Source: Frontline

Watch the story of an Iowa schoolteacher who, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, gave her third-grade students a first-hand experience in the meaning of discrimination.

Grade Level: 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Sociology.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Supreme Court

See how the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave Congress explicit powers to enforce the rights of former slaves in even the most resistant rebel states, was greeted in the South, and how its vague language left it open for interpretation by states.

Grade Level: 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: United States Government. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1850-1877.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Supreme Court

Learn how five lawsuits spurred the Supreme Court to strike down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Consider the Court's assertion that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits only states from denying equal protection, not individual shop or business owners.

Grade Level: 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: United States Government. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1850-1877.

Resource Type: Video

Source: Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil & the Presidency

Discover how the invention of the steam-powered printing press led to the first mass mailing to promote the abolition movement. Learn how Jackson used the power of the presidency to convince postmasters to burn the pamphlets rather than deliver them.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: United States Government. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1801-1861.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Uncover the story of a reign of terror that took place in Elaine, Arkansas in 1919. Learn about the twelve black men chosen by southern whites to take the blame and an African-American lawyer who fought the case to the Supreme Court.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: United States Government. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Watch several video clips to learn how prominent African-American leaders defined the term "black power."

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1945-early 1970s.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Analyze the lyrics of Jimmy Collier's song, "Burn, Baby, Burn", in order to understand the mindset of African Americans during the Watts riots of 1965. Consider how this song differs from the songs that were sung during non-violent protests.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies, The Arts

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1945-early 1970s. Music.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Analyze a song made popular during the Civil Rights Movement. Compare the lyrics to a related song, Hollis Watkins' "Oh Freedom."

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies, The Arts

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1945-early 1970s. Music.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Analyze the lyrics to "Governor Wallace" and learn how African Americans reacted to the assault of peaceful marchers outside Selma, Alabama.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies, The Arts

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1945-early 1970s. Music.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Watch several video clips taken during the 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. Examine speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. and witness the violent encounter when troopers attacked the peaceful marchers on "Bloody Sunday."

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1945-early 1970s.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Review an extended series of clips that includes a news documentary description of the 1960 Nashville lunch counter sit-ins and the recollections of various participants. Identify the motivations of protesters and whites who were present at the time.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Watch as Reverend Jesse Jackson speaks to a church audience in 1983, describing the relationship between African Americans and the Democratic Party. Observe Jackson's charismatic speaking, which helped to increase black voter registration in 1983.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: United States Government. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Examine news clips surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King in the summer of 1968. View one of his last messages, Robert Kennedy's announcement during his election campaign and Jesse Jackson's description of the consequences of King's death.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1945-early 1970s.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Watch a video clip in which Atlanta mayoral candidate Maynard Jackson explains how he feels about Watergate. Learn about Maynard Jackson's platform, and discover why he felt Atlanta needed new leadership.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: United States Government. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Examine alternating video clips of interviews with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, expressing their differing views on the Civil Rights Movement. Compare the differing points of view of these two activists.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Review a song often heard during meetings of the Montgomery Improvement Association's rallies to unite protesters participating in the bus boycott in that Alabama town.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies, The Arts

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1945-early 1970s. Music.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Listen to a song at the March on Washington by legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Explain how the song had been used throughout history, and how Pete Seeger and others changed the lyrics to fit this particular event.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies, The Arts

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Music.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Review a clip of this song, originally written for striking Kentucky coal minors, and explain how the new lyrics were directed toward two groups: sympathetic whites and middle-class blacks who might be afraid to support the movement publicly.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies, The Arts

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Music.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Review this clip of a protest song that made a big impact on public opinion. Explain how the selection of the popular rock and roll tune, combined with the lyrics, turned the tables on pro-segregationist whites.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies, The Arts

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Music.

Resource Type: Video

Source: American Experience

Review the songwriter's description and listen to a clip of a song from the Civil Rights Movement that questions segregation from a child's point of view.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies, The Arts

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Sociology. Music.

Resource Type: Video

Source: NOVA

Explore the life of Percy Julian, an African-American chemist whose remarkable battle to overcome racism failed to interfere with his success as a world-renown chemist.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Science & Tech, Social Studies

Topics: Chemistry. Scientists and Engineers. Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to the observations of a riverboat captain describing the suffering of the "Exodusters" led by Pap Singleton in a migration out of the South into Kansas in the late 1870s.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1870-1900.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Determine Booker T. Washington's strategy around the turn of the 20th century when he publicly accepted disfranchisement and social segregation as long as whites would allow black economic progress.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen as Charles Evers, the first black to hold elected office in Mississippi since Reconstruction, describes the day he and his brother Medgar, along with other local blacks, failed in their attempt to register to vote in 1946.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Identify the strategy of this chief attorney for the NAACP in selecting cases of school discrimination to challenge before the Supreme Court. Describe how this coordinated effort was designed to end educational segregation in the U.S.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Civics: United States Government.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Learn about this pioneering educator of the early 1900s who designed a letter writing campaign to northern sympathizers to raise funds to keep her black school in operation. Listen to an example of one letter and its reply.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this civil rights leader and black WWII veteran tell of returning home--in uniform--and being badly beaten by a group of whites after trying to get a drink of water from a whites-only canteen in a bus station in Georgia.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Consider the event in the life of Ida B. Wells that turned her toward activism. Learn how she was ejected from a first-class railroad car because of her color, even though she had paid a first-class fare.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Learn about Mound Bayou, Isaiah Montgomery's black community that prospered in the Mississippi delta from Reconstruction to World War I. Discover the work that black citizens had to put into the development of the town.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1870-1900.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

