Patrick Henry's impassioned plea at the Second Virginia Convention in 1775, "Give me liberty or give me death," defined the American Revolution. This one-hour documentary-drama captures this seminal moment in American history by balancing experts' commentary on the events preceding the Second Virginia Convention with dramatic re-enactments of the historic moments that followed.

When most people think of the civil rights movement, they think of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. Malcolm X's embrace of black separatism, however, shifted the debate over how to achieve freedom and equality by laying the groundwork for the Black Power movement of the late sixties.

As he formed his own political voice and ideologies, Frederick Douglass broke away from his abolitionist mentor, William Lloyd Garrison, to start the newspaper "The North Star" and give Black abolitionists a voice. This caused a rift in their relationship, as Douglass started to emerge as a political leader in his own right. He used words as battle axes, which can be seen fully in one of his most famous speeches, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?".

This resource is from the Utah Division of Archives and Records Service. This primary source set is designed to help students learn about prohibition. Utah became the 36th and last state to ratify the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th and made alcohol legal again throughout the country. The sources here show issues related to both the 18th and 21st amendments, including state congressional debates and criminal records.

In this interactive lesson supporting literacy skills in U.S. history, students learn about the debate over slavery at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Students explore the changing perception of slavery in the new United States and the ways in which the debate over slavery affected the content of the Constitution. During this process, they read informational text, learn and practice vocabulary words, and explore content through videos and engagement activities.

In this lesson, students will learn about Sojourner Truth’s egalitarian spirit in the face of institutional discrimination. After viewing a video about her life, students will examine an 1864 photograph of Truth and read excerpts of her most famous speech. The lesson concludes with students choosing a new name for a current-day exemplar of perseverance.

Students will watch clips from CNN's Soundtracks to identify historic details of NASA's Apollo program. Students will then identify poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron's critical view of the Apollo program through his song, "Whitey On The Moon" and participate in a structured academic controversy activity to debate the controversy of the program.

Students will watch excerpts from Ken Burns’s film Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, a video about Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and read a speech by Harper. They will then analyze the factors that led these women to become iconoclastic advocates for women’s rights and compare how and why their experiences differed. Students will then create a diagram, recipe, or slide show that demonstrates how these women’s life circumstances, personal qualities, significant experiences, and role models contributed to their actions. The activity will culminate in students reflecting on what makes a change-maker and considering their own capacities as change-makers.

Last week's blog post introduced Chronicling America, a deep repository of historic American newspapers covering the years 1836"“1922. Students can use newspapers available through Chronicling America to expose the rich texture of the women's rights movement and its many milestones, meetings, and debates right from the beginning and in a way that few other resources can. As an added bonus, they will be working with the kind of complex informational texts that the Common Core English Language Standards recommends. In what follows, we'll be suggesting articles written from a variety of points of view that make arguments based on appeals to evidence.