Student Activity Sheets and Teacher’s Lesson Plans—Grades 5-12

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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

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by depictions of black life and
pictures of other men who had
contributed to black freedom
and citizenship rights.
Cover, middle: This 1874 print
commemorates the struggle
to pass the 1875 Civil Rights Introduction
Act, and shows the promise of This selection of student activities and lesson as social studies, economics, math, art, and
equality it represented. Seen plans is part of the exhibit project America literature. Included here are a series of six
here are: black Congressman I AM: The African American Imprint. The activity sheets for students in each of three
Robert B. Elliott speaking on age groups: middle school (grades 5-8), junior
exhibit responds to a question asked by
behalf of the bill (center), black
W. E. B. Du Bois in 1903: “Would America high (grades 7-9), and high school (grades
troops in the Civil War (top),
statue of Abraham Lincoln have been America without her Negro people?” 9-12). Accompanying lesson plans include
(left), statue of civil rights Visitors will see a wide-ranging collection of historical background, supplemental activities,
advocate Charles Sumner rare objects, maps, documents, prints, and and alignment with national standards. For
(right), free blacks working on other historical items illustrating the ways each activity, there is also a special section
a black-owned farm (bottom), in which African Americans had a profound about the related imprint made by African
and black soldiers (bottom impact on the nation. Americans. A substantial bibliography con-
left) and sailors (bottom right). cludes this teacher’s guide. The entire package
Unfortunately, much of the These educational materials have been
is available in print form or online from
equality legalized by the Civil designed to prepare your students for a visit
exhibit venues.
Rights Act was nullified to the exhibit, but can also stand alone as a
during the Jim Crow era. history unit with links to other curricula such
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.
 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 main- Hatches are entrances to lower areas, such as the hold
mast holds the main-sail. and captain’s cabin.
The bowsprit is a pole that stretches out over the sea from Cannons are big guns aimed at the sea, for fighting pirates,
the prow of the ship. and ships from anti-slavery nations.
The fore-mast is the second tallest mast of the ship. It The barricado is the thick wall between the captain’s cabin
stands between the main-mast and the bowsprit. and deck. If they fought from behind this wall, the crew
The mizzen-mast is the third tallest mast of the ship, near might hold off a slave mutiny.
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
Coppering protected the hull from destructive worms. women’s prison. It held trade goods as well as food for cap-
tive Africans.
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.
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 Grades
7-9
Activity 1

Who Profits from Slavery?

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.

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Enslaved people used the cotton gin to remove seeds from cotton bolls.

Across the South, slaves tended their owners’ crops. Along to businessmen to buy the ships and outfit them. Factories
the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia, vast fields of rice in Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts
grew. Tobacco was a major crop in Virginia, North Carolina, made rum, iron bars, and trinkets to be traded for captives
Tennessee, South Carolina, and Kentucky. Indigo, a plant on the west coast of Africa.
that yielded a rich blue dye, grew in Maryland, the Carolinas,
After 1808, it became illegal to sell African captives in the
and Georgia. In Louisiana, fields of sugar cane soaked up
United States. But the shipyards continued to build and
the sun.
launch slave ships. Captains still sailed to Africa and bought
After the cotton gin was invented in 1793, cotton became captives, but sold them in the Caribbean. This trade was
the most important southern crop. It quickly spread across against U.S. law, but on the high seas the law was rarely
Georgia and South Carolina. Frontier areas like Tennessee, enforced.
Mississippi, and Alabama were dotted with new cotton
Cotton mills in Pennsylvania and New England used count-
plantations. Some southerners grew rich from the soft,
less bales of southern cotton. By the 1830s, mill owners
fluffy material.
were making good money by selling cotton cloth. In
Northern states made money from slavery, too. In Rhode Massachusetts, men started companies to make the cloth
Island and other areas of New England, shipyards built into clothing. Some of it was even sold to slave owners
slave ships. Workers used lumber from nearby forests, for their workers.
including those of New Jersey. New York bankers lent money
Without slavery, none of this would have been possible.

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 Grades
7-9
Activity 1

An 1830 Map of the United States

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 Grades
9-12
Activity 1

Slavery’s Influence on American Government

Answer the following 6. Of the first five U.S. presidents,
questions to see how much a. Four owned slaves.
you know about slave b. Three owned slaves.
owners’ influence on the c. Only one owned slaves.
structure and laws of the d. None owned slaves.
United States. In each 7. Of the first eighteen presidents (Washington through
question, circle the Grant),
letter of one correct a. Twelve owned slaves at some time.
answer. b. Only four owned slaves while they were president.
c. Nine owned slaves at some time.
1. One prominent rice
d. Sixteen owned slaves while they were president.

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planter was Henry
Laurens. He 8. During the American Revolution, some colonies wanted
a. Owned several to recruit slaves into the Continental Army, but
plantations and a. Massachusetts vetoed the idea.
thousands of slaves. Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner, b. Southerners were opposed to the idea.
b. Served as president was the main writer of the c. Free black men objected.
Declaration of Independence.
of the Second d. a and b.
Continental Congress.
c. Was a slave trader. 9. Spanish Florida gave freedom to escaping slaves who
reached its borders. As a result
d. a, b, and c.
a. South Carolina slaves staged the Stono Rebellion
2. As American leaders wrote the Constitution, they were partly because they wanted to get to Florida.
a. Abolishing slavery in the northern states. b. Andrew Jackson had a Negro Fort in Florida seized
b. Setting up a system of income taxes. and destroyed.
c. Changing America from a place where states had all c. Many slave owners wanted the federal government to
the power to a nation where there was a balance of take control of Florida and return their runaway slaves.
power between the states and central government. d. a, b, and c.
d. a and c.
10. Roger Taney, the Supreme Court justice who decided
3. At the Constitutional Convention, northern states had to the Dred Scott case,
compromise with southern states. Southern states would a. Had owned slaves.
not join the union unless b. Said that neither free nor enslaved black people
a. The Constitution protected slavery. were U.S. citizens.
b. There were no taxes on slaves. c. Said that slave owners could legally take their slaves
c. The slave trade could continue until 1850. into any U.S. territory.
d. a and b. d. a, b, and c.
4. At the time the Declaration of Independence was written, 11. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, he
a. Only one colony did not have slavery. a. Was a slave owner.
b. Only Georgia did not have slavery. b. Wanted to allow slavery into U.S. territories.
c. All American colonies had slavery. c. Said if he could save the Union without freeing
d. Only southern colonies had slavery. slaves, he would.
d. None of the above.
5. Throughout the colonial and early nation periods, many
slave owners 12. Andrew Johnson, a former slave owner,
a. Were elected to local and national office. a. Freed all the slaves in Tennessee.
b. Helped make local and national laws. b. Wanted to befriend the southern states, and allowed
c. Often had more education, money, and power than them to revoke the civil rights of African Americans.
other men in their regions. c. Vetoed civil rights bills.
d. a, b, and c. 4 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. 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
At the time of the slave trade, many West African farmers
embankment around each field. They made a gate in the
knew how to grow rice. They brought this knowledge with
embankment, a gate that could be _____________________.
them to ___________________. Along the coasts of Georgia
and the Carolinas, there were hot, humid areas perfect for When the tide came in, the workers could _______________
growing rice. the fields by opening the gates. When the workers
wanted to drain the fields, they waited for low tide and
Africans did the hard, dangerous work of clearing land for
opened the gates. The ditches carried away the water.
rice fields. First, they cut down bushes and trees in wet,
Enslaved people took 150,000 acres of swampland and
swampy, _________________ areas. Men, women, and oxen
made them into well-tended rice fields.
worked in deep, oozing mud. They stepped carefully to avoid
___________________________. The Africans dug a long

Word List

flood

North America

snakes and alligators

opened and closed

tidal

African Courtesy
Library
American workers of Congress
in a flooded rice field.

Number the tasks below to show how enslaved people grew and harvested rice.

_____ The gates were opened to cover the planted seeds _____ In April, seed was sown into the furrows.
with water.
_____ Workers poured the grain into a mortar and pounded
_____ In the early autumn, workers cut down the rice stalks it to crack open the hulls.
and brought them into the barn.
_____ On the barn floor, the rice stalks dried. Then the
_____ Workers drained the fields over and over to hoe away grain could be separated from the stalks.
the weeds, and then flooded the young plants again.
_____ In early spring, workers used plows to create furrows
_____ Finally, slaves used flat, shallow baskets to toss the for the seed.
rice into the air. The light husks blew away in the
breeze, and the heavier rice fell back into the basket.
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 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. Further-
more, 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.

Cost of South Carolina Rice*

Decade Price in cents

per pound
1730s 1.64
1740s 1.18

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1750s 1.56
1760s 1.58
1770s 1.87
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
Year 1740 1763 1764 1770
Amount 10,000 25,000 35,000 40,000 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.

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 Grades
9-12
Activity 2

South Carolina’s Black Population

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

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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. Land-
owners 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
Use the South Carolina population statistics below to rice field.
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*

Census 1790 1820 1840 1860

Population White Black White Black White Black White Black
140,178 108,895 237,440 265,301 259,084 335,314 291,300 412,320

Mark the following statements with T for true or F for false.

