Black History

A People's Journey, a Nation's Story National Museum of African American History & Culture
On September 24, 2016, the newest Smithsonian museum opened to the public. The National Museum of African American History and Culture houses more than thirty-six thousand items relating to all aspects of African American life and culture. Creating this type of museum was actually proposed in the early twentieth century. Watch a two-hour video of the grand opening ceremony. Explore the collection, visit online exhibits, and see the collection through the eyes of the Museum staff under Many Lenses. This website includes a blog on African American history, and the latest news on the Museum.Z
Topic: History museums Language: English Lexile: 1440 https://nmaahc.si.edu

The Making of African American Identity, 1500-1865 Explore themes of freedom, enslavement, community, identity, and emancipation as your study the African American experience in the time before the Civil War. Investigate where and how they lived in Africa before they were captured and sold. Written narratives, letters, and interviews tell the story of their lives as slaves. Slave markets, slave pens, and auction blocks separated families and sold humans as commodities. Four million of the 4.5 million African Americans were slaves in 1860, with 90% of them living on plantations and farms. Black overseers had diverse relationships with the slaves under their direction.
Topic: African Americans--History--To 1863, Slavery--United States Lexile: 1050 Primary Source Material
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org

The Making of African American Identity: 1865-1917 Newly-freed African-Americans celebrated emancipation, but had to figure out what freedom would mean for their lives. Freedom was a process of leaving the plantation, choosing a name, getting an education, and finding a way to make a living. Lack of money and education forced many to become sharecroppers. Thousands migrated north with the Union troops. It was time to forge a new identity, but stereotypes persisted. Most knew little about their ancestry, but developed a culture of music, dance, and stories. Learn about black leadership, family ties, political action, and voting. Blacks faced segregated public facilities and discrimination.
Topic: African Americans--History--1877-1964, Reconstruction (1865-1876) Language: English Lexile: 860 Primary Source Material http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org

Unpublished Black History Here is a collection of photographs of iconic African Americans taken by photographers
at The New York Times. The photographs come from the archives of the newspaper. Here you will meet and learn about well-known African Americans who have had an impact on politics, music, civil rights, and much more. Along with each of the photographs, there is an article describing the photo’s backstory. This collection was put together in honor of Black History Month.
Topic: African Americans--History Language: English Lexile: 1200 Image collection http://www.nytimes.com

Freedom's Story: Teaching African American Literature and History Through force and humiliation, slaves were forced to complete mind-numbing tasks. Eighteenth century Chesapeake slaves were more likely to be skilled artisans like coopers, carpenters, and blacksmiths. In the 19th century, Southern slaves were more likely to work cotton fields. Investigate slave narratives and trickster tales. Pigmentocracy refers to the distinctions in attitudes toward light and dark African-Americans. Although legally classified as black, light-colored blacks were more often educated or worked indoors. Explore 20th century changes to African-American identity in literature. Investigate the role of jazz, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights movement.
Topic: Slaves, Emancipation, African American Literature Language: English http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org

Filmmaker Explores Meaning of Black History Month In the film, More Than a Month, actor Morgan Freeman says he doesn’t “want a Black History Month; Black history is American history.” The film questions if focusing on Black history only one month out of the year actually separates it from the rest of American history. Dr. Carter G. Woodson started the precursor to Black History Month with ‘Negro History Week’ back in the 1920s. He gathered and documented a history of African Americans, whom he believed had misconceptions about their own history due to the lack of a history to learn from, or a distorted one at best.
Topic: Black History Month, Woodson, Carter Godwin Lexile: 1320 http://www.pbs.org

The Origin and Purpose of Black History Month The founder of ‘Negro History Week,’ Dr. Carter G. Woodson, intended for the observance to eventually fade away because he hoped that Black history would become an integral part of American history. Black history should be relevant year-round, not just one month out of the year. Woodson believed that negative stereotyping could be overcome if white Americans knew the facts about the history of blacks in America. Many people, including Blacks, believe that continuing to observe Black History Month creates a cultural divide and separates Black history from the rest of American history when actually, Black history is American history.
Topic: Black History Month, Woodson, Carter Godwin Lexile: 1230 http://www.nationalcenter.org

Museum of African American History - Living History Timeline Scroll over the different pictures under the title “Welcome to Living History” to hear actual clips pertaining to those events. Click on “The Journey” to enter the timeline
of the Museum of African American History. Double-click on each year to open the events that happened in history pertaining to Africans Americans such as ratifying the 15th Amendment, the Ku Klux Klan Act, Jazz, a distinctly American style of music emerges, the invention of America’s first affordable car – the Model T, founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and much more.
Topic: African Americans--History Language: English Interactive http://www.thewright.org

Africana and Black History Africana and Black History is a digital collection containing thousands of primary sources that range from documents to rare images. Each item in the collection demonstrates or represents an aspect of African American history from the sixteenth century to the present. The opening page provides you with some background information on the Africana and Black History collection and allows you to browse, search, and access the collection's contents.
Topic: African Americans--History Lexile: 1970 Image collection Primary Source Material http://digitalcollections.nypl.org

African American History: Primary Documents Explore this unique collection of primary resources that provides you with a greater sense of African American history. The pieces in the collection are listed in chronological order beginning with Louisiana's Code Noir in 1724 all continuing through to a 2009 Supreme Court decision that violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The collection includes over seventy documents that include acts, laws, and court decision that had significant impacts on African American history.
Topic: Civil rights--History, African Americans--History Lexile: 1060 Primary Source Material http://www.blackpast.org

African American History In 1619 the first slaves came to Jamestown. See how the number of slaves in the U.S. grew from the 1600s to the 1800s and learn about the differences in the treatment of blacks and whites. Read about different laws that were created to control the slave population. These laws were called Slave Codes and were intended to prevent any expression of opposition by slaves. The different ways in which African Americans responded to their treatment under slavery are discussed.
Topic: Slave codes, Slavery--United States Language: English Lexile: 1250 http://www.scholastic.com