This program is sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coordinated by Waynesburg University.
See all America in Class®
online seminars.
Recertification Credit: The National Humanities Center programs are eligible for recertification credit. Each seminar includes ninety minutes of instruction plus approximately two hours of preparation. Because the seminars are conducted online, they may qualify for technology credit in districts that award it. The Center will supply documentation of participation.
Teaching with Primary Sources is a program of the Library of Congress that helps educators get students engaged, excited, and empowered through the use of primary sources. It provides professional development opportunities for educators and guides them in using the digitized primary sources available from the Library’s web site in their classrooms, libraries, and museums. The TPS program contributes to the quality of education by deepening content understanding and improving student literacy in our nation’s schools.
Upcoming Seminars
African Americans and the American Revolution
Leader
Alan Taylor
Distinguished Professor
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History
University of California, Davis
National Humanities Center Fellow
About the Seminar
In 1775 the royal governor of Virginia offered to free all the slaves in his colony who joined the British army and fought against the American rebels. Few slaves took him up on his offer. What can we make of that fact? Did the enslaved want to fight for their freedom but simply found it too difficult or too dangerous to escape to British camps? Or did slaves in Virginia and perhaps elsewhere side with the Patriots in the hope that the Revolution’s promise of liberty and equality applied to them? What role did African Americans play in the American Revolution? And how did the Revolution, a war fought to end the colonies’ “enslavement” by Great Britain, force American to confront slavery in their midst? Using resources from the Library from Congress’s American Memory Timeline and the National Humanities Center’s teaching anthologies, this seminar will address these and other questions.