To celebrate African American History, Teaching with Historic Places is featuring on the Web the following complete lesson plans that consider important aspects of African American history. Created by National Park Service interpreters, preservation professionals, and educators, these lessons are free and ready for immediate classroom use by students in history and social studies classes.

• An American Success Story: The Pope House of Raleigh, NC
  Meet Dr. Manassa T. Pope, an African-American doctor and entrepreneur in the early 20th century, and learn about his efforts to gain civil rights well before the modern Civil Rights Movement.

• Brown v. Board: Five Communities that Changed America
  Learn about the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

• Chicago's Black Metropolis: Understanding History through a Historic Place
  Examine the history of this "city-within-a-city," a self-supporting African-American community that prospered from the late 19th century until the 1930s.

• From Canterbury to Little Rock: The Struggle for Educational Equality for African Americans
  Understand the magnitude of the struggle involved in securing equal educational opportunities for African Americans and examine how Prudence Crandall challenged the prevailing attitude toward educating African Americans in New England prior to the Civil War.

• Glen Echo Park: Center for Education and Recreation
  Trace the evolution of this Maryland site from a chapter of the Chautauqua movement, to a racially segregated amusement park, to a national park.

• Iron Hill School: An African-American One Room School
  Discover how an early 20th-century philanthropist reformed Delaware's education system for African-American children.

• The Liberty Bell: From Obscurity to Icon
  Analyze the influences that shaped the symbolic meaning of the bell, including why some civil rights protestors chose the Liberty Bell as their symbol for African American equality.
  

• The Mary McLeod Bethune Council House: African American Women Unite for Change
  Learn about Mary McLeod Bethune and how she and the organization she founded promoted political and social change for African American women.

• Memories of Montpelier: Home of James and Dolley Madison
  Visit the Madisons' plantation home and their world of social prominence, and explore some contemporary views of slavery.

• New Kent School and the George W. Watkins School:
  From Freedom of Choice to Integration
  Learn about the U.S. Supreme Court case that forced the integration of public schools and meet the individuals who experienced segregation, fought to dismantle the institution, and integrated the public school system of New Kent County, Virginia.

• The Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March: Shaking the Conscience of the Nation
  Learn how people in Selma, Alabama, and national civil rights organizations worked together to end the unconstitutional denial of voting rights to African Americans in the South.

• New Philadelphia: A Multiracial Town on the Illinois Frontier
  Learn about Free Frank McWorter and how archeology can help tell the story of the interracial town he founded in the years before the Civil War.

• The Old Courthouse in St. Louis: Yesterday and Today
  Compare two images of St. Louis's handsome Courthouse--as a gathering place for pioneers heading west and as a dramatic focus for Dred Scott's heroic efforts to free his family from slavery.

• The Siege of Port Hudson: "Forty Days and Nights in the Wilderness of Death"
  Understand the importance of the Mississippi River to both the North and South during the Civil War, as well as the critical role African American soldiers played in the Civil War and how their fighting changed general public perception of their abilities.
  

• Two American Entrepreneurs: Madam C.J. Walker and J.C. Penney
  Examine the historic places associated with two of America's most famous 20th century business people.

• The Vieux Carré: A Creole Neighborhood in New Orleans
  Examine New Orleans's distinctive French Quarter, a vibrant reflection of its Creole heritage, and recall the city's role in American westward expansion.
  

• When Rice Was King
  Investigate early rice plantations in Georgetown, South Carolina, to learn how rice cultivation transformed the native environment and promoted the South's dependence on a plantation economy. Recent revision to this lesson includes the examination of the origins of rice production and the cultural genesis of students' communities.