Teaching Hard History

When we think of slavery as a strictly Southern institution, we perpetuate a “dangerous fiction,” according to Professor... Read more

In many ways, the U.S. has fallen short of its ideals. How can we explain this to students—particularly in the context o... Read more

American slavery shaped our modern world and most certainly the foundation and development of what is now the United Sta... Read more

Children’s books are often the primary way young students are exposed to the history of American slavery. But many book... Read more

Millions of Indigenous people lived in North America before European colonial powers invaded. Along with an insatiable d... Read more

To see a more complete picture of the experience of enslaved people, you have to redefine resistance, Dr. Kenneth S. Gre... Read more

Enslavement didn’t end with Emancipation. Historian James Brewer Stewart discusses modern-day slavery happening across t... Read more

Constitutional historian Paul Finkelman explains the deeply racist bargains the founding fathers struck to unify the cou... Read more

For elementary teachers approaching the topic of slavery, it can be tempting to focus only on heroes and avoid explainin... Read more

Students learning about slavery often ask, “Why didn’t enslaved people just run away or revolt?” Lindsay Anne Randall of... Read more

In the United States, justice was never blind. Historian Paul Finkelman goes beyond legal jargon to illustrate how slave... Read more

At James Madison’s Montpelier, the legacy of enslaved people isn’t silenced—and their descendants have a voice. Christia... Read more

Understanding Indigenous enslavement expands our conception of slavery in what is now the United States. It spread acros... Read more

A hundred years before the first ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia, Europeans introduced the commercia... Read more

Throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the forced labor and bondage of Indigenous peoples was integral to the eco... Read more

Most students leave school thinking enslaved people lived like characters in Gone with the Wind. Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owen... Read more

Each autumn, Thanksgiving brings a disturbing amount of inaccurate information and troubling myths into classrooms acros... Read more

Film has long shaped our nation's historical memory, for good and bad. Film historian Ron Briley offers ways to responsi... Read more

Historian Bethany Jay returns – answering questions from educators across the country. Host Hasan Kwame Jeffries and the... Read more

How it’s done. Tamara Spears teaches middle school Social Studies in New York and Jordan Lanfair is a high school Englis... Read more