rights is the right to
vote. Find out who had voting rights when the nation
was formed and who didn’t. Find out who has voting
rights today. Search books and the Internet to discover
what happened to cause the change. Then fill in the
chart below.
African American man voting in 1867. Because most
people could not read or write, many voted by dropping
marbles into holes beside pictures of candidates.
Americans
Voted in 1789?
Can vote today?
What changed?
White women
__________
__________
__________________________________________________
White men with land
__________
__________
__________________________________________________
Native Americans
__________
__________
__________________________________________________
Free black women
__________
__________
__________________________________________________
Free black men
__________
__________
__________________________________________________
People with disabilities
__________
__________
__________________________________________________
White men without land
__________
__________
__________________________________________________
People who have been in prison
__________
__________
__________________________________________________
Young people aged 18-20
__________
__________
__________________________________________________
When did Mexican Americans and Asian Americans begin to vote? _____________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8
Grades
7-9
Activity 3
Black Men Help Fight the American Revolution
Write a news story for the anniversary
of a major battle in the American
Revolution. You are stepping in to finish
the assignment of another reporter (see
notes below). You will need to expand
some of her notes and ignore others as
you narrow your topic.
Work on style and form, too. Look at
stories in newspapers and magazines to
see how they are written. Decide what
kind of story you will write. Will you
create an exposé, a feature story, a breaking story, a profile, or something else?
Can you find quotes from the period?
Courtesy Library of Congress
Choose a main idea. Your teacher will
give you a deadline. The editor says
the story must be between 250 and 500
words.
Crispus Attucks died in the Boston Massacre in 1770.
Reporter’s Notes
For black people, the goal was freedom. Did black and
white men fight side by side?
In New Jersey, some white men did not want to fight.
They sent their slaves instead.
Lemuel Haynes fought on Patriot side—wrote poem about
Battle of Lexington.
Who was Agrippa Hull? Get info on Crispus Attucks.
New Hampshire allowed slaves to enlist. Connecticut
formed a black regiment—48 men under a white officer.
Rhode Island black regiment had 250 men. Massachusetts
had a black unit—the Bucks of America. Had its own flag.
Some states bought slaves and promised freedom if they
would serve. But many never got freedom. New York
recruited slaves, too.
Slave owners did not want black men to carry weapons.
Why?
Wealthy Virginia men sent their slaves as soldiers rather
than go themselves.
People lived in fear of slave revolts.
A German officer at White Plains said American army there
was one-fourth black.
Black sailors in the Revolution—must get info.
Lots of enslaved people ran away from cruel masters &
joined Continental Army.
Virginia Legislature would not allow the officers to enlist
black men without proof they were free men.
James Armistead was a double agent, spying on the English
& pretending to spy on the Americans. Or was it the other
way around?
In 1778, an army report said there were 755 black men in
army. Many more came later.
9
Grades
9-12
Activity 3
Is Lord Dunmore a War Criminal?
Dunmore had opened the floodgates. Before
the end of the war, tens of thousands of black
people tried to reach British lines to find
freedom. Some became British soldiers and
The Flight of Lord Dunmore
died from combat or disease. Some went to
Nova Scotia after the treaty was signed, to find that British
You will put Lord Dunmore on trial for the suffering
promises of free, fertile land were false. Some people were
he caused. Members of your class will become his prosesold into slavery. Some were taken to England but faced
cution team, his defense team, and his jury. One student
starvation there. Later, many found their way to Africa.
will serve as judge, and one will portray the defendant.
Some were abandoned to their cruel American masters
Others may portray witnesses, such as Boston King,
when the British ships sailed.
Colonel Tye, slaveholders, or British or American officers.
The Judge
You must know court procedure and rule on objections
to make sure the trial is fair. If you fail, the defendant
will have a good chance to overturn any guilty verdict.
Learn the history, and make sure no witness or officer of
the court misstates it.
The Prosecution
You must decide what charges to bring. What can you
prove against Lord Dunmore? Fraud, reckless disregard
of human life, or war crimes? You’ll need to find the
definitions of these crimes and examine the evidence.
Above all, you’ll need to know the history in detail.
Whom will you call as witnesses?
Witnesses
You must know the history to be able to speak as a
historical person. Prepare yourself by reading as much
as you can about Lord Dunmore, the Black Loyalists, and
your character’s role. Any error will discredit you on the
stand, and may allow the guilty to go free or cause an
innocent man to be found guilty.
The Defense
You must set up a defense strategy and be ready for whatever charges the prosecution team brings against Lord
Dunmore. Be sure you know the all the facts and can show
your sources. Whom will you call as witnesses?
The Jury
You must review the evidence carefully and decide if the
prosecution has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
What evidence will be most important to you?
10
Courtesy Library of Congress
Lord Dunmore was the last Royal Governor
of Virginia. In 1775, he was in a desperate
situation. American rebels had taken control
of his capital city, Williamsburg. He was in
danger of being captured. Angry, he struck
back at the colonists’ weakness—slavery. He
wrote a Proclamation offering freedom to
all enslaved people who could escape their
masters and join him on the British side.
Within a few months, he had 800 soldiers
whose masters were terrified of black men
with weapons.
Grades
9-12
Activity 3
Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation
11
ALL
Grades
Activity 4
Visiting an Exhibit: America I AM:
The African American Imprint
In the exhibit, you will learn more. There may be a label
about your subject. If so, take notes. Perhaps more
important, you will need to investigate the time and place
in which he or she lived. How did race problems affect
black people during the period? How did conditions change
during the period? What did your subject achieve?
In your visit to the exhibit America I AM: The African
American Imprint, you will be a researcher, looking for information. By the time you arrive, you will already have chosen
your subject from the list below on the right. You should
also already have learned a great deal about your subject.
Courtesy Library of Congress
Courtesy Library of Congress
Choose a subject from the list below.
Dorie Miller
Phillis Wheatley
Courtesy Library of Congress
Courtesy Library of Congress
Booker T. Washington
Fannie Lou Hamer
Create a written report or a documentary about your subject.
Find information from multiple written sources. Look for
pictures, drawings, and charts to include. If you are making
a multi-media documentary, you may want to use music and
footage as well. Don’t be afraid to use a poem, song, interview,
or artwork you have created, if it adds to your finished
product. Be sure to have a clear main idea and support it with
facts, quotes, and other evidence. Write correct footnotes to
give credit to the sources you use.
12
John Parker
Denmark Vesey
Phillis Wheatley
Oliver Hill
Charles Young
Katherine Dunham
W. E. B. Du Bois
Charity Adams Earley
Booker T. Washington
Barbara Jordan
Ida B. Wells
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Marcus Garvey
Malcolm X
Bert Williams
Elizabeth Eckford
Noble Sissle
Medgar Evers
William Still
Shirley Chisholm
Jackie Robinson
Colin Powell
Richard Allen
Jesse Owens
Elizabeth Keckley
Dorie Miller
A. Philip Randolph
Ralph Abernathy
Fannie Lou Hamer
Joe Louis
Thomas Dorsey
Marian Anderson
Harriet Powers
John Lewis
Dred Scott
Fred Shuttlesworth
Duke Ellington
Carter G. Woodson
Henry Flipper
Charles Hamilton Houston
Boston King
Mary McLeod Bethune
Grades
5-8
Activity 5
African Americans Begin to
Leave the Rural South
Courtesy Library of Congress
Courtesy Library of Congress
In the 1890s, many black families began to leave the rural South. They were moving to big cities in the South,
North, and West. Look carefully at the pictures below. Compare and contrast the pictures on the left with the pictures
on the right to explain the families’ decisions.
How is this city apartment different from the rural home
shown to the left ?
Courtesy Library of Congress
Courtesy Library of Congress
Do the children in this picture have electricity in their
home? How is their home heated? Where are their meals
cooked? Can you find an alphabet written on cloth in the
picture? Who do you think teaches the girl in the rocking
chair to read? Can you guess why there are scraps of paper
pasted on the walls?
Many black families worked picking cotton in the South.
Can you explain why some of the people in the picture are
carrying long cloth bags?
The man in the picture above is working in a factory
that makes parts for airplanes. Why do you think people
preferred factory work to farm work?
13
Grades
5-8
Activity 5
Courtesy Library of Congress
Courtesy Library of Congress
African Americans Begin to Leave the Rural South continued
What do you notice about this rural black school in Georgia?
What do you see underneath the school on the right?
How do you think the school is heated in the winter?
How is this school in Washington, DC different from the
rural school to the left?
List below some of the reasons African Americans may have had for leaving the rural South.
14
Grades
7-9
Activity 5
African Americans Move into Cities
Courtesy Private Lender
In the 1890s, black families began leaving the rural South.
They moved to urban areas in the South, North, and West.
This movement from the country to the city was called
the Great Migration. It continued until at least the 1950s.
As families settled into new neighborhoods, they began
changing them, especially in the North and West. People
built new churches, founded newspapers, formed sports
teams, and created new music. As a result, American cities
were changed forever.
Match sentence parts to make true statements.
Write the number of a sentence part from the left into a blank
on the right.
Jazz musicians and singers in a city nightclub take a break.
1. Black men and women got jobs in
_____ Joe Louis helped increase black pride.
2. Harlem, a black neighborhood in New York, was a
center for musicians,
_____ factories and offices, but they were often paid less
than whites.
3. African Americans were segregated into black
neighborhoods, where they paid very high
_____ for places to worship.
4. Major league baseball teams barred black players in the
_____ began to print more positive, realistic images of
African Americans.
5. Black newspapers brought readers
_____ it to cities like Chicago, New York, and Kansas City.
6. New storefront churches sprang up, as arriving African
Americans looked
_____ and the Lindy Hop. Whites learned the dances, which
were becoming wildly popular.