1. ______ Because of the state’s black majority, South 7. _____ By 1850, South Carolina had more
Carolina whites lived in fear of slave revolts. manufacturing workers than any other state.
2. ______ By 1820, South Carolina had more than a 8. _____ Rice growing led to a task system, in which
thousand black college graduates. 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
4. ______ Enslaved people from certain parts of West Africa
frontier areas.
knew how to grow rice. Because of this valuable
skill, some landowners asked slave ship captains 10. _____ African Americans in South Carolina and
to bring them rice farmers. Georgia rice areas were able to keep alive more
of their African culture than black people in
5. ______ Africans were more resistant to malaria than whites.
other parts of the country.
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.

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 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.
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

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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? _____________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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 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 break-
ing story, a profile, or something else?
Can you find quotes from the period?
Choose a main idea. Your teacher will
give you a deadline. The editor says
the story must be between 250 and 500
words.

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Crispus Attucks died in the Boston Massacre in 1770.

Reporter’s Notes
For black people, the goal was freedom. Did black and In New Jersey, some white men did not want to fight.
white men fight side by side? They sent their slaves instead.
Lemuel Haynes fought on Patriot side—wrote poem about New Hampshire allowed slaves to enlist. Connecticut
Battle of Lexington. formed a black regiment—48 men under a white officer.
Black sailors in the Revolution—must get info. Rhode Island black regiment had 250 men. Massachusetts
had a black unit—the Bucks of America. Had its own flag.
Lots of enslaved people ran away from cruel masters & Some states bought slaves and promised freedom if they
joined Continental Army. would serve. But many never got freedom. New York
Who was Agrippa Hull? Get info on Crispus Attucks. recruited slaves, too.
Slave owners did not want black men to carry weapons. Wealthy Virginia men sent their slaves as soldiers rather
Why? than go themselves.
People lived in fear of slave revolts. A German officer at White Plains said American army there
was one-fourth black.
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
In 1778, an army report said there were 755 black men in way around?
army. Many more came later.

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 Grades
9-12
Activity 3

Is Lord Dunmore a War Criminal?

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.

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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 prose-
sold 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 Prosecution The Judge

You must decide what charges to bring. What can you You must know court procedure and rule on objections
prove against Lord Dunmore? Fraud, reckless disregard to make sure the trial is fair. If you fail, the defendant
of human life, or war crimes? You’ll need to find the will have a good chance to overturn any guilty verdict.
definitions of these crimes and examine the evidence. Learn the history, and make sure no witness or officer of
Above all, you’ll need to know the history in detail. the court misstates it.
Whom will you call as witnesses?
Witnesses
The Defense You must know the history to be able to speak as a
You must set up a defense strategy and be ready for what- historical person. Prepare yourself by reading as much
ever charges the prosecution team brings against Lord as you can about Lord Dunmore, the Black Loyalists, and
Dunmore. Be sure you know the all the facts and can show your character’s role. Any error will discredit you on the
your sources. Whom will you call as witnesses? stand, and may allow the guilty to go free or cause an
innocent man to be found guilty.
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?

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 Grades
9-12
Activity 3

Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation

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 ALL
Grades

Activity 4

Visiting an Exhibit: America I AM:

The African American Imprint
In your visit to the exhibit America I AM: The African In the exhibit, you will learn more. There may be a label
American Imprint, you will be a researcher, looking for infor- about your subject. If so, take notes. Perhaps more
mation. By the time you arrive, you will already have chosen important, you will need to investigate the time and place
your subject from the list below on the right. You should in which he or she lived. How did race problems affect
also already have learned a great deal about your subject. black people during the period? How did conditions change
during the period? What did your subject achieve?

Choose a subject from the list below.

John Parker Denmark Vesey
Phillis Wheatley Oliver Hill
Charles Young Katherine Dunham
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W. E. B. Du Bois Charity Adams Earley

Booker T. Washington Barbara Jordan
Ida B. Wells Sister Rosetta Tharpe
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Marcus Garvey Malcolm X

Bert Williams Elizabeth Eckford
Noble Sissle Medgar Evers
Dorie Miller Booker T. Washington
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
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Harriet Powers John Lewis

Dred Scott Fred Shuttlesworth
Duke Ellington Carter G. Woodson
Phillis Wheatley Fannie Lou Hamer Henry Flipper Charles Hamilton Houston
Boston King Mary McLeod Bethune
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.

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 Grades
5-8
Activity 5

African Americans Begin to

Leave the Rural South
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.

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Do the children in this picture have electricity in their How is this city apartment different from the rural home
home? How is their home heated? Where are their meals shown to the left ?
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?

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Many black families worked picking cotton in the South. The man in the picture above is working in a factory
Can you explain why some of the people in the picture are that makes parts for airplanes. Why do you think people
carrying long cloth bags? preferred factory work to farm work?

13
 Grades
5-8
Activity 5
African Americans Begin to Leave the Rural South continued

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Courtesy Library of Congress

What do you notice about this rural black school in Georgia? How is this school in Washington, DC different from the
What do you see underneath the school on the right? rural school to the left?
How do you think the school is heated in the winter?

List below some of the reasons African Americans may have had for leaving the rural South.

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 Grades
7-9
Activity 5

African Americans Move into Cities

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.

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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 _____ factories and offices, but they were often paid less
center for musicians, than whites.
3. African Americans were segregated into black _____ for places to worship.
neighborhoods, where they paid very high
_____ began to print more positive, realistic images of
4. Major league baseball teams barred black players in the 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 _____ and the Lindy Hop. Whites learned the dances, which
Americans looked were becoming wildly popular.
7. During World War II, black newspapers began the _____ rent for small, crowded apartments.
Double V Campaign. Black people wanted to fight for
victory overseas _____ news stories about the black community.
8. Black Broadway shows included black dances like _____ artists, dancers, and writers. Many whites visited
the Charleston Harlem to hear the music and watch dance in the clubs.
9. Black churches helped new migrants _____ AND victory at home against racism.
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
_____ sure African Americans were not excluded from
13. Gospel music was
defense jobs.
14. Musicians like Louis Armstrong helped create jazz and
carry _____ created in black churches.

15. Stereotypical images of blacks were crude and negative. _____ find apartments, get food, and look for jobs.
But Life magazine
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 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?

4. How does the play expose the racism in American society?

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Ruby Dee played Ruth in the
Broadway production of
5. How does Walter grow? How does his attitude toward money change? 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?

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 Grades
5-8
Activity 6

African Americans Lose Civil Rights

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.
Then southern states began to make laws to take away these
rights. Black people had to pass impossibly difficult tests

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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. Ku Klux Klan members beat, murdered, and terrorized
African Americans.
Black children went to poor schools. Black adults could
only get low paying jobs.
Make a 1930s civil rights poster: First, find out more
Worst of all, African Americans lived in fear. White mobs about this time in history, called the Jim Crow Era. Then
could beat or murder people whenever they wanted. Police assume you live in the 1930s and you have permission to
officers would not protect black people. No one stopped a hang a poster in the rotunda of the Capitol. Use words and
lynch mob. 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

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

Courtesy Library of Congress

the United States.
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? 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 ________________________
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________
18
 Grades
9-12
Activity 6

The Three Most Important Events

for African Americans
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.

Courtesy Library of Congress

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
Lesson Plan 1 Lesson Plan 1
The Slave Ship Who Profits
(Grades 5-8)
from Slavery?
Time: 30-60 minutes (Grades 7-9)
Materials: Student activity sheets; historical Time: 30-60 minutes
prints of slave ships (many of these are
available on the Internet). Materials: Student activity sheets; copies of
1830 map of United States included in this
Objectives: Students will package; and art supplies and glue to allow
• Review the history of the slave trade students to create and place pictographs on
• Read vocabulary words and definitions the map.
related to the slave ship Objectives: Students will
• Use vocabulary words to label the parts of • Review what a pictograph is

