During the month of February, Teaching with the Library will spotlight different resources that support teaching and learning about the achievements and contributions of African Americans throughout U.S. history. This post highlights several primary source sets that teachers may want to incorporate into their practice of honoring Black History Month. Each set includes a brief essay that gives context to the items and helps both teachers and students think about the sources in relationship to the time period and topic.
Selected Primary Source Sets
Civil War Images: Depictions of African Americans in the War Effort
Photographs, prints, and drawings make this set highly visual and engaging for learners of different ages. Teachers might use the set to help students consider both the range of experiences represented in the items as well as the choices photographers and publishers made in how African Americans were depicted.
This set offers powerful primary sources from more than a decade of activism, and includes photographs, manuscripts, oral histories, ephemera, and more. Highlights include Rosa Parks’ handwritten reflections on her arrest for refusing to surrender her bus set to a white passenger, firsthand accounts of the publication of “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” photographs of African American students integrating public schools, and final plans for the March on Washington.
A sense of the scope and scale of the Great Migration, as well as specific lived experiences, are represented in this set. Highlights include oral histories from those who made the migration, maps, photographs, newspapers, and newsreels. Several blog posts also explore ways to teach with sources in the set, including:
- Exploring the Great Migration with Primary Sources in Different Formats
- The Great Migration, the Urban League, and Its Role in Supporting the African American Community
- What Atlases Can Reveal about the Great Migration
- Primary Sources and Agency
Primary sources in this set highlight aspects of various social, political, and cultural changes from the time as well as their legacy today. Items include newspaper articles from the Black press, photographs of African American students attending newly formed schools, political cartoons that capture the backlash to Reconstruction policies, and correspondence between generals overseeing military districts in the South.
This set can help expand learners’ ideas about Rosa Parks, thinking beyond her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Items in the set are from the Rosa Parks Papers, a treasure trove of primary sources that help to humanize a remarkable individual. For more ideas and inspiration related to teaching about Rosa Parks, check out some of these blog posts that feature items from the papers. This post on Expanding Historical Narratives, for example, might inspire ideas for new ways to bring Mrs. Parks’ legacy to students.
We hope these ideas entice you to explore even more primary source sets related to African American history. If you use any of these sets with your students, we’d love to hear about it. Please share your experiences in the comments.
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