7. During World War II, black newspapers began the
Double V Campaign. Black people wanted to fight for
victory overseas
_____ rent for small, crowded apartments.
8. Black Broadway shows included black dances like
the Charleston
_____ artists, dancers, and writers. Many whites visited
Harlem to hear the music and watch dance in the clubs.
9. Black churches helped new migrants
_____ AND victory at home against racism.
_____ news stories about the black community.
10. In the mid 1930s, Hitler said whites were superior
_____ to other races. But at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Jesse
Owens won four gold medals.
11. President Roosevelt agreed to make
_____ 1890s, but the Negro Leagues played exciting games.
12. Great athletes like the boxer
13. Gospel music was
_____ sure African Americans were not excluded from
defense jobs.
14. Musicians like Louis Armstrong helped create jazz and
carry
_____ created in black churches.
_____ find apartments, get food, and look for jobs.
15. Stereotypical images of blacks were crude and negative.
But Life magazine
15
Grades
9-12
Activity 5
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun
Read Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Answer the study questions below before you discuss the play in class.
1. African American families who moved into cities during the Great Migration found a new life. Their neighborhoods, however,
were crowded, run down, and very expensive. Many black families wanted to move to the suburbs. Why couldn’t they?
2. The Hansberry family’s housing problems bear some similarity to those of the Younger family.
Look up the court case Hansberry v. Lee. What can you find out about the similarities?
3. Can you guess why Hansberry chose to name the family Younger?
Courtesy Library of Congress
4. How does the play expose the racism in American society?
5. How does Walter grow? How does his attitude toward money change?
Ruby Dee played Ruth in the
Broadway production of
A Raisin in the Sun.
6. What values are important in the play?
7. Mama says to Walter, “So now it’s life. Money is life. Once upon a time freedom used to be life—now it’s money.
I guess the world really do change.” What point is she making?
16
Grades
5-8
Activity 6
African Americans Lose Civil Rights
Then southern states began to make laws to take away these
rights. Black people had to pass impossibly difficult tests
or pay high taxes to vote. Laws kept black and white people
separate. There were separate waiting rooms, separate seats
on buses and trains, and separate entrances to theatres.
Most hotels would not allow black people to have rooms.
Black children went to poor schools. Black adults could
only get low paying jobs.
Worst of all, African Americans lived in fear. White mobs
could beat or murder people whenever they wanted. Police
officers would not protect black people. No one stopped a
lynch mob.
Courtesy Library of Congress
After the Civil War, the federal government gave new rights
to former slaves. The 13th amendment to the Constitution
ended slavery. The 14th and 15th made former slaves
citizens and gave them the right to vote. Within ten years,
black men had elected two black senators, as well as black
state lawmakers.
Ku Klux Klan members beat, murdered, and terrorized
African Americans.
Make a 1930s civil rights poster: First, find out more
about this time in history, called the Jim Crow Era. Then
assume you live in the 1930s and you have permission to
hang a poster in the rotunda of the Capitol. Use words and
pictures to persuade members of the House and Senate to
end unfair Jim Crow laws and stop racial violence.
On the lines below, explain your ideas for the poster. What will your poster will look like?
How will it convince lawmakers to take action?
17
Grades
7-9
Activity 6
Court Cases Challenge Laws
Learn more about the cases named below. Find the year of each court decision and write
it in. Write a sentence explaining what the court decided. On another sheet of paper,
place the names of the cases along a timeline, showing how American courts defined
civil rights over a century. Where did the cases begin? Were they all in the South?
Courtesy Library of Congress
Below are the names of twelve court cases. In each case, a court made a decision about
a person’s civil rights. The effect was to limit or expand citizenship for other people across
the United States.
George Hayes, Thurgood Marshall,
and James Nabrit after the Supreme
Court decision declaring segregation
unconstitutional
Plessy v. Ferguson
Sweatt v. Painter
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
Berea College v. Kentucky
Williams v. Mississippi
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
Murray v. Maryland
Chambers v. Florida
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
Smith v. Allwright
Cumming v. Board of Education of Richmond County
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
Shelley v. Kraemer
Muir v. Louisville, Park Theatrical Association
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
Year _____________ Decision ________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
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__________________________________________________
Grades
9-12
Activity 6
The Three Most Important Events
for African Americans
Courtesy Library of Congress
During the past century, there have been a number of
crucially important events for African Americans. Some
of these have been court decisions that struck down old,
unjust laws. New laws have broadened opportunities,
helping African Americans gain more citizenship rights.
There have also been dramatic black achievements that
broke barriers and opened doors for others.
List below your picks for the three most important events
for African Americans since 1900. Use the lines to
explain why your choices are correct. Be ready to defend
them in class.
Integrated schools were an important issue for African Americans.
Most important event since 1900
Reason for this choice
Second most important event since 1900
Reason for this choice
Third most important event since 1900
Reason for this choice
19
In this 1864 print of the Emancipation Proclamation, there are vignettes of
slavery and freedom, along with an image of rebuilding the South at the bottom.
Courtesy Library of Congress
Lesson Plan 1
Lesson Plan 1
The Slave Ship
Who Profits
from Slavery?
(Grades 5-8)
Time: 30-60 minutes
(Grades 7-9)
Materials: Student activity sheets; historical
prints of slave ships (many of these are
available on the Internet).
Time: 30-60 minutes
Materials: Student activity sheets; copies of
1830 map of United States included in this
package; and art supplies and glue to allow
students to create and place pictographs on
the map.
Procedure: Find and display pictures of slave
ships. Then open the lesson by asking students
to explain what the slave trade was. Explain
that, beginning in the 1400s, European trade
with African nations, which formerly included
gold, ivory, pepper, and other goods, now
began to include a number of human beings.
Over time, trade in people became far more
important than trade in goods. Challenge
students to explain why European nations
wanted to enslave Africans. Elicit that there
was a need for labor to clear wilderness areas
and grow marketable crops in European
countries’ new colonies in the Western
Hemisphere. Enslaved Africans were sold
in South America, Central America, the
Caribbean, and North America. About three
to five percent of African captives came to
British North America.
Africans worked side by side with, and eventually replaced, white indentured servants and
enslaved Indians. Neither whites nor Native
Americans were available in large enough
numbers to clear land and grow crops on large
plantations. Indentured whites came to North
America in relatively small numbers, and Indian populations were greatly reduced by war
and disease. Also, thousands of Indians were
sold as slaves to Caribbean plantations.
Distribute worksheets and guide students to
complete them. Reinforce content by asking
students how the captives were stowed and
why. Captives were packed tightly in the
crowded hold of the ship to maximize profits
for the ship’s owner, but at great cost of life.
Ask students to explain why netting was necessary. Why did captives try to leap into the sea?
Prisoners sometimes found ways to break
their chains, take up weapons such as pieces
of wood or iron, and attack their captors.
During slave mutinies, seamen took refuge behind the barricado and fired swivel guns at the
Africans. Officers retrieved small arms from
Courtesy Library of Congress
Objectives: Students will
• Review the history of the slave trade
• Read vocabulary words and definitions
related to the slave ship
• Use vocabulary words to label the parts of
the ship
• Discuss the spatial organization of the ship
Captive Africans on the slave ship Wildfire
in 1860
the captain’s quarters and used these to shoot
at the Africans as well. The barricado was a
thick wall that usually extended past the ship’s
railing to overhang the sea. The overhang
prevented Africans from climbing around the
side to attack the seamen from behind. Some
students may know about the Amistad, the
ship where captives staged a successful slave
rebellion, and there may have been others not
recorded in history.
Imprint: Perhaps the most important fact
about the slave ship is what students cannot
see in the diagram. Despite suffering and loss,
Africans succeeded in bringing with them a
treasury of culture. Together, Africans (and
later African Americans), Europeans, and
Native Americans created a new culture that
would become American culture. African
culture would powerfully influence the development of American culture over the coming
centuries. Music, dance, foodways, story telling,
worship practices, artistic vision, agricultural
methods, work skills, and other African
customs and knowledge shaped American life.
Additional Activities: Encourage students
to read slave narratives, such as Olaudah
Equiano’s, that provide details about how Africans were captured, forced onto slave ships,
and brought to the Americas. Students may
also be interested in seeing a video of the 1997
feature film Amistad, in which the legality of
slavery is weighed against the American ideal
of individual rights.
National Standards: History, Era 2: Why
the Americas attracted Europeans, why they
brought enslaved Africans to their colonies,
and how Europeans struggled for control of
North America and the Caribbean.
20
Objectives: Students will
• Review what a pictograph is
• Construct a series of pictographs
• Read about major products of the American
colonies and states
• Place pictographs on a period map to reflect
local and regional economies
• Discuss regional profits from slavery
Procedure: Begin by asking students what a
pictograph is. Elicit that it is a small, symbolic
picture of something that can be placed on a
map or used in a chart. Distribute worksheets,
maps, and art supplies to students. Have them
make pictographs of the products listed in the
introduction to Activity 1.
Next, ask students which regions of the United
States profited from slavery. Some students
may assert that the South profited, but others
may argue that the North profited as well.
To learn specifics, students will read the text
on the worksheet. Based on the information
in the text, students will begin placing and
pasting down their pictographs. Because of
the small size of New England states, students
should feel free to treat them as a single
region, rather trying to paste a number of
pictographs into the tiny individual northeastern states.
Initiate a discussion to reinforce content.
Guide students to consider how and why the
North’s economy benefited from slavery. Much
cotton, for example, went to New England
mills where it was made into cloth. During the
antebellum period, cotton became the nation’s
largest export by far. In fact, more than threefourths of the cotton consumed by British
mills came from the American South. New
York businessmen marketed and shipped the
cotton overseas.
