In 1968, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense established a chapter in Seattle, one of the first outside of California. This website, devoted to portraying the history and collecting the memories of that chapter, is "the most extensive online collection of materials" for any Black Panther Party chapter. It includes 13 oral histories and brief biographies of key Black Panther Party members, 53 photographs documenting Black Panther events in the late 1960s, more than 100 news stories covering Party activities from 1968 to 1981 (four years after the Party was dissolved), testimony and exhibits from the 1970 Congressional Hearings investigating the Party, and all five issues of the Seattle Black Panther Party "Bulletin." A "Slide Show" highlighting some of these materials is a good place to begin for those unfamiliar with Black Panther Party history.

This website is part of the larger Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, which provides extensive materials that can serve as historical context, such as a guide to civil rights groups from the 1910s to the 1970s, 14 2,000-word essays on the ethnic press in Seattle, 13 other "Special Sections" on topics such as segregation in Seattle, and 37 in-depth essays on historical topics such as the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. In addition, a "For Teachers" section provides eight lesson plans using the website's material for middle and high school students.

This collection of essays, documents, and bibliographies addresses Atlantic slavery, resistance, and abolition. Source Documents includes about 200 speeches, letters, cartoons, graphics, and articles (visitors may browse by author, date, subject, or document type—no searching), that document slavery in the Americas. Bibliographies contains about 12 detailed bibliographies by scholars of slavery and abolition that can be used in teaching or studying in this area, as well as links to book reviews on the internet. A Scholars Forum posts a 4,500-word featured essay by a noted scholar, and visitors can read past essays as well. Teachers may find useful a Curriculum section, where lesson plans are available, including one for the Amistad affair. It includes a timeline of abolition, a narrative of the incident and the subsequent trials, and an essay. Tangled Roots uses a 1,000-word essay to examine the history shared by Irish Americans and African Americans in America. Neither the most complete digital archive nor the greatest collection of essays, this site is nonetheless a valuable resource for the most recent scholarship of American slavery and abolition.

Transcriptions and images of more than 4,000 newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves and indentured servants between 1736 and 1803 can be browsed or search on this website. The runaways are primarily from Virginia, but also come from states along the Eastern seaboard and locations abroad. Materials include ads placed by owners and overseers as well as those placed by sheriffs and other governmental officials for captured or suspected runaway slaves. Additional advertisements announce runaway servants, sailors, and military deserters.

"Exploring Advertisements" offers browse, search, and full-text search functions, as well as maps and timelines for viewing the geographic locations of slaves. The site also provides documents on runaways—including letters, other newspaper materials, literature and narratives, and several dozen official records, such as laws, county records, and House of Burgess journals. Information on the currency and clothing of the time, a gazetteer with seven maps of the region, and a 13-title bibliography are also available.

Maintained by Steven F. Miller of the University of Maryland, this site provides 44 primary documents relating to the emancipation of African American slaves between 1861 and 1865. It includes a letter by General William T. Sherman explaining why he refused to return fugitive slaves to their owners; an 1864 letter from Annie Davis, a Maryland slave, to President Abraham Lincoln asking him to clarify her legal status; a description by a Union general of a bloody battle at Milliken's Bend, LA, where a brigade of black soldiers fought; and documents from the federal and Confederate governments relating to significant events.

The documents—transcribed from originals housed at the National Archives—are accompanied by sentence-long annotations, as well as an authoritative chronology of events leading to legal emancipation.

This site is part of a larger effort underway by the Freedmen and Southern Society Project, "supported by the University of Maryland and by grants from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities" to publish the multivolume Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867.

Opening this website, visitors are greeted with several pictures of Frederick Douglass throughout his lifespan, while a five-part historical overview of his life explains what the exhibit entails. Visitors can access more of the site's content through the three key feature links in the lower right corner of the home page: the "House Tour," "Lesson Plans," and "Portraits." The "House Tour" takes the user on a virtual room-by-room tour of Frederick Douglass's home, which is physically located in Washington, DC. This link may be useful for educators who would like their students to experience Douglass’s home but who cannot reach DC, offering a memorable classroom experience for any K–12 classroom studying the life of Frederick Douglass or of African Americans during the Antebellum and Reconstruction eras.