Courtesy Library of Congress

the ship
• Construct a series of pictographs
• Discuss the spatial organization of the ship
• Read about major products of the American
Procedure: Find and display pictures of slave colonies and states
ships. Then open the lesson by asking students • Place pictographs on a period map to reflect
to explain what the slave trade was. Explain Captive Africans on the slave ship Wildfire
local and regional economies
that, beginning in the 1400s, European trade in 1860
• Discuss regional profits from slavery
with African nations, which formerly included the captain’s quarters and used these to shoot
gold, ivory, pepper, and other goods, now at the Africans as well. The barricado was a Procedure: Begin by asking students what a
began to include a number of human beings. thick wall that usually extended past the ship’s pictograph is. Elicit that it is a small, symbolic
Over time, trade in people became far more railing to overhang the sea. The overhang picture of something that can be placed on a
important than trade in goods. Challenge prevented Africans from climbing around the map or used in a chart. Distribute worksheets,
students to explain why European nations side to attack the seamen from behind. Some maps, and art supplies to students. Have them
wanted to enslave Africans. Elicit that there students may know about the Amistad, the make pictographs of the products listed in the
was a need for labor to clear wilderness areas ship where captives staged a successful slave introduction to Activity 1.
and grow marketable crops in European rebellion, and there may have been others not Next, ask students which regions of the United
countries’ new colonies in the Western recorded in history. States profited from slavery. Some students
Hemisphere. Enslaved Africans were sold may assert that the South profited, but others
Imprint: Perhaps the most important fact
in South America, Central America, the may argue that the North profited as well.
about the slave ship is what students cannot
Caribbean, and North America. About three To learn specifics, students will read the text
see in the diagram. Despite suffering and loss,
to five percent of African captives came to on the worksheet. Based on the information
Africans succeeded in bringing with them a
British North America. in the text, students will begin placing and
treasury of culture. Together, Africans (and
Africans worked side by side with, and eventu- later African Americans), Europeans, and pasting down their pictographs. Because of
ally replaced, white indentured servants and Native Americans created a new culture that the small size of New England states, students
enslaved Indians. Neither whites nor Native would become American culture. African should feel free to treat them as a single
Americans were available in large enough culture would powerfully influence the devel- region, rather trying to paste a number of
numbers to clear land and grow crops on large opment of American culture over the coming pictographs into the tiny individual north-
plantations. Indentured whites came to North centuries. Music, dance, foodways, story telling, eastern states.
America in relatively small numbers, and In- worship practices, artistic vision, agricultural Initiate a discussion to reinforce content.
dian populations were greatly reduced by war methods, work skills, and other African Guide students to consider how and why the
and disease. Also, thousands of Indians were customs and knowledge shaped American life. North’s economy benefited from slavery. Much
sold as slaves to Caribbean plantations. cotton, for example, went to New England
Additional Activities: Encourage students
Distribute worksheets and guide students to to read slave narratives, such as Olaudah mills where it was made into cloth. During the
complete them. Reinforce content by asking Equiano’s, that provide details about how Af- antebellum period, cotton became the nation’s
students how the captives were stowed and ricans were captured, forced onto slave ships, largest export by far. In fact, more than three-
why. Captives were packed tightly in the and brought to the Americas. Students may fourths of the cotton consumed by British
crowded hold of the ship to maximize profits also be interested in seeing a video of the 1997 mills came from the American South. New
for the ship’s owner, but at great cost of life. feature film Amistad, in which the legality of York businessmen marketed and shipped the
Ask students to explain why netting was neces- slavery is weighed against the American ideal cotton overseas.
sary. Why did captives try to leap into the sea? of individual rights. New York banking interests also continued to
Prisoners sometimes found ways to break National Standards: History, Era 2: Why support the slave trade. Slave ships built and
their chains, take up weapons such as pieces the Americas attracted Europeans, why they outfitted in the U.S. continued sailing to Africa
of wood or iron, and attack their captors. brought enslaved Africans to their colonies, right up to the Civil War. But because it was
During slave mutinies, seamen took refuge be- and how Europeans struggled for control of illegal to import Africans into the U.S. after
hind the barricado and fired swivel guns at the North America and the Caribbean.
Africans. Officers retrieved small arms from

20
1808, the ships often sold their human cargoes Alternatively, divide questions into chunks, Amistad and subsequent court case; slave up-
in South America or the Caribbean—often assigning them to teams of students. Send the risings in the colonies; early petitions for the
Rio de Janeiro or Havana. U.S. law prohibited teams to the school library to find the answers. abolition of slavery; individual slaves’ attempts
this as piracy, with a penalty of death, but to escape slavery.
Review correct answers with students. Ask
the law was virtually never enforced—until National Standards: History, Era 2: How the
students if any of the answers surprised them.
the government made an example of Captain values and institutions of European economic
Some students may have been unaware that
Nathaniel Gordon, who was hanged in life took root in the colonies, and how slavery
so many leaders of, first, the colonies and,
1862. You can read the story in Soodalter’s reshaped European and African life in the
second, the United States were slave owners.
Hanging Captain Gordon: The Life and Trial Americas.
Challenge students to analyze what this meant
of an American Slave Trader.
for the structure and laws of the new nation.
Imprint: Guide students to see a central
As the discussion unfolds, you may want to Lesson Plan 2
effect: African Americans, as the major labor
encourage students to examine the Declaration
force of the South, had a powerful shaping
influence on the economy of the entire nation.
of Independence and the Constitution to see Enslaved People Knew
how slavery is reflected in their wording. The
Slavery generated enormous wealth, and
the entire nation benefited from it. For
Declaration of Independence says, for example, How to Grow Rice
“all men are created equal,” but clearly this did (Grades 5-8)
this reason, there were strong supporters
not apply to enslaved people. The Constitution Time: 30-60 minutes
of slavery, and anti-abolitionists, across the
does not mention slavery, but it spells out the
North as well as the South. Materials: Student activity sheets; early prints
compromise between the North and South to
Additional Activity: Divide students into small allow three-fifths of slaves to be counted for of rice agriculture
groups to investigate how the South changed both taxation and representation in Congress. Objectives: Students will
as it expanded westward. Have individual The Bill of Rights says no person can be • Choose words from a list to complete
groups research: how the major slave-grown deprived of life, liberty, or property without sentences in a reading passage about
crops shifted over time; how the slave popula- due process of law. Yet again this did not preparing rice fields
tion changed; how slaves got to new frontier protect enslaved people. Rather, it protects • Place sentences in order to show how
areas like Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas; the slave owner, because slaves were seen in enslaved people grew rice in America
and what sorts of work enslaved people did in law as property rather than people.
cities, where there were no plantations. • Discuss how black labor made landowners
As students discuss the Constitution, you may rich and helped build the foundation of
National Standards: History, Era 2: How the want to remind them that the three-fifths the nation
values and institutions of European economic clause applied to both the North and South,
life took root in the colonies, and how slavery Procedure: Distribute activity sheets and
but was tremendously more important to the
reshaped European and African life in the give students time to complete them. Provide
South. Slavery was dwindling in the North,
Americas. Social Studies III, People, Places, pictures of rice cultivation, so the class will be
while the South had a large and profitable
& Environments: Create, interpret, use, and able to interpret the worksheet visually. You
slave population.
distinguish various representations of the may want, in particular, to print out two free
Ask students to theorize how the founding Library of Congress images. Go to www.loc.
earth, such as maps, globes, and photographs.
fathers reconciled their vision of a democracy gov, then to library catalogs, then to the
with slavery. Write students’ statements on Prints and Photographs division. Insert titles
Lesson Plan 1 the chalkboard, and work with students to of prints into the search box:
reduce and revise so as to end with one ● Rice Culture on the Ogeechee
Slavery’s Influence on sentence about how the creators of the new ● Rice Culture on Cape Fear River.
republic accommodated the deep contradiction
American Government of slavery.
Click on the images to enlarge them, and
choose a high-resolution version for printing.
(Grades 9-12)
Imprint: Slavery contorted the founding Reinforce the worksheet by asking a volunteer
Time: 30-60 minutes, plus homework time fathers’ vision of democracy, and this to explain in his or her own words the process
or library time for research contortion is evident in the early documents of growing rice. Point out pictures that
Materials: Student activity sheets; copies and policies of the new nation. But enslaved illustrate or add information. Extend the
of the Declaration of Independence and Con- Africans rebelled against slavery from the discussion by asking students how salt and
stitution of the United States for reference. beginning. From uprisings on slave ships to fresh water might have met and mixed as the
the early slave revolts in the colonies to the tides rose and fell. Salt water was harmful to
Objectives: Students will
civil rights struggle of the twentieth century, plants, but enslaved people from the rice-
• Complete research to answer multiple- African Americans would push America to
choice questions growing areas of Africa knew how to handle
realize the ideal of liberty in an authentic way. the danger. Fresh water tends to float on top
• Discuss the historical facts they discover
Additional Activity: Assign small groups of of salt water, so workers flooded the fields
• Articulate statements about how the students to research and report on the ways as the tide came in, by lowering gates just
founding fathers envisioned a democracy in which African Americans forced the nation enough to allow fresh water in and keep salt
that included slavery to confront the incompatibility of slavery with water out. When the fields needed to be
Procedure: Distribute worksheets. You may the ideals of liberty: the slave revolt on the drained, the workers opened the gates at
wish to give them out in advance, allowing low tide, to allow water to run out via deep,
students to research answers as homework. wide ditches.

21
 slavery. In a horrific irony, the fruits of feat—converting raw land into rice fields com-
enslaved people’s labor kept them enslaved. plete with canals and embankments so that
Additional Activities: Ask students to find the planted areas could be alternately flooded
pictures of African mortars and pestles as well and drained. The work would impose horrific
as fanner baskets—the tools Africans made to conditions, and whites would not do such
separate the husks from the rice. Find a fanner dangerous work. Enslaved workers converted
basket or use another flat, shallow container to 150,000 acres of swampland into valuable
allow students to practice winnowing rice. agricultural land. In this massive effort, many
workers died, but the landowners got rich.
National Standards: History, Era 2: How the
values and institutions of European economic Moreover, on these large plantations, black
life took root in the colonies, and how slavery culture broadly influenced whites. White
reshaped European and African life in the families were isolated, surrounded by hun-
Americas. dreds of enslaved people. Black nurses raised
white children, and white and black children
played together. Only when whites were old
Lesson Plan 2 enough to leave for boarding school did this
childhood influence lessen. Black music and
Graphing Economic singing provided entertainment for the white
Trends family and its guests. A black cook provided
the food they ate. Often, whites learned black
(Grades 7-9) dances and participated in African-style dance
Time: 30-60 minutes competitions. Black culture was pervasive and
Materials: Student activity sheets; art supplies influential.
for making graphs; maps of West Africa and Take a look at the charts on the worksheet.
coastal South Carolina and Georgia Challenge students to see how the exports rose
Objectives: Students will over time, along with the per-pound sales price
of the product. Then have students represent
• Interpret two sets of data about rice exports
this information visually by creating a bar
Courtesy Library of Congress