New York banking interests also continued to
support the slave trade. Slave ships built and
outfitted in the U.S. continued sailing to Africa
right up to the Civil War. But because it was
illegal to import Africans into the U.S. after
1808, the ships often sold their human cargoes
in South America or the Caribbean—often
Rio de Janeiro or Havana. U.S. law prohibited
this as piracy, with a penalty of death, but
the law was virtually never enforced—until
the government made an example of Captain
Nathaniel Gordon, who was hanged in
1862. You can read the story in Soodalter’s
Hanging Captain Gordon: The Life and Trial
of an American Slave Trader.
Imprint: Guide students to see a central
effect: African Americans, as the major labor
force of the South, had a powerful shaping
influence on the economy of the entire nation.
Slavery generated enormous wealth, and
the entire nation benefited from it. For
this reason, there were strong supporters
of slavery, and anti-abolitionists, across the
North as well as the South.
Additional Activity: Divide students into small
groups to investigate how the South changed
as it expanded westward. Have individual
groups research: how the major slave-grown
crops shifted over time; how the slave population changed; how slaves got to new frontier
areas like Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas;
and what sorts of work enslaved people did in
cities, where there were no plantations.
National Standards: History, Era 2: How the
values and institutions of European economic
life took root in the colonies, and how slavery
reshaped European and African life in the
Americas. Social Studies III, People, Places,
& Environments: Create, interpret, use, and
distinguish various representations of the
earth, such as maps, globes, and photographs.
Lesson Plan 1
Slavery’s Influence on
American Government
(Grades 9-12)
Time: 30-60 minutes, plus homework time
or library time for research
Materials: Student activity sheets; copies
of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States for reference.
Objectives: Students will
• Complete research to answer multiplechoice questions
• Discuss the historical facts they discover
• Articulate statements about how the
founding fathers envisioned a democracy
that included slavery
Procedure: Distribute worksheets. You may
wish to give them out in advance, allowing
students to research answers as homework.
Alternatively, divide questions into chunks,
assigning them to teams of students. Send the
teams to the school library to find the answers.
Review correct answers with students. Ask
students if any of the answers surprised them.
Some students may have been unaware that
so many leaders of, first, the colonies and,
second, the United States were slave owners.
Challenge students to analyze what this meant
for the structure and laws of the new nation.
As the discussion unfolds, you may want to
encourage students to examine the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution to see
how slavery is reflected in their wording. The
Declaration of Independence says, for example,
“all men are created equal,” but clearly this did
not apply to enslaved people. The Constitution
does not mention slavery, but it spells out the
compromise between the North and South to
allow three-fifths of slaves to be counted for
both taxation and representation in Congress.
The Bill of Rights says no person can be
deprived of life, liberty, or property without
due process of law. Yet again this did not
protect enslaved people. Rather, it protects
the slave owner, because slaves were seen in
law as property rather than people.
As students discuss the Constitution, you may
want to remind them that the three-fifths
clause applied to both the North and South,
but was tremendously more important to the
South. Slavery was dwindling in the North,
while the South had a large and profitable
slave population.
Ask students to theorize how the founding
fathers reconciled their vision of a democracy
with slavery. Write students’ statements on
the chalkboard, and work with students to
reduce and revise so as to end with one
sentence about how the creators of the new
republic accommodated the deep contradiction
of slavery.
Imprint: Slavery contorted the founding
fathers’ vision of democracy, and this
contortion is evident in the early documents
and policies of the new nation. But enslaved
Africans rebelled against slavery from the
beginning. From uprisings on slave ships to
the early slave revolts in the colonies to the
civil rights struggle of the twentieth century,
African Americans would push America to
realize the ideal of liberty in an authentic way.
Additional Activity: Assign small groups of
students to research and report on the ways
in which African Americans forced the nation
to confront the incompatibility of slavery with
the ideals of liberty: the slave revolt on the
21
Amistad and subsequent court case; slave uprisings in the colonies; early petitions for the
abolition of slavery; individual slaves’ attempts
to escape slavery.
National Standards: History, Era 2: How the
values and institutions of European economic
life took root in the colonies, and how slavery
reshaped European and African life in the
Americas.
Lesson Plan 2
Enslaved People Knew
How to Grow Rice
(Grades 5-8)
Time: 30-60 minutes
Materials: Student activity sheets; early prints
of rice agriculture
Objectives: Students will
• Choose words from a list to complete
sentences in a reading passage about
preparing rice fields
• Place sentences in order to show how
enslaved people grew rice in America
• Discuss how black labor made landowners
rich and helped build the foundation of
the nation
Procedure: Distribute activity sheets and
give students time to complete them. Provide
pictures of rice cultivation, so the class will be
able to interpret the worksheet visually. You
may want, in particular, to print out two free
Library of Congress images. Go to www.loc.
gov, then to library catalogs, then to the
Prints and Photographs division. Insert titles
of prints into the search box:
● Rice Culture on the Ogeechee
● Rice Culture on Cape Fear River.
Click on the images to enlarge them, and
choose a high-resolution version for printing.
Reinforce the worksheet by asking a volunteer
to explain in his or her own words the process
of growing rice. Point out pictures that
illustrate or add information. Extend the
discussion by asking students how salt and
fresh water might have met and mixed as the
tides rose and fell. Salt water was harmful to
plants, but enslaved people from the ricegrowing areas of Africa knew how to handle
the danger. Fresh water tends to float on top
of salt water, so workers flooded the fields
as the tide came in, by lowering gates just
enough to allow fresh water in and keep salt
water out. When the fields needed to be
drained, the workers opened the gates at
low tide, to allow water to run out via deep,
wide ditches.
slavery. In a horrific irony, the fruits of
enslaved people’s labor kept them enslaved.
Additional Activities: Ask students to find
pictures of African mortars and pestles as well
as fanner baskets—the tools Africans made to
separate the husks from the rice. Find a fanner
basket or use another flat, shallow container to
allow students to practice winnowing rice.
National Standards: History, Era 2: How the
values and institutions of European economic
life took root in the colonies, and how slavery
reshaped European and African life in the
Americas.
Lesson Plan 2
Graphing Economic
Trends
(Grades 7-9)
Time: 30-60 minutes
Courtesy Library of Congress
Materials: Student activity sheets; art supplies
for making graphs; maps of West Africa and
coastal South Carolina and Georgia
Ex-slave Johanna Lesley hulls rice with an
African-style mortar and pestle.
Some rice planters, like Henry Laurens of
South Carolina, owned several large plantations
and literally thousands of enslaved people.
Laurens amassed enormous wealth by exporting the rice that came to be called Carolina
Gold. At the same time, his workers labored
long hours in intolerable conditions. The
mortality rate was high, yet enough workers
survived to maintain profits. Slavery gave
Laurens enough wealth and leisure time to become involved in politics. He served as one of
the presidents of the Continental Congresses.
Imprint: Rice exports were one of the pillars
of the young American economy. Enslaved
Africans not only carved plantations out of the
wilderness, but also helped build the wealth
of a new nation. Because of African workers,
George Washington, Henry Laurens, Thomas
Jefferson, and others had the education,
wealth, and leisure to work out the details
of founding a new nation. They also ensured
that its Constitution and laws would protect
Objectives: Students will
• Interpret two sets of data about rice exports
and prices
• Visually represent the data in a bar graph
and a line graph
• Explain the meaning of the graphs in terms
of economic wealth
Procedure: Begin by asking if any students
know how rice is grown. Broaden student understanding by explaining rice culture in the
colonies. Show students the Senegambia, the
area of West Africa lying between the Senegal
and Gambia Rivers. Africans from this area,
as well as coastal areas, had long and deep
experience in growing rice. Because of the
value of this skill, American landowners from
coastal South Carolina and Georgia asked slave
ship captains to bring African rice farmers to
the Charleston harbor. About 40% of enslaved
Africans brought to rice growing areas of the
U.S. in the 1700s came from rice areas of
Africa. Challenge students to theorize about
the similarity of the areas in Africa where
workers came from and the areas in North
America where they grew rice.
The low, swampy land where fresh and salt
water met and the tides caused streams to
rise and fall was a prime rice growing area.
But American planters needed vast numbers
of workers to complete a major engineering
22
feat—converting raw land into rice fields complete with canals and embankments so that
the planted areas could be alternately flooded
and drained. The work would impose horrific
conditions, and whites would not do such
dangerous work. Enslaved workers converted
150,000 acres of swampland into valuable
agricultural land. In this massive effort, many
workers died, but the landowners got rich.
Moreover, on these large plantations, black
culture broadly influenced whites. White
families were isolated, surrounded by hundreds of enslaved people. Black nurses raised
white children, and white and black children
played together. Only when whites were old
enough to leave for boarding school did this
childhood influence lessen. Black music and
singing provided entertainment for the white
family and its guests. A black cook provided
the food they ate. Often, whites learned black
dances and participated in African-style dance
competitions. Black culture was pervasive and
influential.
Take a look at the charts on the worksheet.
Challenge students to see how the exports rose
over time, along with the per-pound sales price
of the product. Then have students represent
this information visually by creating a bar
graph of rice exports and a line graph of rising
prices.
Imprint: Help students gain insight into the
outcome, not only for planters, but also for
the regional and national economy. Enslaved
people built the agricultural foundation of the
region and made their owners wealthy. Rice
planters like Henry Laurens and Elias Ball had
several plantations and thousands of slaves.
They lived lives of leisure, purchased education
for themselves and their family, and became
involved in politics. This allowed them to
shape the laws of their region and nation,
assuring that slavery would be protected.
