Teaching Resources
Lesson plans, discussion guides, and primary-source activities designed to connect African and Black history — from pre-colonial civilizations to present-day America — with rigorous, standards-aligned pedagogy.
Featured Resource
A semester-long framework for teaching African and Black history as a connected arc — from the empires of Mali and Songhai through the slave trade, Reconstruction, the Great Migration, and the ongoing present. Includes 14 lesson plans, 8 discussion guides, and assessment rubrics aligned to Common Core and C3 Social Studies Standards.
Classroom ready
Each lesson is built around a primary source, a causal question, and a discussion activity. All are free to download and adapt.
Students examine original HOLC security maps alongside current neighborhood data to trace how 1930s federal mortgage policy continues to determine school quality, health outcomes, and generational wealth today. Includes a primary source analysis activity and structured academic controversy.
Using data from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, students analyze the scope and economic logic of the trade — and its deliberate destruction of African social structures, families, and accumulated wealth. Includes data visualization activities.
Students compare Reconstruction-era constitutional amendments with the Compromise of 1877 and subsequent Black Codes, tracing how a democratic opening was systematically closed and what that meant for the next 150 years of American politics.
An introduction to pre-colonial West Africa through the lens of the Mali and Songhai Empires — including the University of Sankore at Timbuktu, the hajj of Mansa Musa, and sophisticated trans-Saharan trade networks. Designed to establish the baseline of what existed before the slave trade.
Students investigate the causal chain connecting Jim Crow violence, economic exclusion, and the promise of northern cities — and trace why the conditions migrants found in the North were often shaped by the same discriminatory systems they fled.
A close examination of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, how its benefits were administered in a racially discriminatory way, and what the compounding effects have been on wealth, homeownership, and educational attainment across generations.
Facilitated inquiry
Structured conversation frameworks for classroom, book club, or community use. Each guide includes opening prompts, deeper inquiry questions, and facilitation notes.
A structured discussion connecting the federal redlining maps of the 1930s to current debates about housing policy, school funding, and neighborhood investment. Includes opening readings, tiered discussion questions, and a "chain of causation" activity.
Download guide Coming soonExamines the historical and contemporary arguments around reparations — from Frederick Douglass to H.R. 40 — using primary sources and economic evidence. Designed for structured academic controversy or Socratic seminar.
Download guide Coming soonTraces the historical arc from Reconstruction-era Black Codes through the War on Drugs to the present carceral state. Includes data, firsthand accounts, and comparative policy analysis prompts.
Download guide Coming soonAn opening-unit discussion guide for orienting students to the civilizations — Mali, Songhai, Kush, Benin, Great Zimbabwe — that existed before European colonization and the slave trade. Challenges common assumptions about Africa's pre-colonial history.
Download guide Coming soonConnects property-tax school funding, neighborhood segregation, and educational outcomes to trace why the "achievement gap" is more accurately a resource gap — and how that gap traces back through decades of deliberate policy.
Download guide Coming soonTracks the history of voting rights legislation and restriction — from Reconstruction amendments through the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to the Supreme Court's 2013 decision — and examines what the pattern reveals about how rights are expanded and contracted.
Download guide Coming soonCurriculum alignment
All Chain teaching resources are aligned to national and widely-adopted state standards frameworks.
Common Core ELA
All lessons include reading, writing, and evidence-based argumentation tasks that meet CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH and CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST standards for history/social studies.
C3 Social Studies Framework
Resources are built around the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework's inquiry arc — compelling questions, supporting questions, sources, and informed action.
AP US History & AP African American Studies
Content aligns with APUSH Period 5 (1844–1877), Period 7 (1890–1945), and Period 8 (1945–1980) themes, and supports the AP African American Studies pilot framework.
State Diversity & Inclusion Standards
Resources support Illinois, California, New Jersey, and New York African American history curriculum mandates, with adaptations available for additional state contexts.