and prices
graph of rice exports and a line graph of rising
• Visually represent the data in a bar graph prices.
and a line graph
Imprint: Help students gain insight into the
• Explain the meaning of the graphs in terms
outcome, not only for planters, but also for
Ex-slave Johanna Lesley hulls rice with an of economic wealth
the regional and national economy. Enslaved
African-style mortar and pestle. Procedure: Begin by asking if any students people built the agricultural foundation of the
know how rice is grown. Broaden student un- region and made their owners wealthy. Rice
Some rice planters, like Henry Laurens of derstanding by explaining rice culture in the planters like Henry Laurens and Elias Ball had
South Carolina, owned several large plantations colonies. Show students the Senegambia, the several plantations and thousands of slaves.
and literally thousands of enslaved people. area of West Africa lying between the Senegal They lived lives of leisure, purchased education
Laurens amassed enormous wealth by export- and Gambia Rivers. Africans from this area, for themselves and their family, and became
ing the rice that came to be called Carolina as well as coastal areas, had long and deep involved in politics. This allowed them to
Gold. At the same time, his workers labored experience in growing rice. Because of the shape the laws of their region and nation,
long hours in intolerable conditions. The value of this skill, American landowners from assuring that slavery would be protected.
mortality rate was high, yet enough workers coastal South Carolina and Georgia asked slave
survived to maintain profits. Slavery gave Additional Activity: Students may be inter-
ship captains to bring African rice farmers to
Laurens enough wealth and leisure time to be- ested in reading selections from Edward Ball’s
the Charleston harbor. About 40% of enslaved
come involved in politics. He served as one of Slaves in the Family. Ball descended from
Africans brought to rice growing areas of the
the presidents of the Continental Congresses. wealthy rice planters in South Carolina, and
U.S. in the 1700s came from rice areas of
in the book he researches his ancestors’ lives.
Imprint: Rice exports were one of the pillars Africa. Challenge students to theorize about
He also locates African American relatives
of the young American economy. Enslaved the similarity of the areas in Africa where
descended from the Ball family. The book is
Africans not only carved plantations out of the workers came from and the areas in North
illustrated with photos of Ball’s ancestors, both
wilderness, but also helped build the wealth America where they grew rice.
white and black.
of a new nation. Because of African workers, The low, swampy land where fresh and salt
George Washington, Henry Laurens, Thomas National Standards: History, Era 2: Assess
water met and the tides caused streams to
Jefferson, and others had the education, the contribution of enslaved and free Africans
rise and fall was a prime rice growing area.
wealth, and leisure to work out the details to economic development in different regions
But American planters needed vast numbers
of founding a new nation. They also ensured of the American colonies. Mathematics 10:
of workers to complete a major engineering
that its Constitution and laws would protect Construct, read, and interpret tables, charts,
and graphs.

22
Lesson Plan 2 for example, a worship tradition including
a circle dance and singing, called the Ring
South Carolina’s Shout. They retained their own speech, called
Gullah. They also influenced foodways and
Black Population architecture.
(Grades 9-12)
Additional Activity: Divide students into
Time: 30-60 minutes groups to learn more about the African skills
Materials: Student activity sheets; art supplies and customs that enslaved people brought
to construct bar graph to America. Your students may be interested
in the Ring Shout, methods of rice growing,
Objectives: Students will
foodways, Gullah speech, yard and grave
• Construct a double bar graph of black and decoration, and storytelling.
white population growth in South Carolina
National Standards: History, Era 2: Trace the
• Theorize about the effects of a black
arrival of Africans in the European colonies
majority
in the 17th century and the rapid increase of
• Identify statements about South Carolina’s slave importation in the 18th century. Assess
black majority as true or false the contribution of enslaved and free Africans
Procedure: After students read the text at the to economic development in different regions
top of the activity sheet, challenge them to of the American colonies. Mathematics 10:
create a double bar graph to visually represent Construct and draw inferences from charts,
the growth of black and white population in tables, and graphs that summarize data from

Courtesy Library of Congress

South Carolina from 1790 through 1860. real-world situations.
In comparing the two sets of bars, what can
students conclude? Guide volunteers to state
that both black and white population grew Lesson Plan 3
significantly, but black population grew more
rapidly than white.
This print shows the separation of a family in
a sale of enslaved people.
American Democracy
Ask students to theorize about the potential in the Making
outcomes of a population in which enslaved In addition to lowcountry rice planters, South (Grades 5-8)
people outnumbered free people. Students Carolina had a later elite class—upcountry Time: Homework or library time to complete
may say that the free people would fear slave cotton planters. Cotton wore out the soil activity sheet; 30-60 minutes in class
rebellions, and would make harsh laws to quickly, however, and beginning in the 1830s
thousands of planters were leaving the state Materials: Student activity sheets; a copy of
control the enslaved people. This is what
for new land in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi- the U.S. Constitution with its amendments
happened in South Carolina. In some cases,
slave owners’ fears were realized. The violent ana, Florida, and Texas. Some took their slaves Objectives: Students will
Stono revolt (1739) and the aborted Vesey with them. Many slaves, especially women and • Research voting rights in the United States
revolt (1822) both occurred in South Carolina. children, were sold to traders who marched • Complete a chart about voting
At least 64 people died in the Stono rebellion. them to the new territories in long coffles.
• Compare and contrast voting rights in 1789
Plans for the Vesey revolt were discovered, Have students finish the worksheet by com- with today’s voting rights
and 35 people were hanged for conspiracy. pleting the true and false exercise. All the
Over time, slaves were so oppressed that some Procedure: As homework or library work,
statements are true except #2 and #7. Ask
plotted rebellion, and this led to even harsher have students research voting rights in 1789
students to explain why these statements
measures to control slaves. and in the present. Have students refer to the
cannot be true (South Carolina prohibited
Amendments to the Constitution to determine
Slave owners felt that free blacks were a education for enslaved people, and therefore
which ones expanded voting rights for particu-
dangerous influence on enslaved people, so the did not have a large population of highly
lar groups. In class, ask students how impor-
state passed a law that a slave could only be educated African Americans. The state was
tant voting rights are in a democracy. Elicit
freed by an owner’s successful petition of both also primarily agricultural and so did not have
that voting is crucial to fair treatment for all,
houses of the South Carolina state legislature. large numbers of manufacturing workers.)
because only through voting can groups and
The black majority also meant strong influ- Imprint: Through building rice plantations, individuals sway the law and policy making of
ence from black culture. Remind students African Americans established the economic the nation. Allow students to volunteer their
that whites on large plantations were isolated foundation of the region. There was also a research findings, as recorded on Activity 3.
amidst large numbers of enslaved people. substantial cultural imprint. Rice culture
In 1789, few people actually voted. Two states
Black nurses cared for white children, and was different from other agricultural work in
had not yet ratified the Constitution and so did
black and white children played together. that rice planters used the task system. Every
not submit votes. New York had not decided
Black singing and music entertained the white worker had an assignment and was left alone
who would serve as electors, and so did not
family and their guests. Often, whites watched to complete it. Although the work was long
submit votes, either. In several other states,
black dances and even joined in the dancing and demanding, and the widespread absen-
the legislature and/or governor voted on behalf
as black fiddlers played. Black cooks prepared teeism of owners was generally negative, the
of their populations, so no individuals voted.
the dishes whites ate. Black culture perme- isolation had one good outcome—black people
ated the lives of whites in South Carolina. in South Carolina were able to keep more
of their African heritage alive than enslaved
people in other regions. People maintained,