Additional Activity: Students may be interested in reading selections from Edward Ball’s
Slaves in the Family. Ball descended from
wealthy rice planters in South Carolina, and
in the book he researches his ancestors’ lives.
He also locates African American relatives
descended from the Ball family. The book is
illustrated with photos of Ball’s ancestors, both
white and black.
National Standards: History, Era 2: Assess
the contribution of enslaved and free Africans
to economic development in different regions
of the American colonies. Mathematics 10:
Construct, read, and interpret tables, charts,
and graphs.
for example, a worship tradition including
a circle dance and singing, called the Ring
Shout. They retained their own speech, called
Gullah. They also influenced foodways and
architecture.
Lesson Plan 2
South Carolina’s
Black Population
(Grades 9-12)
Additional Activity: Divide students into
groups to learn more about the African skills
and customs that enslaved people brought
to America. Your students may be interested
in the Ring Shout, methods of rice growing,
foodways, Gullah speech, yard and grave
decoration, and storytelling.
Time: 30-60 minutes
Materials: Student activity sheets; art supplies
to construct bar graph
Procedure: After students read the text at the
top of the activity sheet, challenge them to
create a double bar graph to visually represent
the growth of black and white population in
South Carolina from 1790 through 1860.
In comparing the two sets of bars, what can
students conclude? Guide volunteers to state
that both black and white population grew
significantly, but black population grew more
rapidly than white.
Ask students to theorize about the potential
outcomes of a population in which enslaved
people outnumbered free people. Students
may say that the free people would fear slave
rebellions, and would make harsh laws to
control the enslaved people. This is what
happened in South Carolina. In some cases,
slave owners’ fears were realized. The violent
Stono revolt (1739) and the aborted Vesey
revolt (1822) both occurred in South Carolina.
At least 64 people died in the Stono rebellion.
Plans for the Vesey revolt were discovered,
and 35 people were hanged for conspiracy.
Over time, slaves were so oppressed that some
plotted rebellion, and this led to even harsher
measures to control slaves.
Slave owners felt that free blacks were a
dangerous influence on enslaved people, so the
state passed a law that a slave could only be
freed by an owner’s successful petition of both
houses of the South Carolina state legislature.
The black majority also meant strong influence from black culture. Remind students
that whites on large plantations were isolated
amidst large numbers of enslaved people.
Black nurses cared for white children, and
black and white children played together.
Black singing and music entertained the white
family and their guests. Often, whites watched
black dances and even joined in the dancing
as black fiddlers played. Black cooks prepared
the dishes whites ate. Black culture permeated the lives of whites in South Carolina.
Courtesy Library of Congress
Objectives: Students will
• Construct a double bar graph of black and
white population growth in South Carolina
• Theorize about the effects of a black
majority
• Identify statements about South Carolina’s
black majority as true or false
This print shows the separation of a family in
a sale of enslaved people.
In addition to lowcountry rice planters, South
Carolina had a later elite class—upcountry
cotton planters. Cotton wore out the soil
quickly, however, and beginning in the 1830s
thousands of planters were leaving the state
for new land in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. Some took their slaves
with them. Many slaves, especially women and
children, were sold to traders who marched
them to the new territories in long coffles.
Have students finish the worksheet by completing the true and false exercise. All the
statements are true except #2 and #7. Ask
students to explain why these statements
cannot be true (South Carolina prohibited
education for enslaved people, and therefore
did not have a large population of highly
educated African Americans. The state was
also primarily agricultural and so did not have
large numbers of manufacturing workers.)
Imprint: Through building rice plantations,
African Americans established the economic
foundation of the region. There was also a
substantial cultural imprint. Rice culture
was different from other agricultural work in
that rice planters used the task system. Every
worker had an assignment and was left alone
to complete it. Although the work was long
and demanding, and the widespread absenteeism of owners was generally negative, the
isolation had one good outcome—black people
in South Carolina were able to keep more
of their African heritage alive than enslaved
people in other regions. People maintained,
23
National Standards: History, Era 2: Trace the
arrival of Africans in the European colonies
in the 17th century and the rapid increase of
slave importation in the 18th century. Assess
the contribution of enslaved and free Africans
to economic development in different regions
of the American colonies. Mathematics 10:
Construct and draw inferences from charts,
tables, and graphs that summarize data from
real-world situations.
Lesson Plan 3
American Democracy
in the Making
(Grades 5-8)
Time: Homework or library time to complete
activity sheet; 30-60 minutes in class
Materials: Student activity sheets; a copy of
the U.S. Constitution with its amendments
Objectives: Students will
• Research voting rights in the United States
• Complete a chart about voting
• Compare and contrast voting rights in 1789
with today’s voting rights
Procedure: As homework or library work,
have students research voting rights in 1789
and in the present. Have students refer to the
Amendments to the Constitution to determine
which ones expanded voting rights for particular groups. In class, ask students how important voting rights are in a democracy. Elicit
that voting is crucial to fair treatment for all,
because only through voting can groups and
individuals sway the law and policy making of
the nation. Allow students to volunteer their
research findings, as recorded on Activity 3.
In 1789, few people actually voted. Two states
had not yet ratified the Constitution and so did
not submit votes. New York had not decided
who would serve as electors, and so did not
submit votes, either. In several other states,
the legislature and/or governor voted on behalf
of their populations, so no individuals voted.
People voted in only four states, but most
voters were white men who owned land.
Some free black men voted, but many of these
lost the right to vote in later years.
Take a moment to remind students that free
black people were here from early times.
Free black people came to North America with
the Spanish explorers, and some of the first
enslaved people to arrive (in the 1600s and
early 1700s) gained their freedom over time.
Most women could not vote (a few who owned
property voted for a time in New Jersey),
because national women’s suffrage did not
come until 1920 with the 19th amendment
to the Constitution. Young people under 21
did not get the right to vote until 1971 with
the 26th amendment. White men without
land generally got the right to vote as states
granted universal white male suffrage in the
first quarter of the 19th century.
African Americans got the right to vote with
the 15th amendment to the Constitution.
Many black men were able to vote until the
turn of the century. By the 1910s, however,
southern blacks were losing the vote because
of literacy tests, poll taxes, and fear of
retaliation from whites. The Voting Rights
Act of 1965 ensured that black people across
the South would have the right to vote.
Many Native Americans did not receive
citizenship—with the right to vote—until
1924, and others were not able to vote in
their states until the 1950s or even 1960s.
Mexican Americans were granted citizenship
in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
which ended the Mexican War. However,
only people who owned property and could
read and speak English could vote. White
supremacy groups instilled fear to keep people
from voting. Not until 1975 were all Mexican
Americans able to vote.
Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882,
Chinese Americans could not vote until the
1940s. Many Japanese Americans could not
vote until the 1950s.
Today, there are still citizens who are barred
from voting. Wherever polling places do not
have proper ramps, disabled parking, or Braille
ballots, people with disabilities cannot vote.
In all but two states, people who have had
felony convictions are permanently or
temporarily prohibited from voting.
Guide students to see that democracy in 1789
was very limited, for extraordinarily few people
had voting rights. Some limitations still exist
today, but matters are much improved.
Imprint: Throughout African American
history, black people have pushed hard for citizenship rights, especially voting rights. People
who used protest methods to call attention to
their lack of rights were sometimes the victims
of violence, like Fannie Lou Hamer. When
African Americans won a victory with the 1965
Voting Rights Act, they brought fuller citizenship to all ethnic groups across the country.
Additional Activity: Ask students to find out
what resulted from enhanced voting rights
in 1965. Did Congress change? Did state
legislatures change? How did the nation’s laws
change? Have students share their findings in
class.
National Standards: History, Era 4: The
extension, restriction, and reorganization of
political democracy after 1800. Social Studies
X, Civic Ideals and Practices: Evaluate the
degree to which public policies and citizen
behaviors reflect or foster the stated ideals of
a democratic republican form of government.
Lesson Plan 3
Black Men Help
Fight the American
Revolution
(Grades 7-9)
Time: Research time at home or in library;
two class periods
Materials: Student activity sheets; examples
of various types of news stories
Objectives: Each student will
• Review notes about African American
military service in the American Revolution
• Identify examples of various types of news
stories
• Write an article in a news genre
Procedure: After reviewing the worksheet in
class, explain to students that their interests
are likely to lead them toward four kinds
of stories: the exposé, which uses careful
investigation and compiled evidence to expose
corruption; the feature story, which uses human
interest content, story telling, and point of
view, to add depth to a news story; the profile,
which tells a story and gives background
information about an individual; the breaking
story, which provides news as it happens. List
these story types on the chalkboard, distribute
examples, and help students compare and
contrast the stories’ characteristics.
If students have not already learned how to
write a basic news story, they can find guidance
at http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/news/
index.htm. Emphasize that getting the facts
is the first priority for any news writer. A good
24
writer must then report the facts without bias.
Discuss bias with students. How can a reader
spot bias, and how can a reporter avoid it?
Class members should begin researching their
topics in the library or on the Internet right
away. They will need to evaluate their sources
and take good notes. As they write, they
should remember that news stories are written
very concisely, with active verbs, interesting
quotes, and short paragraphs. They should
avoid long-winded sentences with abstract
words. The first paragraph is very important—
it must capture the reader’s interest and begin
providing information.
Find out what students learned from the
reporter’s notes on the worksheet. Guide the
class to see the complexity of black military
service in the American Revolution. Across
the American South, about 100,000 enslaved
people ran away from their masters in the
chaos created by the war. Some sought freedom without enlisting in either army. Some
were found and taken back to their owners.
