Grades 9-12: African American History

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Instruction includes contributions of key figures and organizations (e.g., Prince Hall, Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker, Richard Allen, the Free African Society, Olaudah Equiano, Omar ibn Said, Cudjoe Lewis, Anna Jai Kingsley).

Instruction includes the role of black churches (e.g., African Methodist Episcopal [AME]).

Instruction includes early laws that impacted slavery and resistance (i.e., Louisiana’s Code Noir [1724], Stono Rebellion in [1739], South Carolina slave code [1740], Igbo Landing Mass Suicide [1803]).

Instruction includes foreign and domestic influences on the institution of slavery (i.e., Haitian Revolution [1791-1804], The Preliminary Declaration from the Constitution of Haiti [1805], German Coast Uprising [1811], Louisiana Revolt of [1811]).

Instruction includes the varied experiences of Africans in the United States.

Instruction includes the consequences of Lord Dunmore’s actions in 1775, while serving as Royal Governor of Virginia.

Instruction includes how African men, both enslaved and free, participated in the Continental Army (e.g., 1st Rhode Island Regiment, Haitian soldiers).

Instruction includes the contributions of key figures (e.g., Crispus Attucks, Salem Poor, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, Lemuel Haynes, Phillis Wheatly, Richard Allen, James Armistead Lafayette).

Instruction includes examples of how the members of the Continental Congress made attempts to end or limit slavery (e.g., the first draft of the Declaration of Independence that blamed King George III for sustaining the slave trade in the colonies, the calls of the Continental Congress for the end of involvement in the international slave trade, the Constitutional provision allowing for congressional action in 1808).

Instruction includes how different states passed laws that gradually led to the abolition of slavery in northern states (e.g., gradual abolition laws: RI Statutes 1728, 1765 & 1775, PA 1779, MA & NH 1780s, CT & NJ 1784, NY 1799; states abolishing slavery: VT 1777).

Instruction includes the Constitutional provision regarding fugitive persons.

Instruction includes the ramifications of the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision.

Instruction includes how slavery increased through natural reproduction and the smuggling of human contraband, in spite of the desire of the Continental Congress to end the importation of slaves.

Instruction includes how the Northwest Ordinance of 1785 provided a mechanism for selling and settling the land and laid the foundations of land policy until passage of the Homestead Act of 1862.

Instruction includes the political issues regarding slavery that were addressed in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

Instruction includes the Three-Fifths Compromise as an agreement between delegates from the northern and the southern states in the Continental Congress (1783) and taken up anew at the United States Constitutional Convention (1787) that required three-fifths of the slave population be counted for determining direct taxation and representation in the House of Representatives.

Instruction includes the principles found in historical documents (e.g., Declaration of Independence as approved by the Continental Congress in 1776, Chief Justice William Cushing’s notes regarding the Quock Walker case, Petition to the Massachusetts Legislature on January 13, 1777, Constitution of Massachusetts of 1780, Constitution of Kentucky of 1792, Northwest Ordinance of 1785, Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Southwest Ordinance of 1790, Petition from the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery of 1790, Petition of Free Blacks of Philadelphia 1800, United States Congress Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1808).

Instruction includes the contributions of key figures in the quest to end slavery as the nation was founded (e.g., Elizabeth “Mum Bett” Freeman, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay).

Instruction includes the trades of slaves (e.g., musicians, healers, blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers, weavers, tailors, sawyers, hostlers, silversmiths, cobblers, wheelwrights, wigmakers, milliners, painters, coopers).

Instruction includes the variety of locations slaves worked (e.g., homes, farms, on board ships, shipbuilding industry).

Instruction includes leading advocates and arguments for civil rights (e.g., John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Rush).

Instruction includes the abolitionist and anti-slavery organizations (e.g., Pennsylvania Abolition Society [PAS], New York Manumission Society [NYMS], Free African Society [FAS], Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes and Others Unlawfully Held in Bondage, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery).

Instruction includes different abolitionist leaders and how their approaches to abolition differed (e.g., William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, President Abraham Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens, Sojourner Truth, Jonathan Walker, Albion Tourgée, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Wilberforce [United Kingdom], Vicente Guerrero [Mexico]).

Instruction includes how Abraham Lincoln’s views on abolition evolved over time. 

Instruction includes the relationship between William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass and their respective approaches to abolition.

Instruction includes the efforts in the creation of the 13th Amendment.

Instruction includes different abolition groups and how they related to other causes (e.g., women’s suffrage, temperance movements).

Instruction includes the efforts of the American Colonization Society towards the founding of Liberia and its relationship to the struggle to end slavery in the United States.

Instruction includes the relationship between the Abolitionist Movement involving the Quakers in both England and the United States.

