According to the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) (2008), social studies programs should provide meaningful opportunities for students to view human experience from past, present, and future perspectives. NCSS calls for schools to provide children with a sense of history in order to develop an appreciation of the diverse heritage of the United States. For teachers, this involves actively seeking knowledge from the past and using it to help children retain their own traditions while understanding the way those traditions change, today even more rapidly than ever (Levstik & Barton, 2001). The study reported in this article serves as a model for undergraduate students in elementary education to learn how a historical topic can be investigated by their students. As an effort to create multiple views of the past and as a context for teaching history to children, this study examined preservice elementary teachers' interpretations of interview information that was obtained from individuals who had personal experiences during the Civil Rights movement. The students then developed illustrated narrative accounts of the Civil Rights movement utilizing both research and the interview information, and finally opened a discourse about cultural diversity based upon the historical perspectives that were identified. Through this exploration of the Civil Rights movement, the participants became active agents of meaning-making of their experiences and feelings about the past.