Others served on the British or American side
in hopes of earning their freedom. Free blacks
served as well, perhaps in hopes that the new
republic, if it survived, would offer freedom
and equal treatment to all its people, including
enslaved Africans.
Some black soldiers died in combat or of one
of the diseases that ravaged army camps. At
the end of the war, about 3,000 black Loyalists
were taken to Nova Scotia with their families
by the departing British army. The soldiers
had been promised their freedom and a piece
of good land. The land, however, was thin and
rocky, and many families never received it.
Starvation set in, and eventually a number of
people moved to Sierra Leone in hopes of
a better life.
Many black soldiers on the American side
suffered greatly as well. They sickened, starved,
and froze in camps like Valley Forge. They
died in combat. Few enslaved men received
the freedom they had been promised. Both
the British and the Patriot sides defrauded
black soldiers.
Some black soldiers had exciting as well as
dangerous experiences. James Armistead
spied on the British, who thought they had
enlisted him to spy on the Americans. Colonel
Tye, who fought for the British, commanded a
group of men, led guerilla raids, took prisoners,
and freed slaves. He died from tetanus after he
was wounded in the wrist.
After your students have begun their research
and chosen a news genre in which to write,
allow them to share preliminary findings in
class, get input from classmates, and proceed
to final copy.
Imprint: African Americans helped fight for
American independence, and helped make
possible a new nation with ideals of democracy.
When black soldiers fought for the British and
liberated slaves through combat, they exposed
the dark side of the Patriots’ vision of freedom.
National Standards: History, Era 3: Demonstrate the fundamental contradictions between
the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the realities of chattel slavery.
Compare and explain the different roles and
perspectives in the war [American Revolution]
of men and women, including white settlers,
free and enslaved African Americans, and
Native Americans. Language Arts 7: Students
conduct research on issues and interests
by generating ideas and questions, and by
posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and
synthesize data from a variety of sources
(e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts,
people) to communicate their discoveries in
ways that suit their purpose and audience.
Lesson Plan 3
Is Lord Dunmore
a War Criminal?
(Grades 9-12)
Time: 2-4 class periods
Materials: Student activity sheets; copies of
Lord’s Dunmore’s Proclamation; furniture for
a courtroom—a judge’s desk, witness and jury
chairs, and prosecution and defense tables.
Objectives: Students will
• Read Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation
• Identify a crime he may have committed
• Conduct a trial to determine guilt
Procedure: Both the Continental Army and
the British Army took advantage of black
soldiers, breaking promises and defrauding
many men. This activity will take a look at the
specifics of Lord Dunmore’s promises and the
outcomes for black men and their families.
Begin the lesson by asking students what
Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation actually says.
List the most important statements on the
chalkboard. Which statement affects African
Americans and their owners? What did the
statement mean for each group, and why were
people so passionate in their reactions?
Courtesy Library of Congress
Additional Activity: Appoint an editorial
staff, and allow students to put their articles
together in a newspaper issue. Encourage
the class to name the newspaper and create or
find pictures, maps, and other visuals to
illustrate it.
Selling a freedman to pay a fine, Monticello, Florida
Divide students into teams to research the
immediate results of the document, as well as
the long-term outcomes for black men who
flocked to Lord Dunmore’s regiment, often
bringing their families. Take part of another
class period to summarize findings. Discuss
black families’ experiences in Nova Scotia and
Sierra Leone. What happened to soldiers and
families who were not taken on board ships
departing for Nova Scotia? Where did they go?
After the students have discussed the facts
of the story, move onto the trial experience.
Appoint students to positions on the defense
team, prosecution team, or jury. Name one
student to portray Lord Dunmore, and another
to serve as judge. Reserve other class members until the prosecution and defense teams
determine whom they wish to call as witnesses.
The remaining students will portray those
historical characters, and if need be, may each
portray more than one.
Remind students how critically important it
is for them to know the history. They must
investigate in detail not only Dunmore’s role
in the war, but also many of the events and
people he affected. Warn students that, no
matter what role they play, they may not ask
or answer questions without strict adherence
to historical truth. They may be called upon
to show their sources at any time.
25
Reorganize the furniture in the room to
simulate a courtroom. Allow students to
conduct the trial over several class periods.
Demand historical truth throughout the
questioning and testimony. When the jury
brings in the verdict, ask them to explain
what led them to their decision.
Give students latitude for creativity, but
make this a graded exercise with a written
commentary on each student’s contribution
to the class experience.
Imprint: In responding to Lord Dunmore,
enslaved Africans sent a message about the
meaning of freedom. Patriots said they were
fighting for freedom, but their concept of
freedom included slavery for black men and
women. Dunmore and British military
commanders, on the other hand, used what
was essentially a bait and switch tactic to
gain enslaved Africans as soldiers for the
Loyalist side. Amid the chaos and injustice,
some black families gained freedom, but all
called attention through their action to the
contradictions of democracy with slavery.
Additional Activity: If there are enough class
members, appoint one or two to be reporters,
writing news stories about the trial. If
you have a student who can draw well, ask
him/her to be a sketch artist for the duration
of the trial.
Lesson Plan 4
Visiting an Exhibit:
America I AM:
The African American
Imprint
(All Grade Levels)
Time: 3-6 hours of the school day
Materials: Student activity sheets; note taking
materials
Objectives: Each student will
• Select a historical figure as a subject
• Conduct historical research to learn more
about the subject
• Find further information, especially
contextual information, in the exhibit space
• Present information in a well structured
essay
Procedure: Have each student select a subject
from the list on the activity sheet. You may
wish to allow students library time for research. They should continue the fact-finding
during homework time away from school.
Set age-appropriate paper length and content
for your students. Younger students may
benefit from submitting a short essay, while
many older students will be capable of
producing a multi-media documentary with
music, footage, and original creative material
like poems or drawings.
Review students’ note cards midway through
the project and give each writer suggestions
for improvement. In class, show students how
to create footnotes. Provide examples, and
then send students to the chalkboard to create
their own footnotes for one or two sources.
This research assignment will benefit students
even if your class cannot visit the exhibit.
If you do take students to see the exhibit,
make sure they have completed substantial
research in advance. Encourage them to carry
note-taking supplies and focus on contextual
information. Back in class, ask students to
share what they learned.
When students submit final projects, allow
a few to read their papers or show their
multi-media pieces to the class.
Imprint: Ask students to respond to imprint
in their projects. How did the subject make a
lasting impact?
Additional Activity: Give students a few
minutes of class time to talk about their
projects. What did they do that they were
especially proud of? What would they change,
if they could do their projects over again?
National Standards: Social Studies VI: Power,
Authority, & Governance: how people create
and change structures of power, authority, and
governance, so the learner can examine the
rights and responsibilities of the individual
in relation to the general welfare. Language
Arts 8: Students conduct research on issues
and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather,
evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of
sources (e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose
and audience.
Lesson Plan 5
African Americans
Begin to Leave the
Rural South
(Grades 5-8)
Time: 30-60 minutes
Materials: Student activity sheets
Objectives: Students will
• Examine historical photos of rural and
city life
• Compare and contrast settings in the photos
• Make observations about why black families
moved from farms to urban areas
Some landlords abused the system by paying
the farmer in scrip, substitute money that
could be spent only at the landlord’s store,
where prices were high. Scrip kept farming
families poor and kept them from moving off
the land.
After a series of bad farming years, with
drought, flood, the boll weevil, and falling
prices of cotton, African American sharecropping families moved away from the rural
South in large numbers. Many had worked
hard and lived near starvation for years.
Often, however, landowners and local government tried to keep black workers from
leaving. Ticket agents at train stations tried to
talk travelers out of their decisions. Sheriffs
pulled black families off northbound trains
and arrested labor agents who were recruiting
blacks for jobs in the North. Towns banned
black newspapers that urged sharecroppers to
move to the cities. Families had to plan their
departures carefully.
Photos on the activity sheet tell a visual story
about why the families left and what awaited
them in the cities. Ask students what they observe about living conditions for the families
and individuals shown. Elicit that, in the first
picture, the children’s home has no electricity
(see kerosene lamp, iron without a cord). The
fireplace seems to be both the furnace and the
place of cooking. The oilcloth tacked to the
wall contains an alphabet and suggests the
parents are teaching the children to read—
perhaps because there is no school available.
The walls were once covered with paper, probably newspaper, to keep out the wind, but this
is now mostly worn away.
In another picture, a family is seen in a city
apartment. There is a modern range, running
Procedure: Distribute activity sheets and
ask students to examine the photos carefully.
Point out that three of the pictures depict the
life of the sharecropper. Encourage volunteers
to describe what sharecropping is.
Elicit that sharecroppers lived on a landlord’s
land and raised crops. At harvest time, the
sharecropper paid rent out of the money
earned from the crops. In many southern
areas, the crop was cotton.
Sharecropping was a harsh system in which
the landlord was able to depend upon a fixed
amount of rent every year, while the sharecropper did the work and took all the risk.
Sometimes, when the weather was bad, or
insects like the boll weevil attacked the plants,
the farmer and his family had no wages at
the end of the year, or actually owed money
to the landlord.
26
Tintype of African American Civil War
soldier. African Americans have fought in
every American war.
Courtesy Library of Congress
National Standards: History, Era 3: Compare
and explain the different roles and perspectives
in the war of men and women, including white
settlers, free and enslaved African Americans,
and Native Americans. Compare the reasons
why many white men and women and most
African American and Native Americans remained loyal to the British. Theatre 2: Acting
by developing, communicating, and sustaining
characters in improvisations and informal or
formal productions.
water, smooth wall covering, a radiator for
heat, and an expensive doll carriage for the
little girl. However, the space is very crowded.
