The Reanimating African American Oral Histories of the Gulf South (RGS) project aims to create over 100 pieces of localized history curriculum for use in K-12 classrooms and other community education spaces. Utilizing the Joel Buchanan African American Oral History Archive, RGS supports educators to raise the academic and social awareness of African American histories by providing resources and lesson plans. Additionally, RGS will create opportunities for more clear and more accessible primary resource files and dynamic options for downloading oral history data.
Teachers who have already participated in RGS associated lesson plans had this to say about their work:
“I’ve been a little worried about teaching Black History to a majority white population in a conservative, rural setting, however, I have been very excited to see their connections to what they see as the civil rights movements then and now. We were able to talk about Black Lives Matter as a civil rights movement and the oral histories helped them make the connections”
“Students LOVED the lesson plan. It went even better than I imagined. We usually just do superficial work for Black History Month, but not this year. It was wonderful to be able to have them think deeply about the way their local histories can be used to understand our contemporary issues.”