Participants in this course will examine African American history in the contexts of United States, North Carolina, and world history. They will begin by connecting the experiences of African Americans in early U.S. history to the histories and cultures of the African communities of their ancestors and will follow those cultural connections between Africa and the United States throughout the course.

Course topics include African Americans in the colonies and the early Republic, the Middle Passage, American slavery and the experiences of free African Americans in the antebellum period, the abolition movement, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the experiences of African Americans during World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Throughout the course, participants will discuss African American activism through churches, political organizations, and communities and discover African American culture through art, music, and other cultural forms.

Stratford Hall, the home of the Lees of Virginia and birthplace of Robert E. Lee, hosts its first symposium dedicated to the further study of General Robert E. Lee and various issues relating to the American Civil War. This program includes tours of the nearby Fredericksburg, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Battlefields, some of the bloodiest combat of the Civil War.

Historians Peter Carmichael, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, and Elizabeth Brown Pryor will lead the group. The focus is on Robert E. Lee as a general, the use of primary documents in uncovering new dimensions to Civil War personalities, and the importance of the Fredericksburg and Overland Campaigns.

This workshop examines the questions "How did the self-contained environment of a plantation—its layout, buildings, isolation, and use of the land—influence the lives and self-image of the enslaved?," "What made a plantation 'home?'," "What made a plantation 'hell?'," "How did a slave reconcile 'home' and 'hell?,'" and "What can plantation photographs tell us about plantation life?"

The Center's online resource workshops give high school teachers of U.S. history and American literature a deeper understanding of their subject matter. They introduce teachers to fresh texts and critical perspectives and help teachers integrate them into their lessons. Led by distinguished scholars and running 60 to 90 minutes, they are conducted through lecture and discussion using conferencing software. A resource workshop identifies central themes within a topic and explores ways to teach them through the close analysis of primary texts, including works of art, and the use of discussion questions. Texts are drawn from anthologies in the Center's Toolbox Library. To participate, all that is needed is a computer with an internet connection, a speaker, and a microphone.