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Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
~ Maya Angelou - from 1978 poem, "Still I Rise"

Use these lesson plans (created by educators for educators) to explore civil rights in America with your students in your classroom:

After Reconstruction - (Grades 9-12) Students identify problems and issues facing African-Americans immediately after Reconstruction using text based sources. Students explore documents in order to simulate the 1898 National Afro-American Council meeting.

From Jim Crow to Linda Brown - (Grades 9-12) Students explore the era of legalized segregation. This lesson provides a foundation for a more meaningful understanding of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

Jackie Steals Home - (Grades 9-12) Students explore racism in the United States, both in and out of sports. The lesson focuses primarily on race relations in the 1950s.

Rounding the Bases - (Grades 9-12) Students use primary sources focused on baseball to explore the American experience regarding race and ethnicity. The unit should be used when studying the World War II era and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

To Kill a Mockingbird - (Grades 7-12) Students are guided on a journey through the Depression Era South in the 1930s. This lesson helps students grasp how historical events and human forces have shaped relationships between black and white, and rich and poor cultures of our country.

Two Unreconciled Strivings - (Grades 11-12) Students examine the tension experienced by African-Americans during the Gilded Age. The lesson explores the areas of family, work, play, faith, education, race, and violence.

Ladies, Contraband, and Spies - (Grades 10-11) Students view the perspectives of slave women, plantation mistresses, female spies, and Union women during the Civil War. Much of the lesson is centered on “contraband” in the South.

Is there a title (or two) that you always read to (or with) your students when teaching about civil rights? Are there invaluable reference books that you use when working with this theme? Staff from The Library of Congress have generously donated favorite titles for the civil rights theme. We hope you will contribute your favorite titles to our growing bibliography!

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Create your own collaborative lesson plans using material related to this month's theme assembled from The Learning Page Collection Connections:

African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920, Selections from the Ohio Historical Society, The - (Summary and Teaching Resources) The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920, contains a number of primary sources reflecting the diversity and complexity of African-American culture from the eve of the Civil War through the early twentieth century.

African-American Odyssey - (Summary Only) The exhibition tells the story of the African American experience through nine chronological periods, from Colonial settlement in 1492 to the post-war US in the early 1970s.

African-American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray Collection 1818-1907 - (Summary and Teaching Resources) This collection documents a wide range of events, topics, and issues in African-American history. It recreates the public dialogue among African Americans a century ago, and highlights political, cultural, and social issues still debated today.

From Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection, 1824-1909 - (Summary and Teaching Resources) Speeches, essays, letters, and other correspondence provide different perspectives on slavery, African colonization, Reconstruction, and the education of African Americans.

Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress, The - (Summary and Teaching Resources) Included within this collection are copies of Douglass's writings, correspondence with noted abolitionists including Henry Ward Beecher, Ida B. Wells, Gerrit Smith, and Horace Greeley, and scrapbooks documenting his activities.

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project 1936-1938 - (Summary and Teaching Resources) This collection contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves collected as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration.

Voices From the Days of Slavery: Former Slaves Tell Their Story - (Summary Only)

Zora Neale Hurston Plays, The - (Summary Only)

By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s - (Summary and Teaching Resources) In 1947, Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers to become the first African-American baseball player in the major leagues.

These terms may be useful when searching for items related to this theme in the American Memory collections.