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.
![A group of high school students sit at desks in conversation.](/sites/default/files/styles/scale_480/public/2023-10/AdobeStock_254378868.jpg?itok=f6YAphey)
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.
Black Officeholders in the South
These tables provide data about African American officeholders in the South during Reconstruction.
![Portrait of man seated in suit.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/REC_04a_Blanche_Bruce.jpg?h=b75a1373&itok=WIl27GuK)
Changing Names
Three formerly enslaved people discuss their names and the changes they underwent after Emancipation.
![Men and women dressed up.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Emancipation_Day_celebration_-_1900-06-19.jpg?h=6ea8326e&itok=sLYv2i9o)
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
This is the full text of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which made freedpeople citizens.
![Historical newspaper with headline reading “civil rights bill.”](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/image063.jpg?h=e111bd9d&itok=Y2bjiHOh)
Congress Debates the Fourteenth Amendment
Quotations from the 1866 congressional debate over the Fourteenth Amendment help students clarify what the amendment says and its significance.
![Photo of page 1 of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/Civil_Rights_1868_14th_Amendment_of_the_United_States_Constitution_%20FH21203.jpg?h=4359e9ca&itok=4j99BHvV)
Election Violence in Mississippi (1875)
Robert Gleeds, an African American candidate for sheriff in Lowndes County, Mississippi, describes the violence that occurred on the eve of the 1875 election.
![Cartoon showing violence and dead bodies at polling place with two men shaking hands.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/figure_178_Nast_vs_Greeley.png?h=a44ae31d&itok=5rVecj0T)
The First South Carolina Legislature
This image shows 63 members of South Carolina’s 1868 state legislature, the first state legislature with a Black majority.
![African American and Radical Republican members of the South Carolina Legislature in the 1870s.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/REC_03_First_South.jpg?h=e4d64d67&itok=cL1yI8GT)
The Fourteenth Amendment
This is the full text of the fourteenth amendment to the US Constitution, which granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” including former slaves recently freed.
![Photo of page 1 of the 14th amendment of the US Constitution](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/Civil_Rights_1868_14th_Amendment_of_the_United_States_Constitution_%20FH21203.jpg?h=4359e9ca&itok=4j99BHvV)
Freedmen's Bureau Agent Reports on Progress in Education
This is an excerpt from a January 1866 Freedmen’s Bureau report on the state of education for freedpeople in the South, written by Freedmen’s Bureau inspector John W. Alvord.
![A black and white image of African American schoolchildren in Liberty County, circa 1890.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Copy_of_m-11013.png?h=d1cb525d&itok=BZqbljCV)
Freedpeople Protest the Loss of Their Land
The Committee of Freedmen on Edisto Island, South Carolina wrote a letter to Freedmen’s Bureau Commissioner O.O. Howard responding to President Johnson’s land policy.
![A painting depicting a meeting at First African Baptist Church, Savannah.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/790449565.jpg?h=43a5b1b4&itok=0_tB65OG)
Improving Education in South Carolina
Samuel J. Lee, elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1868, describes improvements to the state education system made during Reconstruction.
![A large group of Black students standing outside a freedmen's school](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/freedmens_school.jpeg?h=46a6d4fa&itok=DZr4nxK5)
The Influence of "The Birth of a Nation"
The three-hour silent film The Birth of a Nation did “incalculable harm” to Black Americans by creating a justification for prejudice, racism, and discrimination for decades to follow.
![Member of Ku Klux Klan holding a torch on a horse.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/REC_12_The_Birth.jpg?h=da7ce804&itok=o8NJxzoX)