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.
Hands Up, Don't Shoot! Built on a Lie
Washington Post journalist Jonathan Capehart documents how difficult it is, for journalists and consumers of news, to face a narrative that contradicts what we believe.
![Peaceful protestors march with signs in Ferguson.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/Corbis-42-61291523.jpg?h=24afd704&itok=HjVF38TV)
Letter From Birmingham Jail
Read Martin Luther King, Jr.'s response to suggestions that his nonviolent demonstrations were unwise and untimely in these excerpts from his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
![Dr. Martin Luther King leads thousands of civil rights demonstrators out on the last leg of their Selma to Montgomery 50-mile hike.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/1965_SelmaMontgomeryMarchLeadersandCrowd_FH227.jpg?h=b82ee7a4&itok=0U1Hgtmh)
The White Citizens Councils
Historian David Halberstam describes the White Citizens’ Councils and their efforts to actively oppose integration in the South in the 1950s.
![Man "White League" shaking hands with Ku Klux Klan member over shield illustrated with African American couple with dead(?) baby. In background, man hanging from tree.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/1874_WorseThanSlavery1874_FH140921.jpg?h=7fc8cdf2&itok=807BJ2Zj)
Being Well Born: New Civic Biology by George William Hunter
Read excerpts of George William Hunter’s book about the now-disproved idea that traits like intelligence and morality are handed down from generation to generation.
![Photograph of journal bindings in an anthropology library, showing the transition where Eugenics Quarterly was renamed to Social Biology in 1969.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/2006_EugenicsQuarterlytoSocialBiology_FH2169993.jpeg?h=73f03467&itok=V_UX5PAx)
The Birthday Party: Outside the Magic Circle by Virginia Foster Durr
In her autobiography, Outside the Magic Circle, white southerner Virginia Foster Durr recalls how the customs of the Jim Crow South affected her seventh birthday party.
![Eliza "Didy" Ridgely White, her extended family, and their servants are seen on the porch at the Bruen Villa on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/1864_FamilyGroupinNewport_FH147226.jpg?h=93ecfe0f&itok=DTLMZ_A3)
Roosevelt Williams Recalls Moving for Work in Alabama and Mississippi
Roosevelt Williams describes different jobs he held and how he moved around the segregated South to find work in the 1930s and 1940s.
![A man ploughing with two horses, possibly near Featherston.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/1915_AManPloughingWithTwoHorses_FH2170780.png?h=2a32defd&itok=SJxEuhw1)
Roosevelt Williams Recalls Voting in Alabama
Roosevelt Williams describes voting in segregated Alabama in the 1930s and 1940s.
![Voters at the voting booths, 1945.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/1945_VotersAtTheVotingBooths_FH224203.jpg?h=6355ac16&itok=Y6NFJuGl)
The Scottsboro Affair
Consider the nature of justice with this reading about the Scottsboro Affair in which nine black teenagers were accused of raping two white women in the 1930s.
![The Scottsboro Boys with attorney Samuel Leibowitz, 1932](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/1932_TheScottsboroBoyswithattorneySamuelLeibowitz_FH2173829.jpg?h=74939261&itok=j2h0Ev7x)
The Southern Lady and Belle: The Companion to Southern Literature by Joseph Flora and Lucinda MacKethan
Authors Joseph Flora and Lucinda MacKethan describe the social stereotypes of the "Southern lady" and the younger "Southern belle."
![Cover illustration of Harper's Weekly, September 7, 1861 showing a stereotypical Southern belle](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/1861_CoverIllustrationOfHarpersWeekly_FH2170271.jpeg?h=7d7ebcb9&itok=y3T_lb8s)
Understanding Jim Crow
Deepen students' understanding of the systems of racial separation and institutionalized segregation known as Jim Crow to better grasp the time and setting of To Kill A Mockingbird.
![Sign at bus station reads "Colored Waiting Room."](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/1943_ColoredWaitingRoom_FH21228.jpg?h=e8fd9e62&itok=EnkQ2yR2)
What Did You Learn in School Today?
The following is an Introduction to Teaching Mockingbird and was written by Facing History's Senior Scholar and President Emerita, Margot Stern Strom.
![Photograph of books stacked atop a desk.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/2014_6614FacH00654_FH130928.png?h=0d27ee61&itok=LrW3hHyF)