Honoring Our History through Artwork: Martin Luther King, Jr. in Library of Congress Primary Sources
By: Danna Bell
Are there statues in your community created to honor those who have made a difference? Have buildings in your town been named or renamed for important people in history? Martin Luther King, Jr. is one such person. Ask your students to analyze a mural documenting the life of Dr. King, as seen in a photograph from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive at the Library of Congress.
Posted in: Teaching with the Library
Voting Rights - The Full Enfranchisem*nt of African Americans
By: Cheryl Lederle
The original Constitution of the United States was nearly mute on voting rights, ceding them to the states to determine. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution confers voting rights on African Americans, declaring that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Posted in: Teaching with the Library
An Olympian Effort: The Story of Jesse Owens in Library of Congress Primary Sources
By: Danna Bell
The opening ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics is just around the corner. How will you include information about the Olympics in your classroom?One way is to highlight a historic Olympian in lessons.
Posted in: Teaching with the Library
By: Larry Appelbaum
(photo by Tom Marcello) Chuck Wayne [Charles Jagelka 1923-1997] was a guitarist and teacher who helped bridge the swing era with the modernist bebop revolution of the mid-1940s. Wayne worked along 52nd Street and took part in recording sessions with Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie, Barney Bigard and many others. He was a member …
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Our online collections support many a research project, but contact with physical photographs and graphic items can be eye-opening and reveal new avenues for investigation. Kya Mangrum, a doctoral candidate in English Language and Literature at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, recently spent several days in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room exploring images of …
Posted in: Picture This
Brown v. Board of Education: Getting the Picture One Year Later
By: Jeff Bridgers
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declaring that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” This decision was pivotal to the struggle for racial desegregation in the United States. A year later, in May 1955, Thomas O’Halloran, on assignment for U.S. News & …
Posted in: Picture This
Words About Pictures: More National Book Festival Visitor Comments
By: Barbara Orbach Natanson
We are still savoring the comments visitors to the National Book Festival offered last fall while viewing sample photographs from our collections. This visitor’s comments seem particularly apt as we continue to celebrate Women’s History Month. The commenter recognized the well-known subject of the photograph, educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Bethune served …
Posted in: Picture This
Visible Resistance: Civil Rights Photographs
By: Barbara Orbach Natanson
On February 1, 1960, four young men sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and ordered coffee and doughnuts. More than fifty years later, this may not seem like a daring act, but it was. First the waitress and then the store manager explained that the lunch counter was reserved for …
Posted in: Picture This
Preparing for African American History Month: Ways of Honoring Heroes
By: Danna Bell
One way to introduce African American History Month is by facilitating a discussion about the ways in which African American achievement has been recognized in the nation's past.
Posted in: Teaching with the Library
Misbehavin' Encouraged in Music Division
By: Cait Miller
The following is a guest post from Music Archivist Chris Hartten. Broadway pianist, composer, and arranger Luther Henderson spent much of his career infusing the stage with his love for the storied roots of American jazz. Born in Kansas City on March 14, 1919, Henderson graduated from the Juilliard School of Music in 1942 before …
Posted in: In The Muse