View photographs from the Haines Normal and Industrial School, whose founder Lucy Craft Laney's mission was to turn out a generation of women teachers and community leaders who would regenerate the African-American community.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Share the personal recollections of Ned Cobb's daughter, granddaughter and biographer as they describe Cobb's 1952 stand against a foreclosure of a friend's farm, which resulted in his 12-year prison sentence.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1945-early 1970s.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Learn how, in spite of being the first great African-American scholar in America and affluent within the black community, W.E.B. Du Bois still faced the Jim Crow color bar whenever he left that community and entered the white world.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Sociology.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Discover how Walter White, a blond, blue-eyed African American, first felt when he realized what it meant to be black during the Jim Crow years. Learn about his experiences during the riots in Atlanta, Georgia.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Sociology.

Resource Type: Video

Source: History Detectives

Examine items from the largest collection of books, documents, films, music, photographs and memorabilia on African-American history and culture. Watch the collector's son describe how she came to gather this academically significant collection.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Historical Perspective.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as Edwilda Isaac recalls meeting, when she was in college, a girl from Nebraska who had never seen a black person before. Discover how she helped educate a rural midwestern town about racial diversity.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as George Butterfield talks about his uncle dying of wounds from an accident because a white doctor took 8-10 hours to get to the black hospital, while black doctors were afraid to treat him.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to two personal narratives, as WWII veteran James Jones recalls first the emotions of African American soldiers upon seeing Holocaust victims, and then the demeaning treatment of black G.I.s and how they rose above the prejudice.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1929-1945.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as James Nix recalls what happened when his father killed another African American. Consider the justice system at the time, which shrugged off black violence unless it was directed at whites.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: United States Government. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as Maurice Lucas recalls stories told in his family about how Jim Crow affected an uncle's trial and methods used to keep blacks from voting.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as Money Kirby shares a humorous tale of an injured soldier who refused a blood transfusion in fear that his children would be black. Discover how the medics used deception to save the soldier's life.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as Charles Gratton recalls his childhood days and growing up during Jim Crow. Hear him describe his mother's instructions about encountering whites and how he, as a small child, felt about segregation.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as John Volter expresses his opinions about the origins and motivations of the Ku Klux Klan. Compare his ideas with prevailing opinions.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as Olivia Cherry recalls the difficulty she had getting white employers to use her proper name. Describe her efforts to preserve her dignity and identity.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as Thomas Chatmon shares a lesson that he learned during Jim Crow: hard work and honest living rarely made a difference. Investigate how southern whites managed to keep black workers in debt.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to this personal narrative as Wilhelmina Baldwin recounts stories of segregation involving cars, curfews and kids. Uncover the small indignities suffered by blacks during Jim Crow that were designed to undermine confidence and self esteem.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Listen to a report on "Linguistic Profiling," racial identification and discrimination over the telephone. Learn how some people are accused of inferring race and then discriminating against those who "sound" black.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Consider how the justice system applied to African Americans in the south during Jim Crow years. Learn how a young black man was arrested and beaten--for driving a nice car and expressing respect for his mother--and the reason he was released.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: Civil and Human Rights. Civics: United States Government. Cultural Studies: African American Studies.

Resource Type: Video

Source: Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil & the Presidency

Watch as scholars debate whether America's economy in the early 19th century was wholly dependent upon slavery and to what extent Americans today should feel guilt about how the U.S. economy was formed.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Ethics. United States History: 1801-1861.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The War

Learn how race made a difference at World War II recruiting offices and in war production job sites. Watch video clips and hear personal reminiscences of the race-based tensions and how those tensions exploded into violence at the Alabama Dry Dock shipyard.

Grade Level: 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Sociology. United States History: 1929-1945.

Resource Type: Video

Source: Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil & the Presidency

Discover how Andrew Jackson built his vast empire on the backs of those he considered inferior. Learn how the Hermitage, Jackson's home for most of his adult life, was also "home" to an estimated 150 slaves who maintained the property.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Ethics. United States History: 1801-1861.

Resource Type: Video

Source: The U.S. - Mexican War

Explore American anti-war sentiments to understand how slavery rather than Mexican territory became the critical feature of the dispute. Listen to the words of Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau and President Polk to explore both sides of the issue.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Civics: United States Government. Cultural Studies: African American Studies. United States History: 1801-1861.

Resource Type: Video

Source: Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil & the Presidency

Consider whether Jackson should be credited with creation of the plantation-based Old South, which was built on slave labor. Examine arguments that America owes slaves' descendants reparation for their ancestors' contribution to our economic strength.

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Social Studies

Topics: Cultural Studies: African American Studies. Ethics. United States History: 1801-1861.

Resource Type: Video