Smithsonian Launches New Website for Teaching African American Civil Rights Through American Art

via Art Daily:

Oh Freedom! Teaching African American Civil Rights through American Art at the Smithsonian is a new Web-based project developed jointly by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. It offers teachers an introduction to the civil rights movement through the unique lens of the Smithsonian’s collections. Drawing connections between art and history, Oh Freedom! gives educators tools to help students interpret the long struggle for civil rights. Oh Freedom! broadens the definition of the civil rights movement beyond the 1950s and 1960s, presenting it as a longer and more complex quest for freedom, justice and equality throughout the course of the 20th century and into the present.
Oh Freedom! brings together more than three dozen featured artworks from the collections of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, from early 20th-century photographs by James VanDerZee and Cornelius M. Battey to Shepard Fairey’s iconic “HOPE” (from the series “Obama”). An interactive timeline, “Explore History in Art,” frames these artworks with artist biographies and secondary sources from the wider collections of the Smithsonian, such as historical artifacts, additional artworks, musical and vocal recordings, photographs and more. The Archives of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Museum of American History and the National Portrait Gallery also contributed to the site. These sources, along with a glossary and other materials, help students and teachers contextualize the stories revealed by each artwork.
[Clip]
The site offers lesson plans for teachers to download that were prepared by a national committee of teachers. Interactive features allow teachers to share new lesson plans using a prepared template, provide activities and reactions to the site, and discuss how artworks suit their particular classroom needs. Additional resources, such as teacher and student bibliographies, also are available online. The site is designed primarily for teachers of middle and high school students, especially those who teach social studies.

Direct to Oh Freedom! Teaching African American Civil Rights through American Art

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, News