There is a bed in the kitchen, possessions are
stored in boxes and bins under the range, and
at least three people (see elbow at far left) are
using this tiny room as living space.
The school photos show the contrasts between
rural and city schools for black children. In
rural areas, black students often attended run
down schools with older, dilapidated books
and inadequate supplies. In cities, children
had a better chance at a good school, in a
substantial building, with adequate supplies
and books. The children here are well dressed,
too, suggesting that their families have good
incomes.
Sharecropper families moved from the rural
South to cities—especially cities in the North
and West—to find better jobs with better pay,
better homes, and better schools for their
children. They also wanted the chance to vote,
and safety from racial violence.
Imprint: As they moved to cities, especially
cities in the North and West, black families
took black culture with them, changing the
cities significantly. African Americans created
newspapers, formed sports teams, brought a
rich tradition of music such as blues and jazz,
founded new churches, and slowly found a
political voice. By 1960, most American cities
had large black populations. African Americans, once mainly a rural people, had become
largely urban.
Additional Activity: Allow students computer
time to find more images of African Americans in the rural South and the urban North.
Guide class members to begin with the vast
archives of the Library of Congress Prints
and Photographs website, but also to use the
search engine to find other sources. Have
students share findings in class and make
observations about picture content.
National Standards: History, Era 6: Trace
the migration of people from farm to city
and their adjustment to urban life. Account
for employment in different regions of the
country as affected by gender, race, ethnicity,
and skill. Analyze the role of new laws and the
Courtesy Library of Congress
The photo of cotton picking shows children as
well as adults in the field. Many children, in
fact, had to stay home from school at various
times in the year, to help with farm tasks.
What is not shown is even more important
—farm families earned very little and had
no medical insurance or other benefits. In
the companion picture, a worker is putting
together airplane parts. He is earning a
definite wage he can count on, and this
security is what sharecropping could not
give farm families.
Morris Brown College baseball team, ca. 1899.
federal judiciary in instituting racial inequality
and in disfranchising various racial groups.
Economics 14: Entrepreneurs and other
sellers incur losses when buyers do not
purchase the products they sell at prices high
enough to cover the costs of production.
Lesson Plan 5
African Americans
Move Into Cities
(Grades 7-9)
Time: 30-50 minutes
Materials: Student activity sheets
Objectives: Students will
• Consider potentially correct ways of
connecting sentence parts
• Test answers through research and
discussion
• Finalize answers
Procedure: Distribute activity sheets and
allow students to guess correct ways of connecting sentence parts. Break students into
small groups and challenge them to test their
guesses by consulting books and websites, in
either the classroom or the school library.
27
Broaden student understanding through
discussion. When African Americans began
moving off the land in the South, they were
responding to a series of devastating events—
flood, drought, the boll weevil’s destruction of
crops, and falling cotton prices. Many families
moved to cities in the South, where they felt
less cultural shock and still gained many
advantages. Rising manufacturing offered
jobs, and during World War I, there were
additional job opportunities. African
Americans, once excluded from good jobs,
were now more welcome.
Similar opportunities beckoned in northern
cities, especially Chicago and New York. Black
families were segregated into neighborhoods
like Bronzeville and Harlem, but made them
into centers of artistic production as well as
havens of shared culture. Black neighborhoods
also grew in cities like Cleveland, Detroit,
Kansas City, and Los Angeles.
As they moved into these cities, African
Americans reshaped them. They played
black music like blues and jazz in new clubs,
founded new churches including Muslim and
Pentecostal denominations, published black
newspapers like the Chicago Defender and the
Pittsburgh Courier, and expanded black pride
through sports teams and great athletes. The
Negro Leagues, for example, played games for
Group image of participants at the 1929 NAACP convention.
large audiences throughout the time period
(1890s-1950s) when Major League Baseball
excluded black players.
Harlem and other black neighborhoods
became artistic centers, where nightclubs
featured superb black musicians, and black
dances like the Shimmy, Black Bottom,
Charleston, Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, and Tap.
Writers like Langston Hughes, Claude McKay,
Zora Neale Hurston, and Lorraine Hansberry
wrote new poetry, novels, and drama. Concert
singers and dancers, actors, and visual artists
produced new art. Among these were Marian
Anderson, Katherine Dunham, Paul Robeson,
Aaron Douglass, Augusta Savage, James Van
Der Zee, and a host of others. Share period
dance and music with your students through
film. Two good examples are The Spirit Moves:
A History of Black Social Dance on Film,
1900-1986 (2008) and the documentary The
Story of Jazz (Masters of American Music)
(2002).
African Americans also began to find a strong
political voice through gaining the right to
vote and speaking through editorials in black
newspapers. Black people were
often excluded from defense jobs, until leader
A. Philip Randolph threatened to lead a
massive protest against job discrimination in
Washington DC. Fearing for the U.S. image
in other nations, the federal government
agreed to end discriminatory hiring.
During World War II, the Pittsburgh Courier
began the Double V Campaign for victory
overseas against America’s enemies and
victory at home against segregation and
discrimination. Other black papers joined
the campaign. Women wore the Double V
symbol in their clothing and hairstyles.
Celebrities sympathized, and their statements
were featured in print. Cities had brought
people together in enough numbers to gain
the tools to strengthen their voice.
After students have discussed enough of this
history to verify answers, have the class
finalize the worksheets and turn them in.
Imprint: Moving to cities in the South, North,
and West, African Americans changed the
culture of those cities through dramatic new
contributions. Black men and women also
consolidated a political voice and began to
make economic changes.
Additional Activity: Encourage students to
find pictures of black art and artists during
the period. Have a small group report on the
Negro Renaissance.
National Standards: History, Era 6: Trace
the migration of people from farm to city and
their adjustment to urban life. Trace patterns
of immigrant settlement in different regions of
the country and how new immigrants helped
produce a composite American culture that
transcended group boundaries.
28
Lesson Plan 5
Lorraine Hansberry’s
A Raisin in the Sun
(Grades 9-12)
Time: 30-60 minutes; homework time for
students to read A Raisin in the Sun.
Materials: Student activity sheets; copies of
the play
Objectives: Students will
• Read Lorraine Hansberry’s
A Raisin in the Sun
• Answer study questions on Activity 5
• Discuss answers in class
Procedure: After students read the play, ask
them about the context of the story. African
Americans faced rigid housing discrimination
in most cities until the 1960s. Black families
could not move to other urban neighborhoods
or the suburbs because of neighborhood
covenants and the threat of violence.
Guide students to look up the meaning of
covenants—restrictions on whom owners
may sell property to.
Courtesy Library of Congress
Students may also be interested in finding out
how Lorraine Hansberry’s family experienced
housing discrimination. Hansberry grew up in
Woodlawn on the south side of Chicago until
the family moved into a white neighborhood
and her father, a real estate broker, filed a lawsuit against a racial covenant that restricted
him from purchasing a home there. He won
his case, Hansberry v. Lee, in the Supreme
Court, but his family faced a racist mob and
experienced what Lorraine Hansberry called
a “hellishly hostile white neighborhood.” In
their discussion of this situation, students
should distinguish between the challenges of
court battles and the reality of mob violence.
Legal victories did not always translate to good
living conditions.
Hansberry was a successful writer who was
able to make her voice heard. A Raisin in the
Sun opened on Broadway in 1959, running
for 530 performances, and Hansberry became
the first black playwright to win the New York
Drama Critics award.
Shift the discussion to literary themes. What
is Hansberry’s central theme? How do her
characters help her state the theme? Do
any of the characters’ names catch students’
attention? Why, for example, might Hansberry
have chosen the names Younger and
Beneatha? What values are central to the play?
How does Mama keep the focus on the most
important value, and how does Walter grow?
Imprint: African American writers and artists
used their art to illuminate black experiences
with discrimination and racial violence. Their
work helped broaden American art in many
genres, and also called attention to social and
economic injustice.
Additional Activity: Students may enjoy
watching the 1961 film version of the play,
with Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee, Claudia
McNeil as Lena, Ruby Dee as Ruth, and Diana
Sands as Beneatha.
National Standards: Language Arts 2:
Students read a wide range of literature
from many periods in many genres to build
an understanding of the many dimensions
(e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of
human experience.
29
Lesson Plan 6
African Americans
Lose Civil Rights
(Grades 5-8)
Time: Two class periods, or one class period
plus homework time
Materials: Student activity sheets; art supplies
Objectives: Students will
• Discuss citizenship gains at the end of
Reconstruction
• List major injustices experienced by black
people during the Jim Crow era
• Create a 1930s civil rights poster to stir
members of the U.S. Senate and House of
Representatives to take action
Procedure: Ask students to review black gains
during Reconstruction and black losses after
President Hayes withdrew federal troops from
the South in 1877. Hayes, a Republican,
lost the popular vote when he ran for the
presidency in 1876, but gained a one-vote
edge in the Electoral College. The race was
too close for comfort, and the parties squared
off to fight for control of the office. Hayes,
however, won the support of southern
Democrats in a backroom deal in which he
promised to end Reconstruction and withdraw
federal troops in exchange for their votes.
The deal was sealed, and so was the fate of
black people across the South.
White supremacy groups resurged, and large
numbers of black people—who had voted, run
for office, and exercised democratic rights for
a decade—were beaten and lynched in large
numbers. New and unconstitutional laws
imposed poll taxes and literacy tests as gateways
to voting, as well as a system of segregation.
Courts supported these laws, and law enforcement looked the other way as mob violence
forced black people into subservience. The
system of segregation and discrimination took
the name Jim Crow, after a stereotypical black
character of the minstrel stage.
