Media Resources

The Black Archives of Mid-America, located in Kansas City, Missouri, was founded by Horace Peterson III in 1974. Today, the Black Archives houses some of the most important sources related to the history of people of African descent in Kansas City and beyond, including oral histories with civil rights activists, the original document freeing slaves in Missouri, the personal papers of prominent African American figures, and an extensive collection of historical photographs.

By investigating the lives and events recorded in newspapers, official documents, and personal correspondence from this collection, students will immerse themselves in the past and discover the fears, friction, and turmoil that shaped these tumultuous times.

This episode of BackStory recounts the turbulent history of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Each segment below contains a clip from the podcast as well as a set of comprehension questions to guide listening.

This episode of BackStory discusses the ways people in the U.S. have responded to technological changes over the centuries, highlighting that suspicion of such changes is often reasonable and warranted, especially for minority and marginalized groups.

A collection of essays and lessons created by the National Endowment for the Humanities and National History Day as part of the NEH’s special initiative to advance civic education and the study of U.S. history and culture in preparation for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

This resource is part of EDSITEment’s Race and Ethnicity Keyword Thesaurus for Chronicling America. Here you will find historically accurate keywords that may help in using the Chronicling America historic newspaper database to research topics in White American history. 

Smarthistory is an NEH-funded digital humanities project that offers free resources on art, history, and art history for classrooms and public enjoyment. Curated by scholars from around the world, users will find videos, essays, and insightful commentary about thousands of pieces of art.

This resource is part of EDSITEment’s Race and Ethnicity Keyword Thesaurus for Chronicling America. Here you will find historically accurate keywords that may help in using the Chronicling America historic newspaper database to research topics in Native American history.  

The NEH-funded digital history project Hearing the Americas provides an interactive way to explore the first decades of recorded music in the early twentieth century, revealing how ideas about genre, race, and nation were formed in the transnational circulation of people and records.

Although only 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been ratified, thousands of proposed amendments have been introduced in Congress or circulated in public petitions. The Amendments Project compiles, classifies, and analyzes these proposed amendments to the Constitution. In addition to providing an overview of constitutional history and the amendment process, the site enables advanced search and filtering of the amendments database, making it an effective hands-on introduction to using search tools for research.