Filter by
text
Literature
Hercules’ Daughter

Young Delia learns a hard lesson from her papa about what it means to be enslaved on George Washington’s plantation.
text
Informational
Charles Henry Langston, Freedom Fighter
Charles Henry Langston was an early abolitionist in Ohio who risked his own safety and freedom to help another man escape slavery.
text
Multimedia
The History of African-American Social Dance

Why do we dance? African-American social dances started as a way for enslaved Africans to keep cultural traditions alive and retain a sense of inner freedom. They remain an affirmation of identity and independence. In this electric demonstration, packed with live performances, choreographer, educator and TED Fellow Camille A. Brown explores what happens when communities let loose and express themselves by dancing together.
text
Informational
Fighting Rebels With Only One Hand
Frederick Douglass argues for African-American participation in the Union army.
text
Literature
Silver Candlesticks
After serving a 19-year sentence, Jean Valjean ends up on the Lord Bishop's doorstep, where he is offered a warm meal and bed to sleep in. Although he steals from the bishop, in the end, he earns redemption and a second chance thanks to the bishop's wise and caring ways.
text
Informational
A Personal Mission: Sammy Younge Jr.

Although raised in a prosperous and prestigious African-American home in Tuskegee, Ala., Sammy Younge found himself drawn most to the civil rights movement. While the cause cost him his life, his actions and determination helped to transform this Southern city.
text
Literature
New Girl in School
This story follows a girl who befriends the first African American to attend High Point Central High School, as a result of desegregation. What begins as an unintended and awkward experience in the cafeteria, becomes a strong and admirable friendship.
text
Literature
Elegy for Peter Norman

In this poem, the speaker recounts his or her shifting view of the white man stoically standing between Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their medal ceremony in Mexico City for the 1968 Olympics.
text
Informational
Experiment in Fairness

Bayard Rustin was an African American leader who worked for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) in the 1940s and 1950s for equal rights for all Americans using nonviolence. In this story, he writes about the struggle for an African American man to order a simple hamburger at a restaurant in the Midwest.