Send a student to the chalkboard to list what
class members say they want Congress to do.
They might consider voting rights legislation,
an anti-lynching law, more federal troops sent
to the South to oversee voting and stop racial
violence, and other measures. Students might
also request anti-segregation laws, an end to
the discriminatory hiring that kept African
Americans in menial jobs at extremely low pay,
and more accessible education.
Once the list is complete, ask students each
to choose one or two outcomes to focus on
and create a slogan to gain attention for their
requests. They should then plan drawings or
find existing images they can use. When this
preparation is completed, give students class
or homework time to execute their designs in
finished posters.
Imprint: During this nadir in race relations,
African Americans endured ugly and sometimes fatal experiences. Yet they responded in
positive ways. Leaders founded new organizations to fight against discrimination, like the
National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, the National Urban League,
and the National Council of Negro Women.
These organizations made a strong impact,
gradually chipping away at the foundations of
Jim Crow. Educator and spokesperson Booker
T. Washington, often at odds with writer and
leader W.E.B. Du Bois, tried to work within the
system, supporting education and negotiation.
Black families began to leave the rural South.
Black arts protested the suffering of African
Americans. All these efforts made a longterm impact on the culture and policies of
the nation.
Additional Activity: Allow students class time
to talk about the artistic and content decisions
they made with their posters. How might
these influence the lawmakers?
National Standards: History, Era 6:
Analyze the arguments and methods by which
various minority groups sought to acquire
equal rights and opportunities guaranteed
in the nation’s charter documents. Social
Studies X, Civil Ideals and Practices: Explain
actions citizens can take to influence public
policy decisions. Visual Arts: Students
intentionally take advantage of the qualities
and characteristics of art media, techniques,
and processes to enhance communication of
their experiences and ideas.
Lesson Plan 6
Court Cases
Challenge Laws
(Grades 7-9)
Time: 30-60 minutes
Materials: Student activity sheets
Objectives: Students will
• List dates of court decisions
• Summarize outcomes of court decisions
• Create a timeline of court decisions
Procedure: Guide students to discuss court
cases. Through early court cases, many
black citizenship rights were taken away, and
through later court decisions unjust laws were
struck down. The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People chose to fight
unconstitutional laws over several decades.
NAACP leaders made a decision to attack
segregation systematically, first at the higher
education level and then in public schools. To
read more about this, see John Fleming’s The
Lengthening Shadow of Slavery. The legal
assault, along with direct protest during the
modern Civil Rights Movement, finally spelled
the beginning of the end for segregation and
racial discrimination in the United States.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was brought by
Homer Plessy, a racially mixed Creole living
in New Orleans. He wanted to challenge the
racial segregation on trains, and was arrested
for sitting in a white car. The Supreme Court
decided the case against Plessy and allowed
states to segregate public accommodations by
claiming that they were “separate but equal.”
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas (1954) was a consolidation of several
cases brought by the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People to fight
school segregation. The cases led to the
Supreme Court’s declaration that “separate
but equal” was unconstitutional because in
reality separate was hardly ever equal. The
court required that schools be desegregated.
30
Berea College v. Kentucky (1908) led to a
ruling against Berea College, a racially
integrated school. Kentucky was able to
enforce its law prohibiting schools from
teaching both black and white students.
Murray v. Maryland (1935) was a case argued
by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood
Marshall, who were NAACP litigators.
University of Maryland School of Law had
refused to admit Donald Gaines Murray
because he was African American. The
Maryland Court of Appeals ruled against the
law school, requiring it to admit Murray.
Smith v. Allwright (1944) was a case brought
by Lonnie E. Smith, a Texan. He had been
prevented from voting in a Democratic
primary in Texas. The Democratic Party of
Texas required that all voters in its primaries
be white, and Texas law allowed the party rule
to stand. The Supreme Court ruled in Smith’s
favor, saying his rights had been violated, and
the all-white primaries were ended.
Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) concerned housing
discrimination. A black family named Shelley
purchased a house in St. Louis, but the house
had a restrictive covenant that prohibited its
sale to African Americans. A lower court ruled
against the family, but the Supreme Court
said the covenant violated the Shelley family’s
rights. Thurgood Marshall and Loren Miller
argued the case.
Sweatt v. Painter (1950) was brought by
Herman Marion Sweatt and the NAACP when
he was refused admission to University of
Texas School of Law because of his race.
When he filed the lawsuit, the university set
up a separate law school for him, with a small
number of teachers and a small library. The
Texas state constitution prohibited integrated
education. Sweatt pursued the case, and the
Supreme Court ruled in his favor, saying the
new law school could not be equal to the main
law school and Sweatt’s chances at a good
career in law were jeopardized.
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) was brought by
an enslaved man in St. Louis. Scott had been
taken by his owner to both a free state and a
free territory for extended periods, and Scott
sued for his freedom. The Supreme Court
ruled against Scott, saying that he was not a
U.S. citizen and could not sue in court. The
court added that black men and women were
not and could never be citizens, whether or
not they were enslaved. This ruling later
necessitated the 14th amendment to the Constitution. The court also electrified the nation
by saying that slaveholders could take their
slave property with them to any U.S. territory
without losing ownership.
Williams v. Mississippi (1898) challenged the
state’s right to set up literacy tests and poll
taxes that kept black people from voting. The
Supreme Court upheld the state’s right to
impose these barriers to voting.
Chambers v. Florida (1940) was argued by
Thurgood Marshall on behalf of four men convicted of murder. The Supreme Court ruled
that the men’s confessions had been coerced
and their rights violated. Evidence showed
that the men had been forced to confess.
Cumming v. Board of Education of Richmond
County (1899) was a class action lawsuit
brought by black taxpayers in Georgia, who
were paying school taxes but whose children
were prohibited from using the all-white high
schools of their county. The Supreme Court
said the Board of Education did not have the
funds to educate everyone and had the right to
give preference to white children.
Muir v. Louisville, Park Theatrical Association
(1954) was filed when James Muir, a black
citizen in Louisville, tried to purchase a ticket
for a theatrical production in a city-owned
park and was refused. The Supreme Court
ruled in Muir’s favor, saying that his rights
were violated. This ruling effectively ended
segregation in public accommodations.
When students have completed their worksheets, have each class member arrange the
court cases along a timeline. Ask students
what the timelines show, and elicit that a
cluster of early court cases ruled against citizenship rights for African Americans, but later
cases reaffirmed those citizenship rights. Over
a century, the struggle for legal acknowledgement of black citizenship had come full circle.
Lesson Plan 6
The Three Most
Important Events for
African Americans
(Grades 9-12)
Time: 30-60 minutes
Materials: Student activity sheets
Imprint: Despite the failure of Reconstruction
and the power of Jim Crow, African American-initiated court cases slowly gained legal
acknowledgement of black citizenship. With
funding from the NAACP, lawyers like Charles
Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall
were winning cases against unjust laws.
Objectives: Students will
• Nominate events for a list of the three most
important events for African Americans
since 1900
• Discuss the importance of each nominated
event
• Vote to select three finalist events
Additional Activity: Have students make small
flags with the names of the court cases and
then place the flags on a map of the United
States. What can students conclude about the
geographic distribution of the cases? Why did
NAACP and other attorneys focus mostly on
cases in the South? (Segregation was law in
the South, but customary in the North.)
Procedure: Give students time to complete
the worksheet. After students have written
their answers, begin consolidating the events
students chose in a list on the chalkboard.
Allow volunteers to present arguments in
support of particular events. Can students
identify critically important outcomes flowing
from key events? Conclude the discussion
by allowing students to vote. Use the votes to
determine the three most important events.
List them on the chalkboard along with the
most important reasons for each choice.
National Standards: History, Era 6: Analyze
the role of new laws and the federal judiciary
in instituting racial inequality and in disfranchising various racial groups. Analyze the
arguments and methods by which various
minority groups sought to acquire equal rights
and opportunities guaranteed in the nation’s
charter documents. Explain the origins of the
postwar Civil Rights Movement and the role of
the NAACP in the legal assault on segregation.
Imprint and Additional Activity: Ask students
to identify the imprint of each of the events—
the way each event changed the nation. After
the imprints of the three leading events have
been debated, summarize each imprint in a
sentence on the chalkboard.
Courtesy Library of Congress
National Standards: History, Era 9: Explain
the origins of the postwar Civil Rights Movement and the role of the NAACP in the legal
assault on segregation. Evaluate the agendas,
strategies, and effectiveness of various African
Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and Native Americans, as well as the
disabled, in the quest for civil rights and equal
opportunities.
Participants in the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, DC.
31
For Further Reading
Grades 5-8
Aretha, David. Selma and the Voting Rights Act.
Morgan Reynolds, 2007.
Bausum, Ann. Freedom Riders: John Lewis and
Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights
Movement. National Geographic, 2005.
McDonough, Yona Zeldis, John O’Brien, and
Nancy Harrison. Who Was Louis Armstrong?
Penguin, 2004.
Kasher, Steven, and Myrlie Evers-Williams.
The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic
History, 1954-1968. Abbeville, 2000.
Mendell, David, and Sarah L. Thomson. Obama:
A Promise of Change. HarperCollins, 2008.
Kirchberger, Joe H. The Civil War and
Reconstruction: an Eyewitness History.
Facts on File, 1991.
Micklos, John. African Americans and American
Indians Fighting in the Revolutionary War.
Enslow, 2008.
Lester, Julius, and Tom Feelings. To Be a Slave.
Penguin, 2005.
Bridges, Margo Lundell. Through My Eyes.
Scholastic, 1999.
Myers, Walter Dean, and Jacob Lawrence.
The Great Migration: An American Story.
