Theme
Black Business
Explore this theme across 70 historical figures, 40 heritage sites,26 lessons, 11 cultural references, and 3 journeys.
Historical Figures
A. Philip Randolph
1889–1979
Pullman Porters
–?
Ella Fitzgerald
1917–1996
Billie Holiday
1915–1959
James Brown
1933–2006
Gladys Knight
1944–?
Michael Jackson
1958–2009
Sarah Vaughan
1924–1990
Aretha Franklin
1942–2018
Biddy Mason
1818–1891
Huey P. Newton
1942–1989
Bobby Seale
1936–?
Eldridge Cleaver
1935–1998
Angela Davis
1944–?
Fred Hampton
1948–1969
Booker T. Washington
1856–1915
Creek Freedmen settlers
–?
Black Oklahoma Territory settlers
–?
Robert S. Abbott
1870–1940
Oscar Stanton DePriest
–?
Ida B. Wells
1862–1931
Louis Armstrong
1901–1971
Colonel Allen Allensworth
1842–1914
William Payne
1951–?
Josephine Allensworth
–?
Nat Love (Deadwood Dick)
–?
Wild Bill Hickok
1837–1876
John Handy
1933–?
Saunders King
1909–2000
Fillmore jazz community
–?
Urban renewal displaced residents
–?
Duke Ellington
1899–1974
Miles Davis
1926–1991
Minnie Evans
1892–1987
Five Points community leaders
–?
Freedpeople of Houston
–?
Reverend Jack Yates
–?
George Washington Carver
1864–1943
O.W. Gurley
1868–1935
J.B. Stradford
–?
1921 Massacre Survivors
1921–1921
Greenwood descendants
–?
Greenwood Business Owners
–?
Maggie L. Walker
1867–1934
Stephen Bishop
1951–?
Richard Henry Boyd
1843–1922
Samuel C. Tolbert Jr.
–?
Satchel Paige
1906–1982
Josh Gibson
1911–1947
Buck O'Neil
1911–2006
Jackie Robinson
1927–2022
Cool Papa Bell
1903–1991
Benjamin 'Pap' Singleton
1809–1900
W.R. Hill
–?
Z.T. Fletcher
1846–1927
Exoduster settlers
–?
Barack Obama
1961–?
Michelle Obama
1964–?
John Lewis
1940–2020
Harold Washington
1922–1987
Thomas A. Dorsey
1899–1993
George Pullman
1831–1897
Henry Adams
1838–1918
Bose Ikard
1843–1929
Daniel Webster Wallace
1860–1939
Bill Pickett
1870–1932
Nat Love
1854–1921
Crawford Goldsby (Cherokee Bill)
1876–1896
Pierre Bottineau
1817–1895
James Weeks
1798–1858
Heritage Sites
Acorn African American Cultural Center
Oakland, CA
Apollo Theater
New York, NY
Biddy Mason Memorial Park
Los Angeles, CA
Black Panther Party National Headquarters Site
Oakland, CA
Boley Historic District
Boley, OK
Bronzeville-Black Metropolis National Heritage Area
Chicago, IL
Cane River Creole National Historical Park
Natchitoches, LA
Clark Atlanta University
Atlanta, GA
Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park
Earlimart, CA
Deadwood National Historic Landmark
Deadwood, SD
Fillmore District — Harlem of the West
San Francisco, CA
Five Points — Welton Street Cultural Historic District
Denver, CO
Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site
Williston, ND
Freedmen's Town Historic District (Fourth Ward)
Houston, TX
George Washington Carver National Monument
Diamond, MO
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Gatlinburg, TN
Greenwood Cultural Center
Tulsa, OK
Greenwood Cultural Center
Tulsa, OK
Greenwood District (Black Wall Street)
Tulsa, OK
Hotel Theresa
New York, NY
Little River Canyon National Preserve
Fort Payne, AL
Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site
Richmond, VA
Mammoth Cave National Park
Mammoth Cave, KY
National Baptist Convention of America (NBCA) — Headquarters at Simmons College
Louisville, KY
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
Kansas City, MO
New River Gorge National Park and Preserve
Fayetteville, WV
Nicodemus National Historic Site
