High School Archives

A Short History of Reconstruction, Updated Edition

Book — Non-fiction. By Eric Foner. 2015. 352 pages.
A people's history view of the Reconstruction era.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Book — Non-fiction. By Richard Rothstein. 2017. 368 pages.
A history of the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments that promoted racial segregation.

Teaching Activity by Richard Rothstein

Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project 4.1

Film. By Adam Jonas Horowitz. 2012. 60 and 87 minutes.
History of the U.S. government's testing of nuclear weapons and fallout on the people of the Marshall Islands.

Rad Women Worldwide (Book) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Rad Women Worldwide: Artists and Athletes, Pirates and Punks and Other Revolutionaries Who Shaped History

Book — Non-fiction. By Kate Schatz. Illustrated by Miriam Klein Stahl. 2016. 112 pages.
Profiles of women who fight for social justice around the world.

First Light

Film. By Upstander Project. 2015. 13 minutes.
Story of forced removal of Native American children in Maine sent to boarding schools.

Papers: Stories by Undocumented Youth

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by José Manuel, Cesar Pineda, Anne Galisky, and Rebecca Shine. Illustrated by Julio Salgado. 2012. 84 pages.
Undocumented youth from around the world tell their stories with simplicity and intimacy in this student-friendly collection.

Now Can We Talk? 40 Years Later

Film. By Lee Anne Bell and Markie Hancock. 2013. 45 minutes.
This DVD and discussion guide offer a powerful way to engage students, teachers, and community groups in honest dialogue about the ongoing problems of racism and what we can do to address them.

Freedom’s Shore

Book — Non-fiction. By Russell Duncan. 1986. 192 pages.
Freedom’s Shore tells the incredible story of Tunis Campbell, a Northern abolitionist minister who heads South after the Civil War to help freedpeople in Georgia.

Harriet Hanson Robinson: “Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls.”

Film clip. Voices of a People's History.
Harriet Hanson Robinson's "Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls" (1898) read by Lili Taylor.

Crossing Ebenezer Creek

Book — Historical fiction. By Tonya Bolden. 2017. 240 pages.
A moving account of the Civil War massacre at Ebenezer Creek in Georgia.

Charles Sumner

Profile. Charles Sumner, Civil War and Reconstruction era politician in the United States.

Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery

Digital collection. This website publishes thousands of “Information Wanted” advertisements taken out by people freed from slavery who are searching for family members who had been sold apart.

The Fog Machine

Book — Fiction. By Susan Follett. 2014. 389 pages.
A young adult novel of historical fiction based on Freedom Summer.

Beaches, Blood, and Ballots: A Black Doctor’s Civil Rights Struggle

Book — Non-fiction. By Gilbert R. Mason. 2007. 227 pages.
Dr. Gilbert R. Mason’s eyewitness account of the fight for racial justice on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi during the civil rights movement.

We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired

Book — Non-fiction. By M.J. O'Brien. 2014. 340 pages.
An up-close study of the story behind the iconic photographs of the Jackson, Mississippi sit-ins.

Teaching Activity by M.J. O'Brien

Lessons from the Heartland: A Turbulent Half-Century of Public Education in an Iconic American City

Book — Non-fiction. By Barbara Miner. 2013. 305 pages.
The history of public education in Milwaukee in the context of the broader story of racism in the rust belt.

Daybreak of Freedom: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Stewart Burns 1997. 392 pages.
A documentary history of the Montgomery bus boycott that reverberates with the voices of those closest to the boycott.

We’ve Got A Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March

Book — Non-fiction. By Cynthia Levinson. 2012. 176 pages.
Tells the story of the 4,000 Black elementary, middle, and high school students who voluntarily went to jail between May 2 and May 11, 1963.

Revolution

Book — Fiction. By Deborah Wiles 2014. 544 pages.
Historical fiction for young adults set in Greenwood, Mississippi during the 1964 Freedom Summer.

Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights

Book — Non-fiction. By Tananarive Due and Patricia Stephens Due. 2003. 416 pages.
An unforgettable story of a mother-daughter journey spanning two generations of Civil Rights struggles.

This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Leslie G. Kelen. 2012. 256 pages.
Presents the Civil Rights Movement through the work of nine activist photographers who lived within the movement and documented its activities by focusing on the student activists and local people who together made it happen.

Faces of Freedom Summer

Book — Non-fiction. Photographs by Herbert Randall. 2001. 132 pages.
A key collection of photographs for teaching about Freedom Summer in 1964 Mississippi.

A Beautiful Ghetto

Book — Non-fiction. By Devin Allen. 2017. 124 pages.
Black life in Baltimore before and after the police murder of Freddie Gray and the uprising it produced, documented through short essays, poetry, and stunning photographs.

COINTELPRO: Teaching the FBI’s War on the Black Freedom Movement

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Rethinking Schools. 29 pages.
Through examining FBI documents, students learn the scope of the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign to spy on, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt all corners of the Black Freedom Movement.

Teaching Activity by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

In Their Own Voice: Activists Tell the History of the Civil Rights Movement

Digital collection. The Library of Congress has launched an online collection of oral history interviews with Civil Rights Movement veterans.