HarperCollins, 1995.
Levine, Ellen. Freedom’s Children: Young
Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories.
Penguin, 2000.
Byers, Ann, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. African
American History from Emancipation to Today:
Rising Above the Ashes of Slavery. Enslow, 2004.
Somervill, Barbara A. Amistad Mutiny:
Fighting for Freedom. Child’s World, 2005.
McKissack, Patricia C., and Fredrick L.
McKissack. Black Diamond: The Story of the
Negro Baseball Leagues. Scholastic, 1998.
Bial, Raymond. The Underground Railroad.
Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Davis, Burke, and Edward W. Brooke. Black
Heroes of the American Revolution. Harcourt,
1992.
Fitzgerald, Stephanie, Katie Van Sluys, and Derek
Shouba. The Little Rock Nine: Struggle for
Integration. Coughlin, 2006.
Fleming, Alice. Martin Luther King, Jr: The
Voice of Civil Rights. Sterling, 2008.
Freedman, Russell. The Voice that Challenged
a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for
Equal Rights. Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Freedman, Russell. Freedom Walkers:
The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Holiday House, 2006.
Fremon, David. Jim Crow Laws and Racism in
American History. Enslow, 2000.
Glaser, Jason, Charles Barnett, and Tod Smith.
The Buffalo Soldiers and the American West.
Coughlin, 2006.
Stokes, John, Herman Viola, and Lois Wolfe.
Students on Strike: Jim Crow, Civil Rights,
Brown, and Me. National Geographic, 2007.
Sturm, James, Rich Tommaso, and Gerald Early.
Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow.
Hyperion, 2007.
Myers, Walter Dean. Malcolm X: By Any
Means Necessary. Scholastic, 1994.
Yates, Elizabeth, and Nora S. Unwin.
Amos Fortune: Free Man. Puffin, 1989.
Petry, Ann Lane. Harriet Tubman: Conductor on
the Underground Railroad. HarperCollins, 1996.
Rinaldi, Ann. Hang a Thousand Trees with
Ribbons: The Story of Phillis Wheatley.
Harcourt, 2005.
Grades 7-9
Archer, Jules. They Had a Dream: The Civil
Rights Struggle from Frederick Douglass to
Marcus Garvey to Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Malcolm X. Penguin, 1996.
Banfield, Susan. Fifteenth Amendment: AfricanAmerican Men’s Right to Vote. Enslow, 1998.
Griffin, Judith Berry, and Margot Tomes.
Phoebe the Spy. Penguin, 2002.
Haskins, James. Black Eagles: African
Americans in Aviation. Scholastic, 2007.
Clinton, Catherine. The Black Soldier:
1492 to the Present. Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Haskins, James. Separate, But Not Equal: The
Dream and the Struggle. Scholastic, 2002.
Crowe, Chris. Getting Away with Murder:
The True Story of the Emmett Till Case.
Penguin, 2003.
Mayer, Robert H. When the Children Marched:
The Birmingham Civil Rights Movement.
Enslow, 2008.
Morrison, Toni. Remember: the Journey to
School Integration. Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Tillage, Leon Walter, and Susan L. Roth.
Leon’s Story. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000.
Bolden, Tonya. Wake Up Our Souls:
A Celebration of African American Artists.
Harry N. Abrams, 2003.
Hudson, Wade, Sean Qualls, and Marian Wright
Edelman. Powerful Words: More than 200 Years
of Extraordinary Writing by African Americans.
Scholastic, 2003.
McKissack, Patricia C., and Fredrick L.
McKissack. Rebels Against Slavery:
American Slave Revolts. Scholastic, 1996.
Edwards, Judith, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Abolitionists and Slave Resistance: Breaking the
Chains of Slavery. Enslow, 2004.
Hill, Laban Carrick, Christopher Myers, and Nikki
Giovanni. Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of
the Harlem Renaissance. Little, Brown, 2004.
Holliday, Laurel. Dreaming in Color Living in
Black and White: Our Own Stories of Growing
Up Black in America. Simon & Schuster, 2000.
32
Schlissel, Lillian. Black Frontiers: A History
of African American Heroes in the Old West.
Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Schraff, Anne. Wilma Rudolph: The Greatest
Woman Sprinter in History. Enslow, 2004.
Somerlott, Robert. Little Rock School
Desegregation Crisis in American History.
Enslow, 2001.
Sutcliffe, Andrea. Mighty Rough Times I Tell
You: Personal Accounts of Slavery in Tennessee.
Blair, 2000.
Wagner, Heather. Barack Obama.
Facts on File, 2008.
Waldstreicher, David. The Struggle
Against Slavery: A History in Documents.
Oxford University Press, 2002.
Worth, Richard. Harlem Renaissance:
An Explosion of African-American Culture.
Enslow, 2008.
Ziff, Marsha. Reconstruction Following the
Civil War in American History. Enslow, 1999.
For Further Reading continued
Grades 9-12
Beals, Melba Pattillo. Warriors Don’t Cry.
Simon & Schuster, 2007.
Blue, Rose J., and Corrinne J. Naden. The
History of Gospel Music. Chelsea House, 2001.
Cox, Clinton. Undying Glory: The Story of the
Massachusetts 54th Regiment. iUniverse, 2007.
Crowe, Chris. Up Close: Thurgood Marshall.
Penguin, 2008.
Peltak, Jennifer. History of African American
Colleges and Universities. Chelsea House,
2003.
Fields-Black, Edda L. Deep Roots: Rice
Farmers in West Africa and the African
Diaspora. Indiana University Press, 2008.
Rabateau, Albert J. Canaan Land:
A Religious History of African Americans.
Oxford University Press, 2001.
Franklin, John Hope, and Alfred A. Moss.
From Slavery to Freedom: A History of
African Americans. Random House, 2000.
Starrobin, Robert S., and Ira Berlin. Blacks
in Bondage: Letters of American Slaves.
Markus Wiener, 1988.
Franklin, John Hope, and Loren Schweninger.
In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave
Family in the Old South. Oxford University
Press, 2006.
Giovanni, Nikki. On My Journey Now: Looking
at African-American History Through the
Spirituals. Candlewick, 2007.
Washington, Booker T., and Louis R. Harlan.
Up From Slavery: An Autobiography.
Penguin, 1986.
Danakas, John. Choice of Colours: The
Pioneering African-American Quarterbacks Who
Changed the Face of Football. Orca, 2008.
Wexler, Sanford, and Julian Bond. The Civil
Rights Movement. Facts on File, 1993.
Favreau, Marc, Ira Berlin, and Steven F. Miller.
Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk
About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and
Emancipation. New Press, 1998.
Williams, Juan, and Julian Bond. Eyes
on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years,
1954-1965. Penguin, 1988.
Fleming, John. The Lengthening Shadow of
Slavery: A Historical Justification for Affirmative
Action for Blacks in Higher Education. Howard
University Press, 1977.
Halberstam, David. The Children. Random
House, 1999.
Halpern, Rick, and Roger Horowitz.
Meatpackers: An Oral History of Black Packinghouse Workers and Their Struggle for Racial
and Economic Equality. Cengage Gale, 1996.
Wood, Peter. The Black Majority: Negroes in
Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through
the Stono Rebellion. Norton, 1996.
Wood, Peter. Strange New Land:
Africans in Colonial America. Oxford
University Press, 2003.
Adult
Hardy, Sheila, and P. Steven Hardy. Extraordinary People of the Civil Rights Movement.
Children’s Press, 2006.
Hurmence, Belinda. Before Freedom When I Can
Just Remember: Twenty-Seven Oral Histories of
Former South Carolina Slaves. Blair, 1989.
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First
Two Centuries of Slavery in North America.
Harvard University Press, 2000.
Katz, William Loren. Black Indians: A Hidden
Black, Timuel D., DuSable Museum, John
Hope Franklin, and Studs Terkel. Bridges
of Memory: Chicago’s First Wave of Black
Migration. University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Kennedy, Robert F. Jr., and Patrick Faricy.
Robert Smalls, the Boat Thief. Hyperion, 2008.
Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave.
Dover, 2000.
Parker, John P., and Stuart Seely Sprague.
His Promised Land: The Autobiography of
John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor
on the Underground Railroad. Norton, 1998.
Hess, Karen. The Carolina Rice Kitchen:
The African Connection. University of South
Carolina Press, 1998.
Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life inside
the AnteBellum Slave Market. Harvard
University Press, 2001.
Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land:
The Great Black Migration and How it
Changed America. Knopf, 1992.
Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship: A Human
History. Penguin, 2008.
Bennett, Lerone. Before the Mayflower:
A History of Black People. Independent
Publishers, 2008.
Heritage. Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Hahn, Steven. A Nation Under Our Feet:
Black Political Struggles in the Rural South
from Slavery to the Great Migration.
Triliteral, 2005.
Blackmon, Douglas. Slavery by Another
Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black
Americans from the Civil War to World War II.
Knopf, 2009.
Bordewich, Fergus M. Bound for Canaan:
The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad:
America’s First Civil Rights Movement.
HarperCollins, 2006.
33
Soodalter, Ron. Hanging Captain Gordon:
The Life and Trial of an American Slave
Trader. Simon & Schuster, 2007.
Stauffer, John. Giants: The Parallel Lives of
Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
Grand Central, 2008.
Sugrue, Thomas. Sweet Land of Liberty:
The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in
the North. Random House, 2008.
Williams, Juan, Marian Wright Edelman, and
David Halberstam. My Soul Looks Back in
Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience.
Sterling, 2004.
In this 1864 print of the Emancipation Proclamation, there are vignettes of
slavery and freedom, along with an image of rebuilding the South at the bottom.
Courtesy Library of Congress