In the small town of Selma, Alabama, in the early weeks of March 1965, a series of marches took place that brought the nation's civil rights struggle to a point of crisis, and that captured the attention of the world.
Strategies for bringing primary sources to bear on social-justice issues are at the centerpiece of a new article from the Library of Congress in the Spring 2015 issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine.
In honor of the 102nd birthday of civil rights legend Rosa Parks, the Library's director of Educational Outreach, Lee Ann Potter, wrote the following post for the main Library of Congress blog about the many cards and letters students wrote for Ms. Parks over the years.
Since 1976, February has been designated as a time to pause and reflect on the experiences and contributions of African Americans. Teaching with the Library of Congress has published many posts that show the impact of African Americans in a wide variety of arenas including the arts, sports, literature, and politics, with a particular focus on work to ensure equal rights for all.
On Thursday, January 22 at 4 PM ET, Teaching Tolerance and the Library of Congress will co-facilitate the first of a series of monthly webinars on teaching and learning about the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Last November, we published a post addressing the controversies associated with Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A recent comment pointed out that Huck's views on slavery are those of the dominant society of the time. Because the post featured a letter from Frederick Douglass as a supplement to the novel, the commenter wondered "why not present the experiences and views of the oppressed rather than the oppressor?" That struck me as an intriguing question, so here are a few places to start exploring those views and experiences with your students.
On Tuesday, October 7, at 7 PM ET, staff from the Library will host a webinar that will engage participants in a model primary source analysis, facilitate a discussion about the power of primary sources for teaching about civil rights issues, and demonstrate how to find resources from Library of Congress.
History is most fascinating when we feel connected to the people who lived in the past. One way to pique student interest is by using primary sources from the Library of Congress -- letters, photographs, and oral histories -- that document real people's lives. The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress recently launched the Civil Rights History Project, a digitized collection of interviews with active participants in the Civil Rights movement and essays about the movement.
Lately, a few of my colleagues and I have been thinking about teaching with fine arts-related primary sources, as we prepare a TPS Journal issue focused on this topic.