In January 1863, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, and the Union Army began recruiting Black Americans to fight the Civil War. Thousands answered the call. Soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts infantry regiment came from all over the country, dedicated to both the destruction of slavery and the advancement of racial equality nationwide. Their heroism transformed the conflict from a battle to preserve the Union to a grand struggle for freedom. Discover the true story of the men whose fame was restored to public memory by the celebrated 1989 film Glory. The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves was a highly respected and wildly successful peace officer in Indian Territory for over thirty years, starting when he was first commissioned by federal Judge Isaac Parker in 1875. His life saw the enormous transformations that swept through the country during the Civil War, the days of the “wild west” in the federal territories, and the final settling of the frontier. The exploits of Deputy Marshal Reeves as he fought and captured hundreds of outlaws made him famous in his own time. This lesson tells the story of Reeves, his world, and his relentless pursuit of justice. The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

In this early American history lesson, students are introduced to Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), a free Black landowner from Maryland who found notoriety as a largely self-taught surveyor, astronomer, and natural historian. A friend and neighbor of the Ellicotts, an influential family of abolitionist Quakers, Banneker became a national figure in the young republic through his popular series of almanacs, and is remembered for his scientific achievements, public opposition to slavery (including a famous exchange with Thomas Jefferson), and role in surveying the boundaries of the District of Columbia.  The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

This lesson provides an overview of the world's first African American female pilot, who overcame multiple barriers (racial, gender-based, historical, socioeconomic) in order to become a celebrated aviator and daredevil performer who thrilled both Black and White audiences. It is suitable for a lesson in history class, and would makean enriching addition to courses dealing with technical or scientific fields connected with aviation. The Woodson Center’s K-12 black history and character curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

Having experienced the profound racial disparities in the rural South firsthand, writer and education reformer Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) dreamed of a school-building project for Black communities that could help begin to lift them out of poverty. In this history lesson, students examine Washington’s collaboration with philanthropist Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932), and learn how Washington’s hopeful dream slowly became the reality of nearly 5,000 new schools. Built in large part by the communities they served, Rosenwald schools were a ray of hope in the face of poverty and racial discrimination.The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

A century before the Civil Rights movement, this small town on Lake Michigan had racially integrated schools, churches, government, and civic organizations. Settled by Black and White pioneers in the mid-1800s, Covert Township worked across racial and ethnic lines at a time when doing so was widely rejected if not outright illegal. Learn the story of this remarkable community, told against the backdrop of Reconstruction’s overthrow in the South and worsening racial conflict in the North.When much of America was tearing itself apart and squandering the moral victories of the Civil War, this community nestled in the west Michigan wilderness came together — not as a utopian social experiment, but as ordinary people who relied on one another to solve the problems of ordinary life on the frontier, and whose legacy endures today in Covert and beyond. This little-known American story offers an example our country needs now more than ever.The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

On March 5, 1770, five men were shot dead by British soldiers on King Street in Boston. This event became known as the Boston Massacre, and helped kindle the fire of the American revolution. The first man to fall in this event was Crispus Attucks, a sailor and escaped slave of mixed African and American Indian ancestry. Patriot activists held up Attucks as a martyr for the cause of liberty, and generations of Americans followed suit; almost a century later, abolitionists made Attucks into a symbol of Black civic identity. But who was he, really? This lesson, the first of two on Crispus Attucks, tries to establish the facts about his life from the scant remaining evidence. The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its infamous Dred Scott decision, which fundamentally denied the legitimacy of Black American citizenship. The coincidence of the date, one day after the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, caught the attention of William Cooper Nell, a free man of color, historian, and influential abolitionist. On March 5, 1858, antislavery activists celebrated Crispus Attucks Day at Faneuil Hall, where Attucks’s body had awaited burial in 1770. Such efforts to commemorate Attucks helped shape the field of African American history. This lesson examines the ways historians, civil rights activists, and cultural institutions renewed the memory of an otherwise enigmatic figure.The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

Want to know more about the life and work of NASA’s “hidden figure,” whose calculations helped send men to the moon? This lesson tells the story of Katherine Johnson (1918-2020), the space program trailblazer who broke down racial and gender barriers in her remarkable 101 years of life. Born a math prodigy in segregated West Virginia, her father regularly drove Katherine 120 miles to the nearest school that would educate Black students past the 8th grade. Her extraordinary talents landed her a job as a “human computer” in the early days of NASA, where she would spend an illustrious 33-year career as a research mathematician. Johnson’s work on the Mercury and Apollo projects, along with her many other research projects and technical papers, earned her the Medal of Freedom in 2015.  The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Oklahoma was a haven for Black Americans seeking freedom and economic opportunity. The Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, with its bustling business district known as the “Black Wall Street,” was the nation’s most affluent Black community, a central hub of entrepreneurship and activism. But by June 1, 1921, Greenwood lay in ruins, victim to a massive wave of violence and looting committed by a mob of their White neighbors, in what is now known as the Tulsa Race Massacre. Against all odds, the survivors fought to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, even as powerful forces tried to bury Greenwood forever. This incredible story of dignity in the face of devastation shows the depths of human cruelty — and the heights of human resilience.The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.