Also American

Curriculum unit

Mapping Local History: Massacre & Memory

Using the map, students locate racial violence and erased Black communities near them and learn how such history is buried, and recovered.

Unit objectives

Students use primary evidence and the site map to investigate a local site of racial violence or Black achievement and present its history and legacy.

  1. Lesson 1 · 1 class period

    Reading the map

    Objectives

    Learn what the map shows, massacres, lynchings, destroyed towns, and excellence, and how to read precision and sources.

    Materials

    The site map; the methodology page.

    Introduce the map's categories and sourcing, and the difference between an exact site and a county-level estimate.

    Discussion questions

    Why are so many points only county-level? What does the density of the map reveal?

  2. Lesson 2 · 1–2 class periods

    Anatomy of a massacre

    Objectives

    Compare several massacres and the economics and politics behind them.

    Materials

    Timeline entries below; the site pages for Tulsa, Wilmington, Colfax, Rosewood.

    Examine Tulsa, Wilmington, Colfax, and Rosewood as a pattern of attacks on Black prosperity and power.

    Teach from these moments
    1. April 13, 1873
      The Colfax Massacre

      A white militia murders scores of Black freedmen in Louisiana, a turning point against Reconstruction.

    2. November 10, 1898
      The Wilmington coup of 1898

      White supremacists violently overthrow a multiracial elected government in North Carolina.

    3. May 31, 1921
      The Tulsa Race Massacre

      A white mob destroys the prosperous "Black Wall Street" of Greenwood, killing hundreds.

    4. 1923
      The Rosewood massacre

      A white mob destroys the Black town of Rosewood, Florida.

    Discussion questions

    What did these communities have in common? Who profited from destroying them?

  3. Lesson 3 · project

    Investigate your own county

    Objectives

    Research a site of racial violence or Black achievement near the student's home.

    Materials

    The site map (search by state/county); local archives; the EJI archive.

    Students use the map to find a local site, read its sources, and present its history, legacy, and how it is (or isn't) memorialized today.

    Discussion questions

    What happened where you live? How is it remembered, or not?