23
People voted in only four states, but most Imprint: Throughout African American writer must then report the facts without bias.
voters were white men who owned land. history, black people have pushed hard for citi- Discuss bias with students. How can a reader
Some free black men voted, but many of these zenship rights, especially voting rights. People spot bias, and how can a reporter avoid it?
lost the right to vote in later years. who used protest methods to call attention to Class members should begin researching their
Take a moment to remind students that free their lack of rights were sometimes the victims topics in the library or on the Internet right
black people were here from early times. of violence, like Fannie Lou Hamer. When away. They will need to evaluate their sources
Free black people came to North America with African Americans won a victory with the 1965 and take good notes. As they write, they
the Spanish explorers, and some of the first Voting Rights Act, they brought fuller citizen- should remember that news stories are written
enslaved people to arrive (in the 1600s and ship to all ethnic groups across the country. very concisely, with active verbs, interesting
early 1700s) gained their freedom over time. Additional Activity: Ask students to find out quotes, and short paragraphs. They should
what resulted from enhanced voting rights avoid long-winded sentences with abstract
Most women could not vote (a few who owned words. The first paragraph is very important—
property voted for a time in New Jersey), in 1965. Did Congress change? Did state
legislatures change? How did the nation’s laws it must capture the reader’s interest and begin
because national women’s suffrage did not providing information.
come until 1920 with the 19th amendment change? Have students share their findings in
to the Constitution. Young people under 21 class. Find out what students learned from the
did not get the right to vote until 1971 with National Standards: History, Era 4: The reporter’s notes on the worksheet. Guide the
the 26th amendment. White men without extension, restriction, and reorganization of class to see the complexity of black military
land generally got the right to vote as states political democracy after 1800. Social Studies service in the American Revolution. Across
granted universal white male suffrage in the X, Civic Ideals and Practices: Evaluate the the American South, about 100,000 enslaved
first quarter of the 19th century. degree to which public policies and citizen people ran away from their masters in the
behaviors reflect or foster the stated ideals of chaos created by the war. Some sought free-
African Americans got the right to vote with dom without enlisting in either army. Some
the 15th amendment to the Constitution. a democratic republican form of government.
were found and taken back to their owners.
Many black men were able to vote until the Others served on the British or American side
turn of the century. By the 1910s, however, Lesson Plan 3 in hopes of earning their freedom. Free blacks
southern blacks were losing the vote because served as well, perhaps in hopes that the new
of literacy tests, poll taxes, and fear of
retaliation from whites. The Voting Rights
Black Men Help republic, if it survived, would offer freedom
and equal treatment to all its people, including
Act of 1965 ensured that black people across Fight the American enslaved Africans.
the South would have the right to vote.
Many Native Americans did not receive
Revolution Some black soldiers died in combat or of one
(Grades 7-9) of the diseases that ravaged army camps. At
citizenship—with the right to vote—until the end of the war, about 3,000 black Loyalists
1924, and others were not able to vote in Time: Research time at home or in library;
were taken to Nova Scotia with their families
their states until the 1950s or even 1960s. two class periods
by the departing British army. The soldiers
Mexican Americans were granted citizenship Materials: Student activity sheets; examples had been promised their freedom and a piece
in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, of various types of news stories of good land. The land, however, was thin and
which ended the Mexican War. However, rocky, and many families never received it.
Objectives: Each student will
only people who owned property and could Starvation set in, and eventually a number of
read and speak English could vote. White • Review notes about African American
military service in the American Revolution people moved to Sierra Leone in hopes of
supremacy groups instilled fear to keep people a better life.
from voting. Not until 1975 were all Mexican • Identify examples of various types of news
Americans able to vote. stories Many black soldiers on the American side
• Write an article in a news genre suffered greatly as well. They sickened, starved,
Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and froze in camps like Valley Forge. They
Chinese Americans could not vote until the Procedure: After reviewing the worksheet in died in combat. Few enslaved men received
1940s. Many Japanese Americans could not class, explain to students that their interests the freedom they had been promised. Both
vote until the 1950s. are likely to lead them toward four kinds the British and the Patriot sides defrauded
Today, there are still citizens who are barred of stories: the exposé, which uses careful black soldiers.
from voting. Wherever polling places do not investigation and compiled evidence to expose
corruption; the feature story, which uses human Some black soldiers had exciting as well as
have proper ramps, disabled parking, or Braille dangerous experiences. James Armistead
ballots, people with disabilities cannot vote. interest content, story telling, and point of
view, to add depth to a news story; the profile, spied on the British, who thought they had
In all but two states, people who have had enlisted him to spy on the Americans. Colonel
felony convictions are permanently or which tells a story and gives background
information about an individual; the breaking Tye, who fought for the British, commanded a
temporarily prohibited from voting. group of men, led guerilla raids, took prisoners,
story, which provides news as it happens. List
Guide students to see that democracy in 1789 these story types on the chalkboard, distribute and freed slaves. He died from tetanus after he
was very limited, for extraordinarily few people examples, and help students compare and was wounded in the wrist.
had voting rights. Some limitations still exist contrast the stories’ characteristics. After your students have begun their research
today, but matters are much improved. and chosen a news genre in which to write,
If students have not already learned how to
write a basic news story, they can find guidance allow them to share preliminary findings in
at http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/news/ class, get input from classmates, and proceed
index.htm. Emphasize that getting the facts to final copy.
is the first priority for any news writer. A good

24
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.
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.
National Standards: History, Era 3: Demon-
strate the fundamental contradictions between
the ideals expressed in the Declaration of In-
dependence 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

Courtesy Library of Congress

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. Selling a freedman to pay a fine, Monticello, Florida

Lesson Plan 3 Divide students into teams to research the Reorganize the furniture in the room to
immediate results of the document, as well as simulate a courtroom. Allow students to
Is Lord Dunmore the long-term outcomes for black men who conduct the trial over several class periods.
flocked to Lord Dunmore’s regiment, often Demand historical truth throughout the
a War Criminal? bringing their families. Take part of another questioning and testimony. When the jury
(Grades 9-12) class period to summarize findings. Discuss brings in the verdict, ask them to explain
Time: 2-4 class periods black families’ experiences in Nova Scotia and what led them to their decision.
Sierra Leone. What happened to soldiers and Give students latitude for creativity, but
Materials: Student activity sheets; copies of
families who were not taken on board ships make this a graded exercise with a written
Lord’s Dunmore’s Proclamation; furniture for
departing for Nova Scotia? Where did they go? commentary on each student’s contribution
a courtroom—a judge’s desk, witness and jury
chairs, and prosecution and defense tables. After the students have discussed the facts to the class experience.
of the story, move onto the trial experience. Imprint: In responding to Lord Dunmore,
Objectives: Students will
Appoint students to positions on the defense enslaved Africans sent a message about the
• Read Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation team, prosecution team, or jury. Name one meaning of freedom. Patriots said they were
• Identify a crime he may have committed student to portray Lord Dunmore, and another fighting for freedom, but their concept of
• Conduct a trial to determine guilt to serve as judge. Reserve other class mem- freedom included slavery for black men and
Procedure: Both the Continental Army and bers until the prosecution and defense teams women. Dunmore and British military
the British Army took advantage of black determine whom they wish to call as witnesses. commanders, on the other hand, used what
soldiers, breaking promises and defrauding The remaining students will portray those was essentially a bait and switch tactic to
many men. This activity will take a look at the historical characters, and if need be, may each gain enslaved Africans as soldiers for the
specifics of Lord Dunmore’s promises and the portray more than one. Loyalist side. Amid the chaos and injustice,
outcomes for black men and their families. Remind students how critically important it some black families gained freedom, but all
Begin the lesson by asking students what is for them to know the history. They must called attention through their action to the
Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation actually says. investigate in detail not only Dunmore’s role contradictions of democracy with slavery.
List the most important statements on the in the war, but also many of the events and Additional Activity: If there are enough class
chalkboard. Which statement affects African people he affected. Warn students that, no members, appoint one or two to be reporters,
Americans and their owners? What did the matter what role they play, they may not ask writing news stories about the trial. If
statement mean for each group, and why were or answer questions without strict adherence you have a student who can draw well, ask
people so passionate in their reactions? to historical truth. They may be called upon him/her to be a sketch artist for the duration
to show their sources at any time. of the trial.

25
National Standards: History, Era 3: Compare When students submit final projects, allow Some landlords abused the system by paying
and explain the different roles and perspectives a few to read their papers or show their the farmer in scrip, substitute money that
in the war of men and women, including white multi-media pieces to the class. could be spent only at the landlord’s store,
settlers, free and enslaved African Americans, Imprint: Ask students to respond to imprint where prices were high. Scrip kept farming
and Native Americans. Compare the reasons in their projects. How did the subject make a families poor and kept them from moving off
why many white men and women and most lasting impact? the land.
African American and Native Americans re- After a series of bad farming years, with
Additional Activity: Give students a few
mained loyal to the British. Theatre 2: Acting drought, flood, the boll weevil, and falling
minutes of class time to talk about their
by developing, communicating, and sustaining prices of cotton, African American share-
projects. What did they do that they were
characters in improvisations and informal or cropping families moved away from the rural
especially proud of? What would they change,
formal productions. South in large numbers. Many had worked
if they could do their projects over again?
hard and lived near starvation for years.
National Standards: Social Studies VI: Power,
Lesson Plan 4 Authority, & Governance: how people create Often, however, landowners and local gov-
and change structures of power, authority, and ernment tried to keep black workers from
Visiting an Exhibit: governance, so the learner can examine the leaving. Ticket agents at train stations tried to
talk travelers out of their decisions. Sheriffs
America I AM: rights and responsibilities of the individual
in relation to the general welfare. Language pulled black families off northbound trains
The African American Arts 8: Students conduct research on issues and arrested labor agents who were recruiting
blacks for jobs in the North. Towns banned
Imprint and interests by generating ideas and ques-
tions, and by posing problems. They gather, black newspapers that urged sharecroppers to
(All Grade Levels) evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of move to the cities. Families had to plan their
Time: 3-6 hours of the school day sources (e.g., print and non-print texts, arti- departures carefully.