Additionally, educators could assign this website to students for research using primary source artifacts and documents. "Portraits" provides not only portraits with captions explaining their significance in Douglass's life, but of his children and close abolitionist friends, as well as personal items such as his Panama hat, eyeglasses, coffee pot and articles from his paper, the North Star. In total, the site offers more than 150 primary source documents and artifacts from the time period and Douglass's life. Clicking on the link for “All Image Galley” allows the viewer to step into Frederick Douglass’s world, viewing all of the primary sources in one exhibit gallery with nine subsections, including "Leisure Time" and "Presidential Appointments." This truly brings history to life!

One of the most useful links for educators is "Lesson Plans." This takes the user to a section of the National Park Service's website called Teaching with Museum Collections, where educators can download two lesson plans on Frederick Douglass, or download lesson plan templates to create their own artifact-based lessons. The lessons are clear and include state standards as well as differentiated instruction ideas. "Frederick Douglass's Hat" is appropriate for middle school students, but can be modified and integrated to the needs of all students. "Forced March," created by an 8th-grade middle school teacher, can also be modified or enhanced to meet the needs of a differentiated classroom.

Teachinghistory.org Teacher Representative Lynn Roach wrote this Website Review. Learn more about our Teacher Representatives.

Part of the "Famous Trials" site created by Law Professor Douglas O. Linder, this collection provides documents, photographs, essays, and information about the controversial trials of nine African American youths for allegedly raping two white women on a train in the Depression South. Contemporary materials include 20 excerpts from the trials; 22 contemporary news articles; 10 appellate court decisions; eight letters; 28 photographs; 16 quotes from participants and others commenting on the trials; a political cartoon; and a postcard.

Also offers two essays by Linder of 6,000 and 18,000 words each; 20 biographies ranging from 100 to 1,000 words each on participants in the trials, political figures, and historians who have chronicled it; and a bibliography of 30 entries, including five links to related sites. Of value to those studying American race and gender history, the South, legal history, and Depression America.

A joint project between college students and a nonprofit organization, this site collects the documents, recollections, and other media relating to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Many of the documents were submitted by visitors to the website, and the site actively solicits additional resources.

Materials include 10 documents, five video files that document interviews and panel discussions, and links to 15 outside Brown sites. The Interactive section features six interactive activities, including a map showing Jim Crow laws in various states and communities. The site includes relatively few primary sources, but the individual stories featured are valuable.

This site introduces the Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC) at Indiana University. It provides information on holdings, exhibitions, and events sponsored by the AAAMC, which focuses on the post-World War II era. The site features listings of more than 70 links to sites featuring classical, religious, and popular music, including rock, blues, rhythm and blues, hip hop, jazz, and gospel, as well as topics dealing with African-American history and culture, organizations, and magazines. The site does not feature any audio presentations, and is useful mainly for its links.

This site features primary documents related to the 19th-century desegregation of the Boston and Nantucket, MA school systems. It includes a timeline with links to 71 expandable and downloadable primary sources. The documents consist of census records, maps, reports of the local school committees, and articles from William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator. The site also contains a bibliography with more than 30 items. Designed to develop student critical thinking skills, materials encourage middle and high students to understand different points of view. For example, students can study petitions from those supporting desegregation and petitions from those in opposition. In addition students will better understand the relationship between Massachusetts' early desegregation cases and the 20th-century Plessy v. Ferguson decision.

Complete with primary sources and lesson plans, the site not only offers useful curriculum for lessons in America's long march to free and integrated public education but helps students identify how contemporary debates about education parallel the 19th-century Massachusetts desegregation cases.

A collaborative effort between students and faculty at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, this site includes two sections. In the first, a timeline from 1888 to 1899 provides, for each year, snapshots of major national events, personalities, and statistics as well as excursions to approximately 30 additional links, background essays, images, quotations, bibliographies, and other material. The second, "Bowling Green, Ohio: A Tour of the Crystal City," contains 27 photographs; a month-by-month timeline covering town events during the years 1892-97; a 19,000-word essay written in 1897 on Bowling Green's "early history"; and essays ranging from 1,500 to 3,000 words on specific topics. No search engine, but the site may be browsed by year. Useful both as a general overview of the period and as a local history resource.