Resource Library
Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.
We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.
Introducing Our US History Curriculum Collection
Draw from this flexible curriculum collection as you plan any middle or high school US history course. Featuring units, C3-style inquiries, and case studies, the collection will help you explore themes of democracy and freedom with your students throughout the year.
Why MLK Encouraged 225,000 Chicago Kids to Cut Class in 1963
Learn about the 1963 Chicago Public School Boycott, when students demanded better schools for black neighborhoods and equal opportunity for all.
Glenn Ligon, Untitled - Four Etchings [B]
This black-on-white etching quotes Zora Neale Hurston's essay "How It Feels to be Colored Me."
Glenn Ligon, Untitled - Four Etchings [C]
In this black-on-black etching, Glenn Ligon uses Ralph Ellison's quote from the prologue of his novel, Invisible Man (1952): "I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus side-shows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only themselves, or figments of their imagina-"
Understanding Implicit Bias: What Educators Should Know
This article, written by Cheryl Staats, was originally published in American Educator.
We Need a New American Founding
Scholar Eddie S. Glaude draws from the history of Reconstruction and the the Civil Rights movement to call for a “new American founding.” This reading is available in Spanish.
"The Anti-Chinese Wall" Cartoon
This 1882 cartoon shows stereotypical imagery of laborers, among whom are Irishmen, an African American, a Civil War veteran, Italian, Frenchman, and a Jew, building a wall against the Chinese.
Aftermath of the Ramaphosa Riots
A child pushes a trolley cart through burnt debris after violent xenophobic clashes at the Ramaphosa informal settlement on the outskirt of Johannesburg on May 21, 2008.
Apartheid Era Sign
The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (passed in 1953) led to signs such as the one shown below.
Challenging Racist Assumptions
This reading contains an excerpt of Horace Mann Bond's response to the racist ideas put forward in Carl Brigham’s A Study of American Intelligence.
Doors to Opportunity
Read about the experiences of two young immigrants to the United States in the late 1800s and how race shaped the kind of education to each of them.
Racism and Intelligence Test Scores
Learn more about the history of intelligence tests and how test results were used to help justify discrimination in the 1900s.