After a 72-year struggle, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote in 1920. Coupled with the Fifteenth Amendment, which extended voting rights to African American men, the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment transformed the power and potency of the American electorate. This article invites the…

If high school history courses are meant to introduce students to the paradoxes and debates of American history, then they should study the 1619 Project, the authors argue in this article. College history students regularly debate the extent to which slavery was formative to the development of American systems of law, business, medicine, religion…

Octavius Catto was one of the only Black members of Philadelphia's premier scientific organization, the Franklin Institute; principal of the city's foremost school for African Americans, the Institute for Colored Youth; and founder of the Pythians, the baseball team that went undefeated in the Negro league and ultimately crossed "the color…

From statues to picture books, the depictions of suffragists do not always do justice to the complexity of the issues and activists who fought for the 19th Amendment, which provided that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." This…

An inquiry framed around the experience of an enslaved woman, highlighted in a recent film, offers an opportunity for meaningful student engagement with the history of American enslavement.

In the United States, there's a national infatuation with those who have broken barriers--racial, religious, gendered, and so on--and have presumably changed the rules of the game for others. News outlets and history textbooks seem unable to resist a good story of "firstness." Researchers have speculated why this is the case: What better…

"Black history is American history," is a popular phrase used by a multitude of people seeking to legitimate Black history to the general population. The motto is usually a two-fold response to concerns about the disregard of Black history. First, "Black history is American history" is used to criticize (and in some cases…

The examination of the two featured pages of a 1921 House anti-lynching report can facilitate an engaging inquiry into the continued absence of a federal lynching law as well as historical efforts by lawmakers and civic groups to promote justice and change. In the decades between the end of the Civil War and the 1920s, thousands of individuals…

In the early twentieth century in the American South, Black women teachers were especially dedicated to the creation of community and local institutions. They not only supported and taught Black history, but also created key texts that enabled a more accurate accounting of Black history. Educational leaders such as Nannie Helen Burroughs, Mary…

Colson Whitehead's acclaimed book, "The Underground Railroad," follows Cora, a runaway slave seeking the nearly impossible goal of freedom. The fictionalized account of a runaway slave girl resonates with a reading of Harriet Jacobs's true account in "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." One of the most influential works of…

A project-based approach to studying the civil rights movement can stimulate student engagement and their sense of connection to this historic period. The authors taught this project-based learning (PBL) unit on the American civil rights movement multiple times in the past 10 years to classes of middle school, high school general education,…

This article provides a contemporary look at Black history and discusses Black history mandates. The author provides insight into the purpose of this special issue. The article discusses how this special issue on teaching Black history serves several purposes: (1) providing lesson plans and recommended resources for teachers; (2) combining theory…

In 1957, a civil rights organization called Fellowship of Reconciliation created a comic book to teach America's youth about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Entitled "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story," the comic book was enormously successful. John Lewis, a young civil rights activist at the time, recalled that the book was…

The museum community is exceedingly aware that time allotted for teaching social studies shrinks every year. The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is doubly aware that as social studies classroom time shrinks, so do opportunities to explore American history through an African American lens. Knowing this, NMAAHC, and…

For educators, it is imperative to be aware of the effects of racism and to learn how to teach about them to students. The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture NMAAHC's signature workshop, "Let's Talk!", is designed to give educators tools--historical understanding, racial literacy, and pedagogical…