This lesson explores several strands of the musical "DNA" that make up the beat of popular music. Looking to the past, this lesson asks what it means to call music "Afro-Cuban" "Afro-Caribbean," or more broadly, "African-American." Students will use Soundbreakingclips of Santana and Beyonce and the Soundbreaking Rhythmic Layers TechTools to locate in American popular music influences stemming from the African-American church, Latin America and West Africa. Students will then explore the ways "the beat" of this music has, to some listeners, been perceived as "dangerous" while, for others, it is believed that music has been able to challenge obstacles of racism and segregation, bringing people from varied ethnic groups and lifestyles together in ways that words and laws could not.

In this lesson students explore the creative concepts and technological practices on which Hip Hop music was constructed, investigating what it means to "sample" from another style, who has used sampling and how. Then, students experience the technology first hand using the Soundbreaking Sampler TechTool. Students will follow patterns of Caribbean immigration and the musical practices that came to New York City as a result of those patterns, finally considering the ways in which Hip Hop reflects them. Moving forward to the late 1980s and early 90s, what some consider Hip Hop's "Golden Age," this lesson explores how sampling might demonstrate a powerful creative expression of influence or even a social or political statement. Finally, this lesson encourages students to consider the conceptual hurdle Hip Hop asked listeners to make by presenting new music made from old sounds.

In this lesson, students use examples from visual art as well as rap to enter into a "structured academic controversy" that explores the concept of originality.

In this lesson, students follow the life journey of Blues musician McKinley "Muddy Waters" Morganfield, from his early beginnings in rural Mississippi to his music career in Chicago, Illinois. In learning about Waters' life, students consider the ways new environments might inspire people to express themselves in different ways. Students then reflect on ways new experiences might have spurred their own personal growth by creating a life roadmap.

In this lesson, Gospel music is used as a way to introduce students to the rhythmic concepts of beat, meter, backbeat, subdivision, and syncopation. By clapping and counting along to videos of Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Staple Singers, and Beyonce, students practice hearing and identifying these various aspects of rhythm. Students will also use an interactive TechTool to gain a deeper understanding of the syncopated rhythms that allows Gospel, as well a popular music in general, inspire us to move.

Taking Sam Phillips as a case study, this lesson explores the role of the producer in the recording studio as one defined by an ability to guide the recording process but also to affect the wider cultural context. After investigating what a producer does and why an artist might benefit from a producer's services, this lesson looks at the way Sam Phillips' approach in some ways reflects the trend of urbanization in the American South. Like Phillips, many of his artists came from rural backgrounds and were seeking the benefits of urban life. That move toward the urban, and the racial mixing it fostered, was almost encoded in the music, as the lesson activities will illuminate. Finally, the lesson looks at Phillip's guidance of a young Elvis Presley and suggests how the music they produced created an opening for African-American music to "crossover" into mainstream American popular music.

The students do a PowerPoint over controversial police shootings of African Americans. The names of the victims come from a list at the end of the novel, The Hate U Give. Names of victims killed after the novel was published have been added.

Explore why the 2012 shooting of a black student became a pivotal tension point around race and justice during Barack Obama’s presidency, in these videos excerpted from FRONTLINE: Divided States of America. Trayvon Martin’s death at the hands of a neighborhood watch volunteer ignited passions across the nation. America’s first black president grappled with his response. Obama’s initial silence, followed by carefully guarded words, prompted a backlash—and not just from conservative pundits. Many in the black community were traumatized by the incident and by others like it. Following the shooter’s court acquittal the next year, Obama acknowledged his own experiences as a black American. For many, this was the first time in his administration that he openly spoke for black people.

During the World War Two years, a series of groundbreaking radio programs tried to mend the deep racial and ethnic divisions that threatened America. At a time when blacks were usually shown on the radio as lazy buffoons, the federal government and civil rights activists used radio for a counter attack. Did radio unify America in the face of war? This is "Radio Fights Jim Crow".

