Topic: Black History

lesson:
Jimi Hendrix: Rock’s Trailblazing Innovator and Influential Guitarist

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Who was Jimi Hendrix and how did he create his own innovative style in Rock music through the merger of different musical genres?

lesson:
The Harlem Renaissance featuring Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Bessie Smith

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How did the Harlem Renaissance represent the New Negro Movement, and what role did music play in this context?

lesson:
Motown Records: Detroit’s Sound of Success

Grades: High
Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

How did Detroit’s cultural and economic history influence the sound and success of Motown Records?

lesson:
The Homestead Act featuring Cowboy Songs collected by John Lomax

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How did the Homestead Act of 1862 impact growth and development in the American West, and what is meant by the term “crossroads of culture” in the context of the American West?

lesson:
Late Reconstruction featuring The Jubilee Singers

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

Who were the Jubilee Singers and how do their experiences reflect the final years of Reconstruction in the United States?

Student Edition:
Riot or Rebellion? Asbury Park in the Summer of 1970

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

What factors led up to the Asbury Park Riots in New Jersey in the summer of 1970?

lesson:
Early Reconstruction featuring the Hyers Sisters

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

Who were the Hyers Sisters, and how did their work represent the Reconstruction era?

Student Edition:
The Origins of Disco

Grades: High
Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

lesson:
The Origins of Disco

Grades: High
Subjects: ELA, Ethnic Studies, General Music, Social Studies/History

What are the cultural, economic, and geographic origins of Disco and how has the genre been presented, remembered, and represented in popular culture?

lesson:
Plessy v. Ferguson featuring Bert Williams

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

Who was Bert Williams and how does his life represent an American experience during the rise of Jim Crow laws and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson?

Student Edition:
Black Radio and the Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

lesson:
Black Radio and the Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

How did Black radio empower Black Americans, aid the Civil Rights Movement, and influence U.S. society?

Student Edition:
The Zoot Suit: Style and Swing in the Wartime Economy

Grades: High
Subjects: Ethnic Studies, Social Studies/History

lesson:
Mi Gente: Fania Records & New York Salsa Music

Grades: High
Subjects: General Music, Geography, Social Studies/History

What is Fania Records, and how does it reflect the history of Spanish-speaking Caribbean communities in New York City?

Trace It Back:
Miguel

Grades: All Ages
Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

lesson:
The Zoot Suit: Style and Swing in the Wartime Economy

Grades: High
Subjects: Ethnic Studies, Social Studies/History

What was the cultural, social, and historical significance of the zoot suit during the period of World War II?

Student Edition:
Student Activism and Music During the Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Student Edition:
Music of the Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High
Subjects: Civics, General Music, Social Studies/History

lesson:
Student Activism and Music During the Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

How did activism by Black students challenge Jim Crow segregation during the Civil Rights Movement, and what unique role did music play as an organizing tool?

lesson:
Music of the Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High
Subjects: Civics, General Music, Social Studies/History

How did music advance the goals and inform the tactics of the Civil Rights Movement?

Student Edition:
The Black Origins of Punk

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: ELA, General Music

lesson:
The Black Origins of Punk

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: ELA, General Music

How did the bands X-Ray Spex, Bad Brains, and Death define Punk on their own terms?

lesson:
The Juke Joint: Where Oral Literature Comes Alive

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: ELA

What role do Blues lyrics and juke joints play in Black American literature and life?

lesson:
The Crossroads as a Literary Symbol

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: ELA

How have writers, storytellers, and musicians explored the crossroads as a symbol in their work?

lesson:
Writing Personal Narratives and The Harlem Renaissance

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

How do Langston Hughes, Gladys Bentley, and Louis Armstrong effectively write personal narratives about living during the Harlem Renaissance?

lesson:
Identifying and Resisting Jim Crow with Words and Songs

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: Civics, ELA, Social Studies/History

How have works of literature and music by Black Americans shared an empowering theme of identifying and resisting Jim Crow?

