Teaching with Our Stories

Our stories are primary sources that can engage students in social studies classes and many other subjects. The lessons we offer here incorporate civil rights history – and our first-person stories – into language arts, visual arts, music, and science classes.

Grade Levels

Class Subject

Topics

We Are All Birmingham: Students’ Inquiry into Civil Rights History

Grade Levels: Elementary School

Class subject: History, Social studies, Language Arts

What would you do? The 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade: Teaching civil rights with direct access to eye witnesses

In May 1963, the Civil Rights Movement made a leap forward with the Birmingham Children’s Crusade and the jailing of thousands of young people. The nation’s attention was riveted by the images of police dogs and firehoses trained on children and teenagers who were peacefully marching to end the city’s strict “Jim Crow” segregation laws. […]

Grade Levels: Middle School, High school

Class subject: Social studies, Language Arts

Children’s Crusade Cityscape

Grade Levels: Elementary School, Middle School

Class subject: Art, History, Social studies, Alabama History

Health Problems that Plague Communities of Color Due to Pollution