Suffrage Matters: 7 Reads on Black Voting Rights and Activism
One way to deepen our understanding of voting rights is to consider the experiences of people who have been disenfranchised over the course of our nation’s history and into the present.
![Voting booth with a person voting](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-04/Voting_booth_person_voting.png?h=a6c55029&itok=tYryYOR2)
Dismantling Democracy
Students examine the steps the Nazis took to replace democracy with dictatorship and draw conclusions about the values and institutions that make democracy possible.
![Germans look on as the Reichstag building burns on February 27, 1933.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Holocaust_1933_ReichstagFire_%20FH229429.jpg?h=40d6a7d7&itok=PBcAxqXk)
World War: Choices and Consequences
Investigate how World War I heightened divisions between “we” and “they” among people and nations and left behind fertile ground for Nazi Germany in the following decades.
![Painting title Gassed by John Singer Sargent. Shows World War I soldiers with bandaged eyes being led by other soldiers. Many dead and injured soldiers laying at the base of the painting.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/Ch3_Image05_Medium_res.jpg?h=fe25bc16&itok=_3yOA5E-)
Do You Take the Oath?
Students consider the choices and reasoning of individual Germans who stayed quiet or spoke up during the first few years of Nazi rule.
![German military recruits swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Holocaust_SwearingAllegianceToHitler_FH229433.jpg?h=827069f2&itok=8JL6O5JQ)
European Jewish Life before World War II
Students analyze images and film that convey the richness of Jewish life across Europe at the time of the Nazis’ ascension to power.
![Shabbtai (Shepske) Sonenson takes one of the shtetl's Hebrew teachers for a ride on his new motorcycle.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Holocaust_1941_ShabbtaiSonensonOnMotorcycle_FH2115443.jpg?h=d392e916&itok=DmuRlDw6)
Exploring Identity
Students identify the social and cultural factors that help shape our identities by analyzing firsthand reflections and creating personal identity charts.
![Hands raised in the air by group of people](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Holocaust_2016_GroupBelonging_FH229369.jpg?h=c9f93661&itok=O6H7UmzG)
The Weimar Republic: The Fragility of Democracy
Explore the efforts to build a democracy in Germany in the 1920s, and examine the misunderstandings, myths, and fears that often undercut those efforts.
![In addition to his depictions of World War I, Otto Dix was also known for his ruthless criticism of German society during the Weimar years.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/Ch04_Image05_Medium_res.jpg?h=92903f94&itok=hFi7XgsO)
The Holocaust: Bearing Witness
Students are introduced to the enormity of the crimes committed during the Holocaust and look closely at stories of a few individuals who were targeted by Nazi brutality.
![A crowd of women and children, some with Stars of David patches on their clothing.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-06/Ch09_Image02.jpg?h=991b0af6&itok=WRPl5J8e)
How Should We Remember?
Students both respond to and design Holocaust memorials as they consider the impact that memorials and monuments have on the way we think about history.
![In Kassel, Germany, artist Horst Hoheisel created a “counter-memorial” marking the site where a majestic fountain built by a Jewish citizen once stood; it had been destroyed by Nazis in 1939.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-05/Ch11_image15_Medium_res.jpg?h=c6d0d1c4&itok=Gb3MH30L)
The Union As It Was
Students examine documents that shed light on life in the South under the policies of Presidential Reconstruction in 1865 and 1866.
![Photo shows a group of six African American men and women posed picking cotton in a field.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/Civil_Rights_Picking_Cotton_Savannah_1867_FH2177912.jpg?h=2b78d577&itok=DpnqiD0k)
Introducing The Unit
Students develop a contract establishing a reflective classroom community in preparation for their exploration of this unit's historical case study.
![Student writing in class.](/sites/default/files/styles/dynamic_stack_296_1x/public/2022-07/2017_5-1-17FacH08212_FH256618.png?h=2992ba0a&itok=c30_X9rN)