Instruction includes how the use of pamphlets assisted the Quakers in their abolitionist efforts.

Instruction includes key figures and actions made within the Quaker abolition efforts in North Carolina.

Instruction includes the leaders of the Underground Railroad (e.g., Harriet Tubman, Gerrit Smith, Levi Coffin, John Rankin family, William Lambert, William Still).

Instruction includes the methods of escape and the routes taken by the conductors of the Underground Railroad.

Instruction includes how the South tried to prevent slaves from escaping and their efforts to end the Underground Railroad.

Instruction includes how the Underground Railroad and the Abolitionist Movement assisted each other toward ending slavery.

Instruction includes the regions where cotton was produced.

Instruction includes the purpose and impact of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin.

Instruction includes how the demand for slave labor resulted in a large, forced migration.  

Instruction includes debates over the westward expansion of slavery (e.g., Louisiana Purchase, Missouri Compromise, Wilmot Proviso, Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act).

Instruction includes the significance of Fort Mose as the first free African community in the United States and the role it and the Seminole Tribe played in the Underground Railroad.

Instruction includes the role of Florida and larger Gulf Coast region in the War of 1812 as the British offered liberation to slaves.

Instruction includes the status of slaves, escaped slaves, and free blacks during the Civil War.

Instruction includes examining the roles and efforts of black nurses, soldiers, spies, scouts, and slaves during the Civil War.

Instruction includes the significant roles of African Americans in the armed forces (e.g., 54thMassachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 13th U.S. Colored Troops, Buffalo Soldiers, Sgt. William Carney, Pvt. Cathay Williams, Harriet Tubman).

Instruction includes the establishment and efforts of the Freedman’s Bureau.

Instruction includes the Exodusters and their influence on American culture.

Instruction includes how the war effort helped propel civil rights for African Americans from the early Civil Rights Movement (1865-1896) to the modern-day Civil Rights Movement, demanding the American promise of justice, liberty, and equality (i.e., 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment).

Instruction includes the founding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Instruction includes fraternal and sororal organizations.

Instruction includes the contributions of African American soldiers during World War I. (e.g., 369th Infantry Regiment [Harlem Hellfighters], 370th Infantry Regiment, Sgt. Henry Johnson, Cpl. Freddie Stowers).

Instruction includes the heroic actions displayed by the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. (e.g., Gen. Charles McGee, Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James, Capt. Roscoe C. Brown, 1st Lt. Lucius Theus, Charles Alfred “Chief” Anderson, James Polkinghorne).

Instruction includes the contributions of African American women to World War I and World War II (e.g., 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion [Six Triple Eight], Lt. Col. Charity Edna Adams, Addie W. Hunton, Kathryn M. Johnson, Helen Curtis).

Instruction includes landmark United States Supreme Court Cases affecting African Americans (e.g., the Slaughter House cases, Yick Wo v. Hopkins, Plessy v. Ferguson).

 Instruction includes the influence of white and black political leaders who fought on behalf of African Americans in state and national legislatures and courts.

Instruction includes how organizations, individuals, legislation, and literature contributed to the movement for equal rights in the United States (e.g., Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Carter G. Woodson, Henry Beard Delany, Emma Beard Delaney, Hiram Rhodes Revels).

Instruction includes how whites who supported Reconstruction policies for freed blacks after the Civil War (white southerners being called scalawags and white northerners being called carpetbaggers) were targeted.

Instruction includes the role of African American women in politics, business, and education during the 19th century (e.g., Mary B. Talbert, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I a Woman?).

Instruction includes the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping on individual freedoms (e.g., the Civil Rights Cases, Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws, lynchings, Columbian Exposition of 1893).

Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans but is not limited to 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C. Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921 Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.

Instruction includes communities such as: Lincolnville (FL), Tullahassee (OK), Eatonville (FL).

Instruction includes leaders who advocated differing economic viewpoints (e.g., Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee Institute, W.E.B. DuBois, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP]).

Instruction includes the Double Duty Dollar Campaign as an economic movement to encourage community self-sufficiency.

Instruction includes the impact of Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company.

Instruction includes the contributions of black innovators, entrepreneurs and organizations to the development and growth of black businesses and innovations (e.g., National Negro Business League, National Urban League, Universal Negro Improvement Association [UNIA], NAACP, Annie Malone, Madame C.J. Walker, Negro Motorist Green Book, Charles Richard Patterson of C.R. Patterson & Sons, Suzanne Shank, Reginald F. Lewis).

Instruction includes landmark court cases affecting African Americans.

Instruction includes the ramifications of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal (1933-1945) on African Americans.

Instruction includes the effects of the election of African Americans to national office (e.g., Oscar De Priest).