Materials: Student activity sheets; note taking facts, people) to communicate their discover- Photos on the activity sheet tell a visual story
materials ies in ways that suit their purpose about why the families left and what awaited
and audience. them in the cities. Ask students what they ob-
Objectives: Each student will serve about living conditions for the families
• Select a historical figure as a subject and individuals shown. Elicit that, in the first
• Conduct historical research to learn more Lesson Plan 5 picture, the children’s home has no electricity
about the subject
• Find further information, especially
African Americans (see kerosene lamp, iron without a cord). The
fireplace seems to be both the furnace and the
contextual information, in the exhibit space Begin to Leave the place of cooking. The oilcloth tacked to the
wall contains an alphabet and suggests the
• Present information in a well structured
essay
Rural South parents are teaching the children to read—
(Grades 5-8) perhaps because there is no school available.
Procedure: Have each student select a subject The walls were once covered with paper, prob-
Time: 30-60 minutes
from the list on the activity sheet. You may ably newspaper, to keep out the wind, but this
wish to allow students library time for re- Materials: Student activity sheets is now mostly worn away.
search. They should continue the fact-finding Objectives: Students will In another picture, a family is seen in a city
during homework time away from school. • Examine historical photos of rural and apartment. There is a modern range, running
Set age-appropriate paper length and content city life
for your students. Younger students may • Compare and contrast settings in the photos
benefit from submitting a short essay, while • Make observations about why black families
many older students will be capable of moved from farms to urban areas
producing a multi-media documentary with
music, footage, and original creative material Procedure: Distribute activity sheets and
like poems or drawings. ask students to examine the photos carefully.
Point out that three of the pictures depict the
Review students’ note cards midway through life of the sharecropper. Encourage volunteers
the project and give each writer suggestions to describe what sharecropping is.
for improvement. In class, show students how
to create footnotes. Provide examples, and Elicit that sharecroppers lived on a landlord’s
then send students to the chalkboard to create land and raised crops. At harvest time, the
their own footnotes for one or two sources. sharecropper paid rent out of the money
earned from the crops. In many southern
This research assignment will benefit students areas, the crop was cotton.
even if your class cannot visit the exhibit.
If you do take students to see the exhibit, Sharecropping was a harsh system in which
make sure they have completed substantial the landlord was able to depend upon a fixed
Courtesy Library of Congress

research in advance. Encourage them to carry amount of rent every year, while the share-
note-taking supplies and focus on contextual cropper did the work and took all the risk.
information. Back in class, ask students to Sometimes, when the weather was bad, or
share what they learned. insects like the boll weevil attacked the plants,
the farmer and his family had no wages at Tintype of African American Civil War
the end of the year, or actually owed money soldier. African Americans have fought in
every American war.
to the landlord.
26
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 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.
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

Courtesy Library of Congress

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. Morris Brown College baseball team, ca. 1899.
Sharecropper families moved from the rural
South to cities—especially cities in the North Broaden student understanding through
federal judiciary in instituting racial inequality
and West—to find better jobs with better pay, discussion. When African Americans began
and in disfranchising various racial groups.
better homes, and better schools for their moving off the land in the South, they were
Economics 14: Entrepreneurs and other
children. They also wanted the chance to vote, responding to a series of devastating events—
sellers incur losses when buyers do not
and safety from racial violence. flood, drought, the boll weevil’s destruction of
purchase the products they sell at prices high
Imprint: As they moved to cities, especially enough to cover the costs of production. crops, and falling cotton prices. Many families
cities in the North and West, black families moved to cities in the South, where they felt
took black culture with them, changing the less cultural shock and still gained many
cities significantly. African Americans created Lesson Plan 5 advantages. Rising manufacturing offered
newspapers, formed sports teams, brought a jobs, and during World War I, there were
rich tradition of music such as blues and jazz, African Americans additional job opportunities. African
founded new churches, and slowly found a
political voice. By 1960, most American cities
Move Into Cities Americans, once excluded from good jobs,
were now more welcome.
(Grades 7-9)
had large black populations. African Ameri- Similar opportunities beckoned in northern
cans, once mainly a rural people, had become Time: 30-50 minutes
cities, especially Chicago and New York. Black
largely urban. Materials: Student activity sheets families were segregated into neighborhoods
Additional Activity: Allow students computer Objectives: Students will like Bronzeville and Harlem, but made them
time to find more images of African Ameri- • Consider potentially correct ways of into centers of artistic production as well as
cans in the rural South and the urban North. connecting sentence parts havens of shared culture. Black neighborhoods
Guide class members to begin with the vast also grew in cities like Cleveland, Detroit,
• Test answers through research and
archives of the Library of Congress Prints Kansas City, and Los Angeles.
discussion
and Photographs website, but also to use the As they moved into these cities, African
search engine to find other sources. Have • Finalize answers
Americans reshaped them. They played
students share findings in class and make Procedure: Distribute activity sheets and black music like blues and jazz in new clubs,
observations about picture content. allow students to guess correct ways of con- founded new churches including Muslim and
National Standards: History, Era 6: Trace necting sentence parts. Break students into Pentecostal denominations, published black
the migration of people from farm to city small groups and challenge them to test their newspapers like the Chicago Defender and the
and their adjustment to urban life. Account guesses by consulting books and websites, in Pittsburgh Courier, and expanded black pride
for employment in different regions of the either the classroom or the school library. through sports teams and great athletes. The
country as affected by gender, race, ethnicity, Negro Leagues, for example, played games for
and skill. Analyze the role of new laws and the

27
Group image of participants at the 1929 NAACP convention.

large audiences throughout the time period During World War II, the Pittsburgh Courier Lesson Plan 5
(1890s-1950s) when Major League Baseball began the Double V Campaign for victory
excluded black players. overseas against America’s enemies and Lorraine Hansberry’s
victory at home against segregation and
Harlem and other black neighborhoods
became artistic centers, where nightclubs discrimination. Other black papers joined A Raisin in the Sun
the campaign. Women wore the Double V (Grades 9-12)
featured superb black musicians, and black
dances like the Shimmy, Black Bottom, symbol in their clothing and hairstyles. Time: 30-60 minutes; homework time for
Charleston, Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, and Tap. Celebrities sympathized, and their statements students to read A Raisin in the Sun.
Writers like Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, were featured in print. Cities had brought
Materials: Student activity sheets; copies of
Zora Neale Hurston, and Lorraine Hansberry people together in enough numbers to gain
the play
wrote new poetry, novels, and drama. Concert the tools to strengthen their voice.
Objectives: Students will
singers and dancers, actors, and visual artists After students have discussed enough of this
produced new art. Among these were Marian history to verify answers, have the class • Read Lorraine Hansberry’s
Anderson, Katherine Dunham, Paul Robeson, finalize the worksheets and turn them in. A Raisin in the Sun
Aaron Douglass, Augusta Savage, James Van • Answer study questions on Activity 5
Imprint: Moving to cities in the South, North,
Der Zee, and a host of others. Share period and West, African Americans changed the • Discuss answers in class
dance and music with your students through culture of those cities through dramatic new Procedure: After students read the play, ask
film. Two good examples are The Spirit Moves: contributions. Black men and women also them about the context of the story. African
A History of Black Social Dance on Film, consolidated a political voice and began to Americans faced rigid housing discrimination
1900-1986 (2008) and the documentary The make economic changes. in most cities until the 1960s. Black families
Story of Jazz (Masters of American Music)
Additional Activity: Encourage students to could not move to other urban neighborhoods
(2002).
find pictures of black art and artists during or the suburbs because of neighborhood
African Americans also began to find a strong the period. Have a small group report on the covenants and the threat of violence.
political voice through gaining the right to Negro Renaissance. Guide students to look up the meaning of
vote and speaking through editorials in black covenants—restrictions on whom owners
newspapers. Black people were National Standards: History, Era 6: Trace may sell property to.
often excluded from defense jobs, until leader the migration of people from farm to city and
A. Philip Randolph threatened to lead a their adjustment to urban life. Trace patterns
massive protest against job discrimination in of immigrant settlement in different regions of
Washington DC. Fearing for the U.S. image the country and how new immigrants helped
in other nations, the federal government produce a composite American culture that
agreed to end discriminatory hiring. transcended group boundaries.

28
 Courtesy Library of Congress
Students may also be interested in finding out Shift the discussion to literary themes. What Lesson Plan 6
how Lorraine Hansberry’s family experienced is Hansberry’s central theme? How do her
housing discrimination. Hansberry grew up in characters help her state the theme? Do African Americans
Woodlawn on the south side of Chicago until any of the characters’ names catch students’
the family moved into a white neighborhood attention? Why, for example, might Hansberry Lose Civil Rights
and her father, a real estate broker, filed a law- have chosen the names Younger and (Grades 5-8)
suit against a racial covenant that restricted Beneatha? What values are central to the play? Time: Two class periods, or one class period
him from purchasing a home there. He won How does Mama keep the focus on the most plus homework time
his case, Hansberry v. Lee, in the Supreme important value, and how does Walter grow?
Court, but his family faced a racist mob and Materials: Student activity sheets; art supplies
Imprint: African American writers and artists
experienced what Lorraine Hansberry called used their art to illuminate black experiences Objectives: Students will
a “hellishly hostile white neighborhood.” In with discrimination and racial violence. Their • Discuss citizenship gains at the end of
their discussion of this situation, students work helped broaden American art in many Reconstruction
should distinguish between the challenges of genres, and also called attention to social and • List major injustices experienced by black
court battles and the reality of mob violence. economic injustice. people during the Jim Crow era
Legal victories did not always translate to good
living conditions. Additional Activity: Students may enjoy • Create a 1930s civil rights poster to stir
watching the 1961 film version of the play, members of the U.S. Senate and House of
Hansberry was a successful writer who was with Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee, Claudia Representatives to take action
able to make her voice heard. A Raisin in the McNeil as Lena, Ruby Dee as Ruth, and Diana
Sun opened on Broadway in 1959, running Procedure: Ask students to review black gains
Sands as Beneatha. during Reconstruction and black losses after
for 530 performances, and Hansberry became
the first black playwright to win the New York National Standards: Language Arts 2: President Hayes withdrew federal troops from
Drama Critics award. Students read a wide range of literature the South in 1877. Hayes, a Republican,
from many periods in many genres to build lost the popular vote when he ran for the
an understanding of the many dimensions presidency in 1876, but gained a one-vote
(e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of edge in the Electoral College. The race was
human experience. 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

