The Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation invites students to explore the enduring issue of civil rights as it impacts them or those around them in the 2014 "Civil Rights Today" Essay Contest. The contest is open to 12th-grade Texas students. Essays must be submitted by midnight on February 10, 2014. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law … Continue reading Civil Rights Today Essay Contest for Texas 12th Graders
In this activity, students can analyze a Government poster used to recruit recently freed slaves to fight for the Union Army during the Civil War. The poster refers to the Emancipation Proclamation and President Lincoln’s General Order 233, to provide equal pay for Black soldiers and equal protection if they were captured by the Confederacy and became … Continue reading Black Soldiers in the Civil War: A New DocsTeach Activity
Documents from the records of Congress help students understand why the Equal Rights Amendment wasn't ratified, even with its considerable support.
Find resources about John F. Kennedy, his administration, and his assassination from the National Archives.
Abolitionist Elisha Tyson wrote to Congress with details on several kidnapping cases of free African Americans in the North who were sold into slavery under the guise of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. Tyson argued that federal legislation was necessary to address the problem.
Students can see part of Solomon Northup’s story, told in his 1853 autobiography and the new movie, Twelve Years a Slave, in documents found in the National Archives.
Get your students involved in choosing which rights-related document will display in our new exhibition, “Records of Rights,” opening November 8 in Washington, DC.
Today’s post comes from Joel Walker, education specialist at the National Archives at Atlanta. On December 31, 1942, the Counter Intelligence Section of the Seventh Naval District based in Jacksonville, Florida, distributed its monthly summary of subversive activities. On page two of the summary, under the heading "Activities Concerning Negroes," was printed a small paragraph … Continue reading What Effect Did the WWII Fair Employment Practices Commission Have on the Civil Rights Movement?
On August 28, 1963, a quarter million people came to the nation’s capital to petition their duly elected government in a demonstration known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Frustrated by the inaction of a gridlocked Congress, the marchers called for Congress to pass the Civil Rights bill. The size of the … Continue reading We Shall Overcome: Anxiety and Optimism for the March on Washington
A new interactive website created by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and the Kennedy Library Foundation, presents seven key "chapters" in one of the most tumultuous years in civil rights history. Each chapter on 1963: The Struggle for Civil Rights features primary sources that help students dig into the real stuff of history - film footage, documents, … Continue reading 1963: The Struggle for Civil Rights, a New Website