Selected items from the Rosa Parks collection, documenting the life, work, and legacy of civil rights legend Rosa Parks. Selected items from the Rosa Parks collection, documenting the life, work, and legacy of civil rights legend Rosa Parks.

The class will be learning about the Civil Rights Movement and the struggles that African Americans went through to have their rights and freedom today. We will watch a short video about the march from Selma to Montgomery adn look at a Civil Rights timeline as a class. We will also listen to a section of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech and the students will have to write their own speech about something that they feel strongly about. After they write their speeches the students that are willing can share their speeches with the class. After that I will take my students on a scavenger hunt that I have set up. During teh scavenger hunt the stduent's will haev to find key vocab words that fit with teh topic that I have hidden.

Seneca Village: a thriving community of African Americans and immigrants. A conversation between Dr. Diana Wall and Dr. Steven Zucker in Central Park about Seneca Village. If you are a descendant of a Seneca Village resident, or know someone who is, please contact the Seneca Village Project at: diana.diz.wall[at]gmail.com.A Smarthistory ARCHES video. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker. Find learning related resources here: https://smarthistory.org/seeing-america-2/

Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience (Second Edition) gives instructors, students, and general readers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of African Americans’ cultural and political history, economic development, artistic expressiveness, and religious and philosophical worldviews in a critical framework. It offers sound interdisciplinary analysis of selected historical and contemporary issues surrounding the origins and manifestations of White supremacy in the United States. By placing race at the center of the work, the book offers significant lessons for understanding the institutional marginalization of Blacks in contemporary America and their historical resistance and perseverance.

In this lesson, students will investigate the work and legacies of Black and Latinx pioneers often ignored in larger discussions about LGBTQ+ history, by collaborating with other students in analyzing primary source documents. Students will also explore the ways city governments and activists are working to combat the erasure of Black and Latinx trans women and the broader whitewashing of the Gay Liberation Movement.

Students will compare Kendrick Lamar's "Alright" with black protest songs of the past in order to identify common themes and ideas tat artists have used to illustrate black experience in the United States.

In this lesson. students will read statements from Black Lives Matter and watch a clip fron CNN's Soundtracks to explore the sifnificance of the movement and the music made in response to the issues they rally behind. Students will also analyze clips from the music videos of artists Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce Knowles-Carter to understand music's relation to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Students will analyze demographic data, and watch footage from CNN's Soundtrakcs series and a congressional hearing after the disaster to better understand the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina, and the way the federal government's response brought to light issues of racial neglect. Students will also invesitgate how Kanye West's comments during a national fundraiser articulated the disappointment and anger many black American's felt following Hurricane Katrina.

In this lesson, Barack Obama's second inaugural address serves as a launching point for classroom discussions on how the Stonewall Riots might be comparable to other seminal moments in the ongoing fight for equality in the United States. To supplement these discussions, students will analyze Rod Stewart's "The Killing of Georgie" as a poetic account of LGBTQ+ discrimination in the United States, and compare primary source documents from the Women's Rights, Civil Rights, and LGBTQ+ Rights movements.

This video segment explores how the song Strange Fruit became one of the best-known and most enduring songs of protest. In 1939, the legendary blues singer Billie Holiday performed the song as a daring criticism of the commonplace practice of the lynching of African-Americans. Civil rights groups such as the NAACP had made countless appeals, but it was Holiday’s haunting rendition that made it impossible for white Americans and lawmakers to ignore the widespread crime.

A second video segment includes the story of Abel Meeropol, son of Russian Jewish immigrants and a high school English teacher in the Bronx neighborhood where he was born, wrote a poem entitled Strange Fruit. This video discusses how the poem would later be performed by the legendary Billie Holiday as a song of protest, bringing national attention to the crime of lynching.
https://opb.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/bf09.socst.us.prosp.songborn/abel-meeropol-billie-holiday-and-a-song-born-in-protest/

Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.

In my Latino/Latina literature class, my primary intent is to help my students see the inequities created in our society by pervasive racism and discrimination. This project asks that the students watch two hours of