Historical illustrations reveal more than what they are meant to portray. After reading Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, high schoolers view a series of illustrations, movie posters, photographs, and book covers that exemplify...

Featuring an excerpt from a memoir written by Ruby Bridges telling of her experience as the first African American child to attend an all white elementary school in New Orleans in the year 1960.

A collection that uses primary sources to explore the experiences of African American Soldiers in World War I.

This collection uses primary sources to explore blackface minstrelsy in modern America.

Newspaper articles that illustrate how benevolent and charitable societies fostered racial solidarity among African Americans in late-nineteenth-century America are provided. Links to these articles can be found on the second page.

A journal, an autobiography, and selections from narratives about the conditions experienced by free-born African Americans in the nineteenth century. They ask such questions as: How did African Americans construct identity in antebellum...

Primary source materials that focus on the segregation of African Americans that took place on the railroads in the 1800s. Content includes newspaper articles, anecdotal accounts, letters, legal cases, etc.

Read about James Forten's opposition to Paul Cuffe's American Colonization Society, which sought to recruit African-Americans to emigrate to Africa in the early 19th century. In addition, this site provides a link to the text of Forten's...

This primary source set emphasizes the experiences of African American doughboys during the war while also highlighting how they were perceived by white Americans. Use the sources to determine how racism and patriotism shaped the...

Excerpts from "The Official History of the American Negro in World War I" by Emmett J. Scott, depicting the impact of the Great War on African Americans at home. The doubts that whites voiced about African Americans' loyalty and military...

Two documents, separated by 200 years, depicting the lives of enslaved Gold Coast Africans in 1450 and 1657, and three original accounts by Europeans of the cultural practices of Gold Coast Africans.

A short story and photographs that illustrate the role family played in shaping African American identity in nineteenth-century America. A link to "The Stones of the Village" by Alice Dunbar-Nelson supports this concept.

Chapter from a novel and images that illustrate black political action in late-nineteenth-century America. Frances Harper's 1892 novel Iola Leroy, is examined, covering topics of white supremacy and racial justice.

Two poems that explore the struggles of African Americans in the early-twentieth century. Links to both poems by Fenton Johnson are provided, and illustrate the struggles experienced as black man in white America in the 1910s

Primary resource provides letters, statements, and photographs of free and enslaved African Americans who journeyed to Liberia to establish new lives and identities. Also includes questions for class discussion.

A painting and an appeal that explore the role business played in black uplift in nineteenth-century America. This resource focuses on the work of Edward Bannister (1828-1901), one of the leading black painters of the nineteenth century.

A poem, an address, and a painting that illustrate black political struggle in late-nineteenth-century America. This series of resources characterize "the Negro Problem" as "a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great...

Interviews from the 1930s that reflect on African Americans' experience of the institution of slavery. A narrative with firsthands accounts is linked within this resource.

A Supreme Court decision, a chapter from a novel, and an editorial that explore segregation in late-nineteenth-century America. This resource focuses primarily on Plessy v. Ferguson, and the complexities that followed from this ruling.

A lengthy interview with Mr. Ferguson who was a very early follower of Malcolm X and who was present at the assassination of the famous African American leader.

An autobiographical personal narrative written by the African Olaudah Equiano Gustavus Vassa who lived from 1745-1797.

Here is the original text from Venture Smith's narrative on how he purchased his own freedom and his families, and his life afterwards.

The text of a speech given by abolitionist Angelina Grimke Weld on May 17, 1838.

One hundred and sixty primary sources-historical documents, literary texts, and visual images-that explore the conditions of slavery, the search for identity, the development of a sense of community while enslaved, and the struggles for...