Instruction includes the push and pull factors of the Great Migration. (e.g., race riots, socio-economic factors, political rights, how African Americans suffered infringement of rights through racial oppression, segregation, discrimination).

Instruction includes the Great Migration and its influence on American culture (e.g., political realignment and dealignment).

Instruction includes how the transition from rural to urban led to opportunities and challenges. (e.g., Emmett J. Scott: Letters of Negro Migrants, Jacob Lawrence: The Migration of the Negro, red-lining, 1935 Harlem Race Riot, broad increase in economic competition).

Instruction includes how WWII helped to break down the barriers of segregation (e.g., 1948 Executive Order 9981, Executive Order 8802 signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Tuskegee Airmen, “Double V” campaign, James G. Thompson).

Instruction includes key events that occurred in Florida during the 19th century (e.g., Battle of Olustee).

Instruction includes early examples of African American playwrights, novelists, poets, actors, politicians, and merchants (e.g., Jonathan C. Gibbs, Josiah Walls, Robert Meacham, Blanche Armwood, Mary McLeod Bethune, Harry T. Moore, Harriet Moore, James Weldon Johnson).

Instruction includes the settlements of forts, towns and communities by African Americans and its impact on the state of Florida post-Civil War (e.g., Fort Pickens, Eatonville, Lincolnville).

Instruction includes significant musical styles created and performed by African American musicians.

Instruction includes Oscar Micheaux’s films as an influential component of the modernera Civil Rights Movement and future film industry (e.g., Lincoln Motion Picture Company, George P. Johnson, Noble Johnson, Spike Lee, Sidney Poitier, Melvin Van Peebles, Julie Dash, William Packer, Hattie McDaniel).

Instruction includes the early Civil Rights Movement (1865-1896) to the modern-era Civil Rights Movement and define the modern-era Civil Rights Movement as an economic, social, and political movement from 1945 to 1968 (e.g., speeches, legislation, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis).

Instruction includes the events that led to the writing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Instruction includes the March on Washington and its influence on public policy.

Instruction includes the immediate and lasting effects of modern civil rights organizations (e.g., The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP], Congress of Racial Equality [CORE], Southern Christian Leadership Conference [SCLC], Student NonViolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC], Black Panther Party [BPP], Highlander Folk School, religious institutions).

Instruction includes different methods used by coalitions (i.e., freedom rides, wade-ins, sit-ins, boycotts, protests, marches, voter registration drives, media relations).

Instruction includes the immediate and lasting effects of organizations that sought to resist achieving American equality (e.g., state legislatures, Ku Klux Klan [KKK], White Citizens’ Councils [WCC], law enforcement agencies, elected officials such as the “Pork Chop Gang,” private school consortiums, Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission [MSSC]).

Instruction includes different methods used by coalitions (e.g., white primaries, acts of violence, unjust laws such as poll taxes, literacy tests, sundown laws, anti-miscegenation laws).

Instruction includes commentary on just and unjust laws (e.g., Letter from Birmingham Jail, I Have a Dream Speech, Chief Justice Earl Warren’s ruling opinion on Loving v. Virginia, commentary of Senator Everett Dirksen).

Instruction includes how African Americans were impacted by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson.

Instruction includes Ruby Bridges, James Meredith, Little Rock Nine, 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education and 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.  

Instruction includes the evolution of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to include land grant status and liberal arts studies.

Instruction includes local court cases impacting equal educational opportunities for African Americans.

Instruction includes local individuals in civil rights movements.

Instruction includes political figures who shaped the modern Civil Rights efforts (e.g., Arthur Allen Fletcher, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, President John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson, President Richard Nixon, Senator Everett Dirksen, Mary McLeod Bethune, Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Representative John Lewis).

Instruction includes key legislation (i.e., Civil Rights Act of 1957, 1960, 1964, 1967 and 1972 Title VII, Voting Rights Act of 1965).

Instruction includes the use of statistical census data between 1960 to present, comparing African American participation in higher education, voting, poverty rates, income, family structure, incarceration rates, and number of public servants.

Instruction includes the Great Society’s influence on the African American experience.

Instruction includes but is not limited to African American pioneers in their field (e.g., President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Clarence Thomas, Representative Shirley Chisholm, Arthur Ashe, Ronald McNair).

Instruction includes events and figures relating to society, economics and politics in Florida (e.g., Florida Supreme Court Justice Joseph W. Hatchett, Florida Supreme Court Justice Peggy A. Quince, Gwen Cherry, Carrie Meek, Joe Lang Kershaw, Arnett E. Girardeau, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, A. Philip Randolph, Tallahassee Bus Boycott of 1956, Ax Handle Saturday, St. Augustine summer of 1964).

Instruction includes the integration of the University of Florida.

Instruction should include local people, organizations, historic sites, cemeteries, and events.