29
federal troops in exchange for their votes. National Standards: History, Era 6: Berea College v. Kentucky (1908) led to a
The deal was sealed, and so was the fate of Analyze the arguments and methods by which ruling against Berea College, a racially
black people across the South. various minority groups sought to acquire integrated school. Kentucky was able to
White supremacy groups resurged, and large equal rights and opportunities guaranteed enforce its law prohibiting schools from
numbers of black people—who had voted, run in the nation’s charter documents. Social teaching both black and white students.
for office, and exercised democratic rights for Studies X, Civil Ideals and Practices: Explain Murray v. Maryland (1935) was a case argued
a decade—were beaten and lynched in large actions citizens can take to influence public by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood
numbers. New and unconstitutional laws policy decisions. Visual Arts: Students Marshall, who were NAACP litigators.
imposed poll taxes and literacy tests as gateways intentionally take advantage of the qualities University of Maryland School of Law had
to voting, as well as a system of segregation. and characteristics of art media, techniques, refused to admit Donald Gaines Murray
Courts supported these laws, and law enforce- and processes to enhance communication of because he was African American. The
ment looked the other way as mob violence their experiences and ideas. Maryland Court of Appeals ruled against the
forced black people into subservience. The law school, requiring it to admit Murray.
system of segregation and discrimination took Lesson Plan 6 Smith v. Allwright (1944) was a case brought
the name Jim Crow, after a stereotypical black by Lonnie E. Smith, a Texan. He had been
character of the minstrel stage. Court Cases prevented from voting in a Democratic
Send a student to the chalkboard to list what
class members say they want Congress to do.
Challenge Laws primary in Texas. The Democratic Party of
Texas required that all voters in its primaries
(Grades 7-9)
They might consider voting rights legislation, be white, and Texas law allowed the party rule
an anti-lynching law, more federal troops sent Time: 30-60 minutes to stand. The Supreme Court ruled in Smith’s
to the South to oversee voting and stop racial Materials: Student activity sheets favor, saying his rights had been violated, and
violence, and other measures. Students might the all-white primaries were ended.
also request anti-segregation laws, an end to Objectives: Students will
Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) concerned housing
the discriminatory hiring that kept African • List dates of court decisions
discrimination. A black family named Shelley
Americans in menial jobs at extremely low pay, • Summarize outcomes of court decisions purchased a house in St. Louis, but the house
and more accessible education. • Create a timeline of court decisions had a restrictive covenant that prohibited its
Once the list is complete, ask students each Procedure: Guide students to discuss court sale to African Americans. A lower court ruled
to choose one or two outcomes to focus on cases. Through early court cases, many against the family, but the Supreme Court
and create a slogan to gain attention for their black citizenship rights were taken away, and said the covenant violated the Shelley family’s
requests. They should then plan drawings or through later court decisions unjust laws were rights. Thurgood Marshall and Loren Miller
find existing images they can use. When this struck down. The National Association for the argued the case.
preparation is completed, give students class Advancement of Colored People chose to fight Sweatt v. Painter (1950) was brought by
or homework time to execute their designs in unconstitutional laws over several decades. Herman Marion Sweatt and the NAACP when
finished posters. NAACP leaders made a decision to attack he was refused admission to University of
Imprint: During this nadir in race relations, segregation systematically, first at the higher Texas School of Law because of his race.
African Americans endured ugly and some- education level and then in public schools. To When he filed the lawsuit, the university set
times fatal experiences. Yet they responded in read more about this, see John Fleming’s The up a separate law school for him, with a small
positive ways. Leaders founded new organiza- Lengthening Shadow of Slavery. The legal number of teachers and a small library. The
tions to fight against discrimination, like the assault, along with direct protest during the Texas state constitution prohibited integrated
National Association for the Advancement of modern Civil Rights Movement, finally spelled education. Sweatt pursued the case, and the
Colored People, the National Urban League, the beginning of the end for segregation and Supreme Court ruled in his favor, saying the
and the National Council of Negro Women. racial discrimination in the United States. new law school could not be equal to the main
These organizations made a strong impact, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was brought by law school and Sweatt’s chances at a good
gradually chipping away at the foundations of Homer Plessy, a racially mixed Creole living career in law were jeopardized.
Jim Crow. Educator and spokesperson Booker in New Orleans. He wanted to challenge the Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) was brought by
T. Washington, often at odds with writer and racial segregation on trains, and was arrested an enslaved man in St. Louis. Scott had been
leader W.E.B. Du Bois, tried to work within the for sitting in a white car. The Supreme Court taken by his owner to both a free state and a
system, supporting education and negotiation. decided the case against Plessy and allowed free territory for extended periods, and Scott
Black families began to leave the rural South. states to segregate public accommodations by sued for his freedom. The Supreme Court
Black arts protested the suffering of African claiming that they were “separate but equal.” ruled against Scott, saying that he was not a
Americans. All these efforts made a long- U.S. citizen and could not sue in court. The
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
term impact on the culture and policies of court added that black men and women were
Kansas (1954) was a consolidation of several
the nation. not and could never be citizens, whether or
cases brought by the National Association for
Additional Activity: Allow students class time the Advancement of Colored People to fight not they were enslaved. This ruling later
to talk about the artistic and content decisions school segregation. The cases led to the
they made with their posters. How might Supreme Court’s declaration that “separate
these influence the lawmakers? but equal” was unconstitutional because in
reality separate was hardly ever equal. The
court required that schools be desegregated.

30
necessitated the 14th amendment to the Con- When students have completed their work- Lesson Plan 6
stitution. The court also electrified the nation sheets, have each class member arrange the
by saying that slaveholders could take their court cases along a timeline. Ask students The Three Most
slave property with them to any U.S. territory what the timelines show, and elicit that a
without losing ownership. cluster of early court cases ruled against citi- Important Events for
Williams v. Mississippi (1898) challenged the zenship rights for African Americans, but later
cases reaffirmed those citizenship rights. Over
African Americans
state’s right to set up literacy tests and poll (Grades 9-12)
taxes that kept black people from voting. The a century, the struggle for legal acknowledge-
ment of black citizenship had come full circle. Time: 30-60 minutes
Supreme Court upheld the state’s right to
impose these barriers to voting. Imprint: Despite the failure of Reconstruction Materials: Student activity sheets
Chambers v. Florida (1940) was argued by and the power of Jim Crow, African Ameri- Objectives: Students will
Thurgood Marshall on behalf of four men con- can-initiated court cases slowly gained legal • Nominate events for a list of the three most
victed of murder. The Supreme Court ruled acknowledgement of black citizenship. With important events for African Americans
that the men’s confessions had been coerced funding from the NAACP, lawyers like Charles since 1900
and their rights violated. Evidence showed Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall
• Discuss the importance of each nominated
that the men had been forced to confess. were winning cases against unjust laws.
event
Cumming v. Board of Education of Richmond Additional Activity: Have students make small • Vote to select three finalist events
County (1899) was a class action lawsuit flags with the names of the court cases and
then place the flags on a map of the United Procedure: Give students time to complete
brought by black taxpayers in Georgia, who the worksheet. After students have written
were paying school taxes but whose children States. What can students conclude about the
geographic distribution of the cases? Why did their answers, begin consolidating the events
were prohibited from using the all-white high students chose in a list on the chalkboard.
schools of their county. The Supreme Court NAACP and other attorneys focus mostly on
cases in the South? (Segregation was law in Allow volunteers to present arguments in
said the Board of Education did not have the support of particular events. Can students
funds to educate everyone and had the right to the South, but customary in the North.)
identify critically important outcomes flowing
give preference to white children. National Standards: History, Era 6: Analyze from key events? Conclude the discussion
Muir v. Louisville, Park Theatrical Association the role of new laws and the federal judiciary by allowing students to vote. Use the votes to
(1954) was filed when James Muir, a black in instituting racial inequality and in disfran- determine the three most important events.
citizen in Louisville, tried to purchase a ticket chising various racial groups. Analyze the List them on the chalkboard along with the
for a theatrical production in a city-owned arguments and methods by which various most important reasons for each choice.
park and was refused. The Supreme Court minority groups sought to acquire equal rights
and opportunities guaranteed in the nation’s Imprint and Additional Activity: Ask students
ruled in Muir’s favor, saying that his rights to identify the imprint of each of the events—
were violated. This ruling effectively ended charter documents. Explain the origins of the
postwar Civil Rights Movement and the role of the way each event changed the nation. After
segregation in public accommodations. the imprints of the three leading events have
the NAACP in the legal assault on segregation.
been debated, summarize each imprint in a
sentence on the chalkboard.
National Standards: History, Era 9: Explain
the origins of the postwar Civil Rights Move-
ment 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 Ameri-
cans, and Native Americans, as well as the
disabled, in the quest for civil rights and equal
opportunities.
Courtesy Library of Congress

Participants in the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, DC.

