Video: Read Along "Soldier for Equality: Jose de la Luz Saenz and the Great War" José de la Luz Sáenz (Luz) believed in fighting for what was right. Though born in the United States, Luz often faced prejudice because of his Mexican heritage. Determined to help his community, even in the face of discrimination, he...
Video: Read Along "The Escape of Robert Smalls: A Daring Voyage Out of Slavery" The mist in Charleston Inner Harbor was heavy, but not heavy enough to disguise the stolen Confederate steamship, the Planter, from Confederate soldiers. In the early hours of May 13, 1862, in the midst of the deadly U.S. Civil War,...
Lesson Plan The US Government and Indigenous Peoples before the Trail of Tears, 1770-1839 Government and Civics 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Click to download this five-lesson unit.
Video: Read Along "Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation" Almost ten years before Brown v. Board of Education , Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Mendez was...
Video: Read Along "Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre" Government and Civics Celebrated author Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrator Floyd Cooper provide a powerful look at the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst incidents of racial violence in our nation’s history. The book traces the history of...
Video: Read Along "Bread for Words: A Frederick Douglass Story" Government and Civics Frederick Douglass knew where he was born but not when. He knew his grandmother but not his father. And as a young child, there were other questions, such as Why am I a slave? Answers to those questions might have eluded him but...
Video: Read Along "A Ride to Remember: A Civil Rights Story" A Ride to Remember tells how a community came together—both Black and White—to make a change. When Sharon Langley was born in the early 1960s, many amusement parks were segregated, and African American families were not allowed entry...
Video: Read Along "Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks" Literature Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) is known for her poems about “real life.” She wrote about love, loneliness, family, and poverty—showing readers how just about anything could become a beautiful poem. Exquisite follows Gwendolyn from...
Video: Read Along "The Voice That Won the Vote: How One Woman's Words Made History" In August of 1920, women’s suffrage in America came down to the vote in Tennessee. If the Tennessee legislature approved the Nineteenth Amendment it would be ratified, giving American women the right to vote. The historic moment came...
Video: Read Along "Martin & Anne: The Kindred Spirits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Anne Frank" Anne Frank and Martin Luther King Jr. were born the same year a world apart. Both faced ugly prejudices and violence, which both answered with words of love and faith in humanity. This is the story of their parallel journeys to find...
Video: Read Along "Eliza: The Story of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton" This is a beautiful and informative biography featuring extensive back matter–including information about America’s revolution, the historical relevance of letter writing, and a timeline–and exquisite, thoroughly researched art that...
Interactive Timeline: Fulfilling America's Founding Principles: African American History Government and Civics
Video: Read Along "i see the rhythm" Beginning with the roots of Black music in Africa and continuing on to contemporary hip hop, i see the rhythm takes us on a musical journey through time. We are invited to feel the rhythm of work songs on a southern plantation, to...
Video: Read Along "Before She Was Harriet" This lush, lyrical biography in verse begins with a glimpse of Harriet Tubman as an old woman, and travels back in time through the many roles she played through her life: spy, liberator, suffragist, and more. Illustrated by James...
Video: Inside The Vault Inside the Vault: Robert F. Kennedy's Report on Civil Rights Government and Civics 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ At the end of 1962, President John F. Kennedy asked his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to compile a report on the civil rights enforcement activities of the Justice Department over the previous year. In this report,...
Video: Read Along "The Storyteller's Candle / La velita de los cuentos" Government and Civics This is the story of librarian Pura Belpré, told through the eyes of two young children who are introduced to the library and its treasures just before Christmas. Lulu Delacre's lovely illustrations evoke New York City at the time of...
Video: Book Breaks Amanda Bellows - "The Explorers: A New History of the United States in Ten Expeditions" World History Amanda Bellows’s writing has appeared in the New York Times , the Washington Post , and Talking Points Memo . She currently teaches at The New School in New York City. Order The Explorers at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an...
Lesson Plan The Trail of Tears 5, 6, 7, 8 Historical Background In 1830, under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act directing the executive branch to negotiate for American Indian lands. The act set the tone for President Jackson in dealing with...
Lesson Plan Children’s Attitudes about Slavery and Women’s Abolitionism as Seen through Anti-slavery Fairs 6, 7, 8 Overview Over two days, students will examine the attitudes that children from northern states had about slavery during the 1830s to 1860s and how abolitionists tried to change their way of thinking. They will also explore how woman...
Video: Book Breaks Alex Kershaw - "Patton's Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II" Religion and Philosophy Alex Kershaw is the author of The First Wave: The D-Day Warriors Who Led the Way to Victory in World War II and A venue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris ....
Video: Book Breaks Dayton Duncan & Ken Burns - "Blood Memory: The Tragic Decline and Improbable Resurrection of the American Buffalo" World History Dayton Duncan is an award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker as well as the author of fourteen books. Ken Burns has been making documentary films for almost fifty years. Order Blood Memory at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We...
Video: Book Breaks Kathleen DuVal - "Native Nations: A Millennium in North America" World History Kathleen DuVal is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Order Native Nations at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank...