These three activities are designed as follow-up materials for the National Youth Summit on Freedom Summer, but can be modified for any content.

This activity is designed to encourage students to practice their critical reading and historical comprehension skills by reading about the primary source document entitled the “Development of Freedom Summer.” Key questions are posed after the reading to gauge students’ understanding of the

Using documents and historical background from the exhibition Changing America: Emancipation Proclamation 1863, March on Washington 1963, students will d

In this episode of the History Explorer podcast series, civil rights activist Martha Prescod Norman discusses her decision to join the civil rights movement against the wishes of her parents, and her experiences in the movement, including during Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964.

Though not as well-known as figures such as Duke Ellington or Ella Fitzgerald, John Levy made significant contributions to jazz music, both as a bassist and as the first black personal manager in jazz. In this episode of History Explorer, Sarah Coffee interviews Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orche

Do you have what it takes to be a comic book hero? Take a close look at a comic book from  the 1950s and 60s  about nonviolence in the civil rights movement and think about ways those tips could help you today. Included in an OurStory module from Smithsonian's National Museum of America

Find out about your local government through planning a short field trip, and then think about how you could make a difference in your community.  The activity guide also includes tips for reviewing the experience once you're back at home or in the classroom. Included in an OurStory module f

In this activity, students will examine an historical newspaper, a piece of historical fiction, and their social studies textbooks for accounts of the civil rights movement, and then define 'equality' and 'discrimination'. They will then use these definitions to look for instances of eq

Songs played an important role during the civil rights movement. In this activity, students will listen to freedom songs and then make their own version of one of the songs. It is included in an OurStory module entitled Students Sit for Civil Rights. OurStory is a serie

In the decades following the Civil War, the U.S. Army fought dozens of engagements with Indians in the West. This website explores Federal Indian policies and conflicts that arose as Americans flooded west into the Great Plains. Through the use of images and objects from the Museum's collections,