Rosa Parks wasn’t the first African American to publicly protest segregation in regional and local transportation systems in the modern civil rights era. Thirteen years before Ms. Parks refused to move for a white passenger, Bayard Rustin had a similar...
By Deborah Scott, Director, The Buffalo Soldier Living History Site While Marylanders are familiar with the histories of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and the Underground Railroad, they may be less familiar with the history of the Buffalo Soldiers and the...
One of the many letters Abraham Lincoln received after being elected president in November 1860 was from Alexander Stephens, a former congressional colleague of Lincoln and the future Vice-President of the Confederacy. He urged Lincoln to make a public statement...
In May of 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education, finding segregated schools “inherently unequal.” One year later, the Court issued its “Ruling on Relief,” mandating that desegregation proceed “with all deliberate speed.” Given the deliberate vagueness...
by Allison Luthern, Architectural Survey Administrator Tobacco barns are one of the most iconic and recognizable historic building types in Maryland. Because of the deep and abiding traditional techniques of tobacco cultivation in our state, these buildings have distinctive features...
On this day, we are pleased to post this essay by Lucas Morel, Class of 1960 Professor of Ethics and Politics at Washington and Lee University and long time former faculty member at Teaching American History, who considers the lasting legacy...
Announcing the FY 2025 African American Heritage Preservation Program Awardees The Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture and the Maryland Historical Trust have awarded 31 African American Heritage Preservation Program grants totaling $5,000,000 to numerous Maryland organizations for...
For the past year, Teaching American History’s webinars have been about the presidential election. Last spring, we broke down the presidential election cycle. We spent this fall diving into the rhetorical traditions of American politics. We don’t know about you...
Bill of Rights day—December 15—commemorates the day in 1791 when the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, were ratified. To celebrate Bill of Rights Day, we offer below a condensed version of the introduction to the...
There is a strong temptation to consider the story of the U.S. Bill of Rights as part of a larger narrative that starts with Magna Carta in 1215 and continues into the twenty-first century with concerns about human rights across...