Nicodemus, KS
North Carolina Central University
Durham, NC
Obama Presidential Center
Chicago, Illinois
Obed Wild and Scenic River
Wartburg, TN
Pilgrim Baptist Church
Chicago, IL
Pullman National Historical Park
Chicago, IL
Small's Paradise
New York, NY
Springfield Armory National Historic Site
Springfield, MA
Sugar Hill
New York, NY
Sumner County, Kansas — Exoduster Settlement Sites
Wellington, KS
Texas Black Cowboys Trail — Chisholm Trail Corridor
Abilene, TX
Texas Southern University
Houston, TX
Voyageurs National Park
International Falls, MN
Weeksville Heritage Center
Brooklyn, NY
Curriculum Lessons
The Political Convention & Public Voice (1820–1840)
Unit 4
The Debate That Shaped a Century: Douglass, Washington, Du Bois & the Question of Black Freedom
Unit 4
The Architecture of Community — Churches & Aid Societies (1840–1860)
Unit 4
Marcus Garvey, the UNIA & the Black Star Line
Unit 4.5
The 13th Amendment Loophole: Convict Leasing & the Re-Enslavement of Black America
Unit 4.5
Ida B. Wells: The Science of Lynching & the Architecture of Anti-Black Terror
Unit 4.5
NIL, Ownership, and the Economics of Black Athletic Labor
Unit 5.5
The Negro Leagues: Black Institution-Building Under Exclusion
Unit 5.5
The Zong: When an Insurance Policy Decided Who Would Live
Unit 5.5
The Civil Rights Movement: From Brown to Selma (1954–1965)
Unit 6
Malcolm X & the Nation of Islam: Black Nationalism and Self-Defense
Unit 6
Vietnam: Black Service, Black Resistance
Unit 6
The Harlem Renaissance: Remaking Black Identity Through Art
Unit 6.5
The Literary Diaspora: Black Pulitzer Prize Winners & the Canon They Built
Unit 6.5
Reconstruction: America's First Multiracial Democracy
Unit 7
The Great Migration: Urban Cultural Transformation
Unit 7
Economic Self-Determination: From Mutual Aid to Black Wall Street
Unit 7
The Haitian Thread: Revolution, Refuge, and the Long Struggle
Unit 7.5
The Congo Crisis: A Prime Minister Dead Within Seven Months of Independence
Unit 8
Redlining and the GI Bill: How Federal Policy Built the Racial Wealth Gap
Unit 8
The Ring as Refuge: Cuban Boxing After Maceo
Unit 8
The Racial Wealth Gap Today: What the Numbers Mean
Unit 8
The Predatory Inclusion: Subprime Lending and the 2008 Collapse
Unit 8
Mutual Aid and Cooperative Economics: The Tradition That Survived Everything
Unit 8
Black Wall Street and the Architecture of Black Wealth
Unit 8
From Studio One to the World: Ska, Rocksteady, and Reggae
Unit 11
Cultural References
A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine Hansberry · Literature · 1959
American Gothic, Washington, D.C.
Gordon Parks · Photography · 1942
Black Business in Chicago, 1899
African American Photographs Assembled for the 1900 Paris Exposition · Photography · 1899
Black Chicago and the Great Migration
Unknown photographer · Photography · 1910
Couple in Raccoon Coats
James VanDerZee · Photography · 1932
Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee · Film · 1989
Harlem Renaissance: Community and Everyday Life
Unknown photographers / Harlem Renaissance archive · Photography · 1930
Insecure
Issa Rae · Series · 2016
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Andy Borowitz / Susan Borowitz · Series · 1990
The Janitor Who Paints
Palmer Hayden · Visual Art · 1930
Women Sorting Tobacco in Richmond, Virginia
African American Photographs Assembled for the 1900 Paris Exposition · Photography · 1899