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The Reconstruction Era and the Fragility of Democracy

Teaching Guide. By Facing History and Ourselves. 2015.
A collection of lessons, videos, and primary sources to teach about Reconstruction.

Resistance in Paradise: Rethinking 100 Years of U.S. Involvement in the Caribbean and the Pacific

Teaching Guide. Edited by Debbie Wei and Rachel Kamel. 1998. 199 pages.
Readings and teaching ideas for high school students on the Spanish-American War.

Teaching About Asian Pacific Americans: Effective Activities, Strategies, and Assignments for Classrooms and Communities

Teaching Guide. Edited by Edith Wen-Chu Chen and Glenn Omatsu. 2006.
Comprehensive collection of articles and lessons on Asian Pacific American history.

Teaching a People’s History of Abolition and the Civil War

Teaching Guide. Edited by Adam Sanchez. 2019. Rethinking Schools. 181 pages.
Students will discover the real abolition story, one about some of the most significant grassroots social movements in U.S. history.

Who Freed the Slaves (Material) | Zinn Education Project

Timeline on the Civil War and Abolition

Student Handout. By Bill Bigelow. 3 pages.
This timeline can be used as a resource for lessons on the Civil War, President Lincoln, the 54th Regiment, and the end of slavery.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Ballots for Belva: The True Story of a Woman’s Race for the Presidency

Picture book. By Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen. Illustrated by Courtney E. Martin. 2008. 32 pages.
Biography of Belva Lockwood who ran for president in 1884.

The Bobbin Girl

Picture book. By Emily Arnold McCully. 1996. 36 pages.
Historical fiction for upper elementary based on a true story about the Lowell textile workers.

Carter Reads the Newspaper

Picture book. By Deborah Hopkinson. Illustrated by Don Tate. 2019. 36 pages.
This picture book chronicles the young life of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, an Appalachian-born Harvard scholar and advocate for African American history. He founded Negro History Week in 1926 (which grew into Black History Month), the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), and the Journal of Negro History.

Ellen’s Broom

Picture book. By Kelly Starling Lyons. 2012. 32 pages.
Story about a young girl during Reconstruction whose parents are finally able to have a legal marriage while honoring a family wedding tradition.

Kid Blink Beats the World

Picture book. By Don Brown. 2004. 32 pages.
The story of the 1899 strike by the children who sold newspapers on the street for grades K-4.

Pink and Say

Picture book. By Patricia Polacco. 1994. 48 pages.
The narrative of two young boys who meet and help each other during the Civil War. For upper elementary.

Teaching Activity by Patricia Polacco

Pink y Say

Picture book. By Patricia Polacco. 2003. 48 pages.
In Spanish, the narrative of two young boys who meet and help each other during the Civil War for upper elementary.

The Women Who Caught the Babies: A Story of African American Midwives

Picture book. By Eloise Greenfield. Illustrated by Daniel Minter. 2019. 32 pages.
This unique picture book begins with historical background on the work of midwives and then switches to poetry to tell vignettes from lives of midwives during slavery, emancipation, and today.

Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule

Book — Fiction. By Harriette Gillem Robinet. 1998. 144 pages.
Historical fiction featuring 12-year-old Pascal, 8-year-old Nellie, and their older brother Gideon, a Union Army aide, as they claim and farm the land promised to them during Reconstruction.

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Book — Fiction. By Walter Mosley. 2006. 272 pages.
A young boy learns to survive under slavery and struggles for his own liberation with help from a mysterious stranger, Tall John.

African Americans and the Haitian Revolution: Selected Essays and Historical Documents

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Maurice Jackson and Jacqueline Bacon. 2009. 259 pages.
This anthology connects the experience of African Americans and the Haitian revolution.

“All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths about Native Americans

Book — Non-fiction. By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker. 2016. 224 pages.
Deconstructs persistent myths about American Indians rooted in fear and prejudice — an astute and lively primer of European-Indian relations.

All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life

Book — Non-fiction. By Winona LaDuke. 1999.
Native American activists provide testimonies to indigenous efforts to resist oppression and fight both cultural and environmental degradation in the face of U.S. colonialism.

Alligator Bayou

Book — Historical fiction. By Donna Jo Napoli. 2010. 288 pages.
Historical fiction for young adults based on the true story of the lynching of Italian Americans in late 19th century Louisiana.

Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir

Book — Non-fiction and prose. Deborah A. Miranda. 2012. 240 pages.
A compilation of documents, photos, and memoir that recounts the establishment of missions in California and the impact on Indigenous people—then and today.

Teaching Activity by Deborah A. Miranda

The Birchbark House

Book — Fiction. By Louise Erdrich. 1999. 244 pages.
Historical fiction set in the mid-19th century in the Lake Superior area.

Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

Book — Non-fiction. By Brandy Colbert. 2021. 216 pages.
History of Oklahoma including Trail of Tears, Reconstruction, Black towns, Red Summer, Jim Crow, Black and white newspapers, lynchings, Tulsa Race Massacre, and the ongoing fight for reparations and historical memory.

Detail of book cover showing Black laborers and families walking down a dirt road.

Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class

Book — Non-fiction. By Blair L. M. Kelley. 2023. 352 pages.
This book uses personal narratives to highlight the community and networks of resistance that Black laborers built in the face of racism and segregation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Black Men Built the Capitol: Discovering African-American History In and Around Washington, D.C.

Book — Non-fiction. By Jesse Holland. 2017.
Historic sites along the Mall, such as the U.S. Capitol building, the White House, and the Lincoln Memorial, are explored with a focus on the history of African Americans who built them.

Black Reconstruction in America

Book — Non-fiction. By W. E. B. Du Bois. Edited by Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates. 2021. 1097 pages.
Originally published in 1935, Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction was the first book to challenge the prevailing racist historical narrative of the era and in sharp, incisive prose, tell the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the perspective of African Americans.