Student Edition:
Segregation and the Founding of Asbury Park

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

lesson:
Part 3: Asbury Park from the 1970s to Today

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

What social issues continue to confront Asbury Park today, and how are activists tackling them?

lesson:
Part 2: Riot or Rebellion? Asbury Park in the Summer of 1970

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

What factors led up to the Asbury Park "Riots" in New Jersey in the summer of 1970?

lesson:
Part 1: Segregation and the Founding of Asbury Park

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

What does the founding and early history of Asbury Park reveal about practices of segregation in the Northern United States?

lesson:
The Myth of the American Cowboy

Grades: AP/Honors/101
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How did Westward Expansion and the idea of Manifest Destiny inform the image of the cowboy in American culture?

Student Edition:
Afrofuturism and Flying Africans

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: Art/Design, ELA, General Music, Social Studies/History

Student Edition:
A Veteran’s Soundtrack to the Vietnam War

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

Trace It Back:
Nina Simone

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Trace It Back:
Janelle Monáe

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

lesson:
Swing Down: Afrofuturism & Flight in the Black Imagination

Grades: High
Subjects: Art/Design, ELA, General Music

What is Afrofuturism and what are some of the cultural traditions and historical events that inspired and reinforced it?

Trace It Back:
Drake

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Trace It Back:
Betty Davis

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

lesson:
The Reclamation of the American Cowboy

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How has the image and history of the American cowboy been reclaimed in the 21st Century?

Student Edition:
The Roots of Hip Hop

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Trace It Back:
Chance the Rapper

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Trace It Back:
H.E.R.

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Trace It Back:
Tyler, The Creator

lesson:
Almost Emancipated: Reconstruction

Grades: AP/Honors/101
Subjects: Social Studies/History

What is the significance of Reconstruction and what does it reveal about the freedom that the post-Civil War constitutional amendments secured for African Americans?

Trace It Back:
Prince

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

lesson:
How a Bill Becomes a Law: Legislating the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

How does a bill become a law in the United States of America?

Trace It Back:
Nicki Minaj

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

lesson:
Almost Emancipated: The Civil War and the Port Royal Experiment

Grades: AP/Honors/101
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How does the Union occupation of Port Royal highlight the complex issues behind the Civil War?

Trace It Back:
Beyoncé

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

lesson:
DAMN.: The Art and Importance of Storytelling

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High
Subjects: Art/Design, ELA, Social Studies/History

How do Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN. and the work of photojournalist Gordon Parks tell stories that bring attention to social issues?

Trace It Back:
Mavis Staples

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Trace It Back:
Big Freedia

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Trace It Back:
Jamila Woods

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

lesson:
“Y’all Better Quiet Down”: Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ Pioneers

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How did Black and Latinx people in the LGBTQ+ community take initiative in the Stonewall Inn rebellions, Gay Liberation Movement, and in the preservation of LGBTQ+ history?

lesson:
The Science and Civics of the Flint Water Crisis

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Middle
Subjects: Civics, Science, Social Studies/History, STEAM

What is the Flint water crisis, and why did it occur?

lesson:
Blues, Poetry, and the Harlem Renaissance

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: ELA

How does Langston Hughes’ Blues-inspired poetry exemplify the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance?

lesson:
#BlackLivesMatter: Music in a Movement

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How have musicians responded to the Black Lives Matter movement?

lesson:
Kanye and Katrina: Environmental Racism in New Orleans

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: Social Studies/History

What was Hurricane Katrina, and how did Black Americans articulate the frustrations they felt in its aftermath?

lesson:
“Alright” and the History of Black Protest Songs

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

How have Black artists throughout the 20th century used music to speak about racial injustice in America?

lesson:
“Glory” and the Continuing Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

How does Common and John Legend's “Glory” signal Civil Rights movements of the past and the present?

lesson:
Muddy Waters, the New Kid in Town

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Elementary K-3
Subjects: Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

How did Muddy Waters’ music change after he moved to Chicago, and what does that say about the relationship between place and self-expression?

lesson:
Singing Democracy During the Second Great Awakening

Grades: AP/Honors/101
Subjects: Social Studies/History

What was the Second Great Awakening, how did it change American society, and how does Sacred Harp singing exemplify its ideals?

