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Resources on the African American Experience

11 items

Origins of the Slave Trade
Essay - 2178 Words

Essay

2178 Words

Why did Africa and Europe engage in the slave trade?
Is the Constitution a Proslavery Document?
Activity

Activity

40 Min

Did the Framers of the Constitution draft protections for slavery in the document? Or did they provide mechanisms specifically to put the institution on the path of extinction? Gordon Lloyd and Stuart Leibiger debate this question.
Belinda Sutton, Petition to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1783
Activity

Activity

40 Min

Use this primary source text to explore key historical events.
Methods of Slave Resistance DBQ
Lesson - 1 Activities

Lesson

1 Activities

80 Min

Use this Lesson to have students examine how enslaved men and women resisted slavery during the late 1700s and early 1800s.
80 Min
O. O. Howard and the Freedmen’s Bureau
Essay - 1957 Words

Essay

1957 Words

How did O.O. Howard fight for the rights of recently freed slaves?
To What Extent Did American Principles Become a Reality for African Americans during Reconstruction?
Activity

Activity

40 Min

Reconstruction witnessed some successes in bringing equality, liberty, and justice for African Americans. Brooks D. Simpson and John C. Waugh explore the lasting impact of Reconstruction policies on American principles.
Debating Strategies for Change: Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. Du Bois
Lesson - 2 Activities

Lesson

2 Activities

65 Min

Use this Lesson with the Booker T. Washington, "Speech to the Cotton States and International Exposition," 1895 Primary Source to allow students to analyze and compare arguments for the early African American civil rights movement.
65 Min
Plessy v. Ferguson | BRI’s Homework Help Series
Video

Video

5 Min

How did the odious doctrine of “separate but equal” become legally permissible in the U.S.? This Homework Help narrative explores the story of the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case. Further, analyze how the idea of “separate but equal” violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment through incorporation that was later struck down in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Case championing the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Due to the process of incorporation, the Supreme Court was able to eventually rule that the states had to adhere to the protections listed in the Bill of Rights.
5 Min
An African American man drinks from a water fountain labeled Colored.
Jim Crow and Progressivism
Essay - 2618 Words

Essay

2618 Words

By the end of this section, you will compare the goals and effects of the Progressive reform movement.
The KKK during Reconstruction vs. the KKK in the 1920s
Lesson

Lesson

85 Min

Use this Lesson with the Postwar Race Riots Narrative, The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s Narrative, and Marcus Garvey, "Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World," 1920 Primary Source to highlight the struggles of African Americans during the 1920s.
Rosa Parks sits outside. Martin Luther King Jr. sits in the background.
Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Essay - 2316 Words

Essay

2316 Words

By the end of this section, you will explain how and why various groups responded to calls for the expansion of civil rights from 1960 to 1980.