31
For Further Reading
Grades 5-8 McDonough, Yona Zeldis, John O’Brien, and Kasher, Steven, and Myrlie Evers-Williams.
Nancy Harrison. Who Was Louis Armstrong? The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic
Aretha, David. Selma and the Voting Rights Act. Penguin, 2004. History, 1954-1968. Abbeville, 2000.
Morgan Reynolds, 2007.
Mendell, David, and Sarah L. Thomson. Obama: Kirchberger, Joe H. The Civil War and
Bausum, Ann. Freedom Riders: John Lewis and A Promise of Change. HarperCollins, 2008. Reconstruction: an Eyewitness History.
Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Facts on File, 1991.
Movement. National Geographic, 2005. Micklos, John. African Americans and American
Indians Fighting in the Revolutionary War. Lester, Julius, and Tom Feelings. To Be a Slave.
Bial, Raymond. The Underground Railroad. Enslow, 2008. Penguin, 2005.
Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Myers, Walter Dean, and Jacob Lawrence. Levine, Ellen. Freedom’s Children: Young
Bridges, Margo Lundell. Through My Eyes. The Great Migration: An American Story. Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories.
Scholastic, 1999. HarperCollins, 1995. Penguin, 2000.
Byers, Ann, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. African Somervill, Barbara A. Amistad Mutiny: McKissack, Patricia C., and Fredrick L.
American History from Emancipation to Today: Fighting for Freedom. Child’s World, 2005. McKissack. Black Diamond: The Story of the
Rising Above the Ashes of Slavery. Enslow, 2004. Negro Baseball Leagues. Scholastic, 1998.
Stokes, John, Herman Viola, and Lois Wolfe.
Davis, Burke, and Edward W. Brooke. Black Students on Strike: Jim Crow, Civil Rights, McKissack, Patricia C., and Fredrick L.
Heroes of the American Revolution. Harcourt, Brown, and Me. National Geographic, 2007. McKissack. Rebels Against Slavery:
1992. American Slave Revolts. Scholastic, 1996.
Sturm, James, Rich Tommaso, and Gerald Early.
Fitzgerald, Stephanie, Katie Van Sluys, and Derek Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow. Morrison, Toni. Remember: the Journey to
Shouba. The Little Rock Nine: Struggle for Hyperion, 2007. School Integration. Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Integration. Coughlin, 2006.
Tillage, Leon Walter, and Susan L. Roth. Myers, Walter Dean. Malcolm X: By Any
Fleming, Alice. Martin Luther King, Jr: The Leon’s Story. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000. Means Necessary. Scholastic, 1994.
Voice of Civil Rights. Sterling, 2008.
Yates, Elizabeth, and Nora S. Unwin. Petry, Ann Lane. Harriet Tubman: Conductor on
Freedman, Russell. The Voice that Challenged Amos Fortune: Free Man. Puffin, 1989. the Underground Railroad. HarperCollins, 1996.
a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for
Equal Rights. Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Rinaldi, Ann. Hang a Thousand Trees with
Ribbons: The Story of Phillis Wheatley.
Freedman, Russell. Freedom Walkers: Grades 7-9 Harcourt, 2005.
The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Holiday House, 2006. Archer, Jules. They Had a Dream: The Civil Schlissel, Lillian. Black Frontiers: A History
Rights Struggle from Frederick Douglass to of African American Heroes in the Old West.
Fremon, David. Jim Crow Laws and Racism in Marcus Garvey to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Simon & Schuster, 2000.
American History. Enslow, 2000. Malcolm X. Penguin, 1996.
Schraff, Anne. Wilma Rudolph: The Greatest
Glaser, Jason, Charles Barnett, and Tod Smith. Banfield, Susan. Fifteenth Amendment: African- Woman Sprinter in History. Enslow, 2004.
The Buffalo Soldiers and the American West. American Men’s Right to Vote. Enslow, 1998.
Coughlin, 2006. Somerlott, Robert. Little Rock School
Bolden, Tonya. Wake Up Our Souls: Desegregation Crisis in American History.
Griffin, Judith Berry, and Margot Tomes. A Celebration of African American Artists. Enslow, 2001.
Phoebe the Spy. Penguin, 2002. Harry N. Abrams, 2003.
Sutcliffe, Andrea. Mighty Rough Times I Tell
Haskins, James. Black Eagles: African Clinton, Catherine. The Black Soldier: You: Personal Accounts of Slavery in Tennessee.
Americans in Aviation. Scholastic, 2007. 1492 to the Present. Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Blair, 2000.
Haskins, James. Separate, But Not Equal: The Crowe, Chris. Getting Away with Murder: Wagner, Heather. Barack Obama.
Dream and the Struggle. Scholastic, 2002. The True Story of the Emmett Till Case. Facts on File, 2008.
Penguin, 2003.
Hudson, Wade, Sean Qualls, and Marian Wright Waldstreicher, David. The Struggle
Edelman. Powerful Words: More than 200 Years Edwards, Judith, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Against Slavery: A History in Documents.
of Extraordinary Writing by African Americans. Abolitionists and Slave Resistance: Breaking the Oxford University Press, 2002.
Scholastic, 2003. Chains of Slavery. Enslow, 2004.
Worth, Richard. Harlem Renaissance:
Mayer, Robert H. When the Children Marched: Hill, Laban Carrick, Christopher Myers, and Nikki An Explosion of African-American Culture.
The Birmingham Civil Rights Movement. Giovanni. Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of Enslow, 2008.
Enslow, 2008. the Harlem Renaissance. Little, Brown, 2004.
Ziff, Marsha. Reconstruction Following the
Holliday, Laurel. Dreaming in Color Living in Civil War in American History. Enslow, 1999.
Black and White: Our Own Stories of Growing
Up Black in America. Simon & Schuster, 2000.

32
For Further Reading continued

Grades 9-12 Peltak, Jennifer. History of African American Fields-Black, Edda L. Deep Roots: Rice
Beals, Melba Pattillo. Warriors Don’t Cry. Colleges and Universities. Chelsea House, Farmers in West Africa and the African
Simon & Schuster, 2007. 2003. Diaspora. Indiana University Press, 2008.

Blue, Rose J., and Corrinne J. Naden. The Rabateau, Albert J. Canaan Land: Franklin, John Hope, and Alfred A. Moss.
History of Gospel Music. Chelsea House, 2001. A Religious History of African Americans. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of
Oxford University Press, 2001. African Americans. Random House, 2000.
Cox, Clinton. Undying Glory: The Story of the
Massachusetts 54th Regiment. iUniverse, 2007. Starrobin, Robert S., and Ira Berlin. Blacks Franklin, John Hope, and Loren Schweninger.
Crowe, Chris. Up Close: Thurgood Marshall. in Bondage: Letters of American Slaves. In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave
Penguin, 2008. Markus Wiener, 1988. Family in the Old South. Oxford University
Press, 2006.
Giovanni, Nikki. On My Journey Now: Looking Washington, Booker T., and Louis R. Harlan.
at African-American History Through the Up From Slavery: An Autobiography. Hahn, Steven. A Nation Under Our Feet:
Spirituals. Candlewick, 2007. Penguin, 1986. Black Political Struggles in the Rural South
Danakas, John. Choice of Colours: The from Slavery to the Great Migration.
Pioneering African-American Quarterbacks Who Wexler, Sanford, and Julian Bond. The Civil Triliteral, 2005.
Changed the Face of Football. Orca, 2008. Rights Movement. Facts on File, 1993.
Hess, Karen. The Carolina Rice Kitchen:
Favreau, Marc, Ira Berlin, and Steven F. Miller. Williams, Juan, and Julian Bond. Eyes The African Connection. University of South
Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, Carolina Press, 1998.
About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and 1954-1965. Penguin, 1988.
Emancipation. New Press, 1998. Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life inside
Wood, Peter. The Black Majority: Negroes in the AnteBellum Slave Market. Harvard
Fleming, John. The Lengthening Shadow of
Slavery: A Historical Justification for Affirmative
Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through University Press, 2001.
Action for Blacks in Higher Education. Howard the Stono Rebellion. Norton, 1996.
University Press, 1977. Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land:
Wood, Peter. Strange New Land: The Great Black Migration and How it
Halberstam, David. The Children. Random Africans in Colonial America. Oxford Changed America. Knopf, 1992.
House, 1999. University Press, 2003.
Halpern, Rick, and Roger Horowitz. Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship: A Human
Meatpackers: An Oral History of Black Packing- History. Penguin, 2008.
house Workers and Their Struggle for Racial
and Economic Equality. Cengage Gale, 1996. Adult Soodalter, Ron. Hanging Captain Gordon:
Bennett, Lerone. Before the Mayflower: The Life and Trial of an American Slave
Hardy, Sheila, and P. Steven Hardy. Extra- Trader. Simon & Schuster, 2007.
ordinary People of the Civil Rights Movement. A History of Black People. Independent
Children’s Press, 2006. Publishers, 2008. Stauffer, John. Giants: The Parallel Lives of
Hurmence, Belinda. Before Freedom When I Can Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
Just Remember: Twenty-Seven Oral Histories of Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Grand Central, 2008.
Former South Carolina Slaves. Blair, 1989. Harvard University Press, 2000. Sugrue, Thomas. Sweet Land of Liberty:
Katz, William Loren. Black Indians: A Hidden Black, Timuel D., DuSable Museum, John The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in
Heritage. Simon & Schuster, 1997. Hope Franklin, and Studs Terkel. Bridges the North. Random House, 2008.

Kennedy, Robert F. Jr., and Patrick Faricy. of Memory: Chicago’s First Wave of Black Williams, Juan, Marian Wright Edelman, and
Robert Smalls, the Boat Thief. Hyperion, 2008. Migration. University of Chicago Press, 2005. David Halberstam. My Soul Looks Back in
Blackmon, Douglas. Slavery by Another Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience.
Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. Sterling, 2004.
Dover, 2000. Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black
Americans from the Civil War to World War II.
Parker, John P., and Stuart Seely Sprague. Knopf, 2009.
His Promised Land: The Autobiography of
John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor Bordewich, Fergus M. Bound for Canaan:
on the Underground Railroad. Norton, 1998. The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad:
America’s First Civil Rights Movement.
HarperCollins, 2006.

33
 Courtesy Library of Congress
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.