lesson:
The Banjo, Slavery, and the Abolition Debate

Grades: AP/Honors/101
Subjects: Social Studies/History

What is the relationship between the banjo and slavery, and how did music making by enslaved people influence the abolition debate during the 18th and early 19th century?

lesson:
The Civil Rights Movement: A Document-Based Question

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High
Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

In what ways did the Civil Rights Movement mark a turning point in United States history?

lesson:
Sun City: A Musical Force Against Apartheid – Part 2

Grades: High

What was South African apartheid, and how did musicians unite to challenge it?

lesson:
Sun City: A Musical Force Against Apartheid – Part 1

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

What was South African apartheid, and how did musicians unite to challenge it?

lesson:
Producing the Sounds of a Changing South

Grades: High
Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

How did the recordings Sam Phillips produced at Sun Records, including Elvis Presley’s early work, reflect trends of urbanization and integration in the 1950s American South?

lesson:
The Beatles and American Segregation

Grades: All Ages, Elementary 4-6, High, Middle
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How did the Beatles take a stand against segregation while touring America? And what did it mean for popular music culture?

lesson:
The Beat as an Object of Celebration and Concern in Segregation-Era America

Grades: High
Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

How has “the beat” been an object of both celebration and concern in the history of popular music?

lesson:
Sampling: The Foundation of Hip Hop

Grades: High
Subjects: CTE, General Music

How is the re-use and re-purposing of existing music at the heart of the Hip Hop recording experience?

lesson:
The Gospel Origins of “Chain of Fools”

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: ELA, General Music

Essential Question: How did Aretha Franklin’s foundation in Gospel music influence her recording of “Chain of Fools,” helping to establish a Soul sound and bringing black culture into mainstream America?

lesson:
“Hound Dog” and 1950 Race Relations

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: General Music

How does the story of “Hound Dog” demonstrate music culture’s racial mixing as it differed from mainstream American life in the 1950s?

lesson:
The American Blues in Britain

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: General Music

In what ways did American Blues affect English musicians in the early 1960s?

lesson:
Dan Penn

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: General Music

How did black artists and white songwriters and musicians interact in the Soul era, and what contributed to that interaction?

lesson:
The Blues and the Great Migration

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History, STEAM

How did the Great Migration spread Southern culture, helping to give the Blues a central place in American popular music?

lesson:
Bo Diddley: The Grandfather of Hip Hop?

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

How were Bo Diddley’s recordings an anomaly in relation to 1950s Pop music, and how is his rhythm-driven sound and self-presentation a precursor to Hip Hop style?

lesson:
Funk Asserts Itself

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How did 1970s Funk respond to African-American life in the decade following the Civil Rights movement?

lesson:
Rhythm and Blues Hit the Airwaves

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

How did Dewey Phillips and Hunter Hancock help bring Rhythm and Blues music to mixed race audiences?

lesson:
Gospel Music and the Birth of Soul

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

How did Gospel influence American popular music?

lesson:
Music and Political Movements

Grades: High
Subjects: Civics, ELA, Social Studies/History

How did Sixties Soul help give voice to the Civil Rights movement?

lesson:
The Memphis Sound and Racial Integration

Grades: High
Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

How has Memphis music culture provided one example of art’s capacity to challenge the racial boundaries that have so often structured American life?

lesson:
Seventies Soul: The Soundtrack of Turbulent Times

Grades: High
Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

How did changes in the Soul music of the early 1970s reflect broader shifts in American society during that time?

lesson:
The Rise of Black Pride

Grades: High
Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

How did Social Soul reflect a new vision of African-American identity in the late 1960s and early 1970s?

lesson:
The Roots of Hip Hop

Grades: High
Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

What are the roots of Hip Hop?

lesson:
Divergent Paths in the 1990s: Gangsta Rap and Conscious Hip Hop

Grades: High
Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

How did Gangsta Rap and Conscious Hip Hop respond to the social and political conditions of the 1990s?

lesson:
The Blues: The Sound of Rural Poverty

Grades: High, Middle
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How do the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?

lesson:
The Rolling Stones: Giving America Back the Blues

Grades: High
Subjects: Social Studies/History

How did the early Rolling Stones help popularize the Blues?