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?