"As a world-renowned archive that is free and open to the public, the Schomburg Center is a unique resource for students of all ages to engage in lifelong learning. We want you and your students to understand that this is your archive, your Schomburg Center—a place to forge new meaning and new understandings to tell the stories that can’t be told otherwise."
— Read more from Joy L. Bivins, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Black Power: Curriculum Guides
Through the critical analysis of a range of cultural objects—including album covers, photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, and visual art—students will investigate and challenge the relationship between race, freedom, and the nation and consider Black activists’ radical propositions for a more liberatory future.
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The Black Panther Party in Harlem
This curriculum guide explores how the Black Panther Party galvanized the support of the Harlem community by imagining radical grassroots solutions to human rights issues that the government had failed to address.
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Aesthetics of Black Power
This curriculum guide explores the ways that African Americans disrupted anti-Black standards of beauty through fashion and imagined new liberatory politics through Black style.
Slavery & Abolition: Curriculum Guides
These guides are intended for students who already have some foundational knowledge of slavery and the abolition movement and are prepared to—with guidance from their educators—use primary sources to deepen their understanding of this history.
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Abolition as a Black-Led Movement
This curriculum guide explores the accounts of enslaved and free Black people’s resistance to enslavement.
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Race, Racism & White Supremacy
This curriculum guide explores how slave owners and other elites created and enforced white supremacy and colorism in the United States and the Caribbean.
Teaching Tools
Explore the Primary Source Investigation Guide and Worksheet to help you and your students investigate the materials featured in the curriculum series. Find suggestions to facilitate guided discovery with your students, and distribute the worksheet for note-taking.
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Get Help from Expert Staff
Contact us to discuss group or individual training opportunities to support the implementation of Schomburg Curriculum lessons in your classroom.
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Discover the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, one of The New York Public Library’s renowned research libraries, is a world-leading cultural institution devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences.
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Find Additional Primary Source Teaching Guides
Discover curricular materials that leverage the Library’s collections, along with model questions and activities for your students. Plus, find a wide array of guides that explore various themes and can be easily integrated into your teaching.
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Explore the Center for Educators & Schools
The New York Public Library’s Center for Educators and Schools is devoted to making all of the Library’s resources accessible and useful for educators. You’ll find programs and services tailored for the educator community, such as book lists, credit-bearing workshops, special access to exhibitions, and much more.
Thank You
This project was made possible in part by a grant to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture by the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, MH-00-19-0031-19.
The work of the Center for Educators and Schools is part of the Library’s overall commitment to our branch patrons and education programs, led by the Merryl H. and James S. Tisch Director of The New York Public Library. Major support for educational programming is provided by Merryl H. and James S. Tisch.
The Center for Educators and Schools is supported in part by a generous grant from the Hearst Foundations.