• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Black History Month

Barack Obama

A More Perfect Union: Barack Obama's Race Speech at the National Constitution Center
A high school lesson plan developed by the staff of the National Constitution Center, where Obama delivered his address in March 2008.

Biography.com
Offers a written biography as well as photo gallery and video clips from the Biography television series. Students can take an online quiz to see how much they know about our first African-American president.

Project Vote Smart
Compiles speeches, position papers and campaign data from Obama's senate and presidential races.

Milestones: Barack Obama
An interactive timeline from The New York Times.

Presidential Inauguration Lesson Plans 
NEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) worked together to create a series of instructional guides and activities to help teachers across the country bring the 56th Presidential Inauguration to life in their classrooms.

Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks
Lesson plans on the Montgomery Bus Boycott for middle and upper grades from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Educators can order a free curriculum guide.

National Public Radio Parks Archive
Listen to excerpts of interviews with Parks as well as coverage of her 2005 death.

Rosa Parks Library and Museum
Troy University, Montgomery, Alabama.

Heroes and Their Impact: Rosa Parks
A lesson plan for grades 3-5 from Learning to Give, a civil and philanthropic education project based in Michigan.

Brown vs. the Board of Education

Brownat50: Preserving the Promise
Howard University Law School project Web site includes a chronology and excellent collection of resources on the case.

Looking Back: Brown v. Board of Education
Listen to National Public Radio (NPR) reports of the anniversary with legal correspondent Nina Totenberg and other reporters.

NEA Resources
Horizons of Opportunities: Celebrating 50 Years of Brown v. Board of Education, May 17, 1954-2004.

Supreme Court Decision
Primary document from Findlaw.com.

Other Black History links:

Black History Classroom Guides
From the Biography television series. Subjects include Colin Powell, Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks. Check out the interactive Black History Timeline.

African American Lives
Lesson plans for grades 6-8 and 9-12 from PBS's genealogy series.

Trial of Anthony Burns
The 1854 trail of a fugitive slave in Boston offers authentic local resources for teaching black history.

High school and college students can assume the profile of a fugitive slave and take a simulated trip on the Underground Railway through Bowdoin College's Flight to Freedom Web site. Undergraduate history students created the site, adding notes and plot twists based on slave diaries.

Bridgewater State College sponsors the Hall of Black Achievement with an online gallery of famous African Americans, many with Massachusetts roots and ties: documentary film maker Henry Hampton, scholar W.E.B. Dubois, community organizer Melnea Cass, and others.

The New Bedford Whaling Museum offers a Web page full of prominent African-Americans from southeastern Massachusetts, including William Carney the first black American to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, and inventor Lewis Temple, whose toggle harpoon revolutionized the whaling industry.

MTA Today correspondent Jeff Kelly Lowenstein has assembled this list of histories and videos on diversity.

Each year, the American Library Association honors black authors and illustrators with the Coretta Scott King Awards. Past winners are listed online.

Available on pbs.org, The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords. The online study guide that accompanies this documentary includes sample lessons, a quiz, and transcripts of interviews with prominent black journalists.

Your class can take a virtual tour of Boston's Black Heritage Trail at the Web site of the Museum of Afro-American History in Boston. Start at the Statehouse with the monument to the 54th regiment, then surf past the Smith Court Residences, the Abiel Smith School, and other Boston landmarks of black history.

Boston African American National Historic Site
Take a virtual tour of Boston's Black Heritage Trail or link to online biographies, timelines and resources on local Black history. Topics include the Underground Railroad, Blacks in the Civil War, and (under development) School Desegregation.

Powerful Days in Black and White
Photos of the Civil Rights movement by photojournalist Charles Moore, presented by Eastman Kodak.

U.S. Code: Civil Rights
Searchable copy of the federal law presented by the Legal Information Institute, Cornell University.

On the Front Lines with the Little Rock 9
Games and an essay on the 1957 desegregation battle from PBS for Kids.

African-American Odyssey
A directory to the resources of the Library of Congress related to African-American history in the U.S. including an African-American Pamphlet collection, slave narratives, and materials on Jackie Robinson and gospel music.