August 28, 2013: 50 Years Since the March on Washington

Today, bells rang at 3pm EST to commemorate the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. More specifically, ringing the bells at three was to signify the importance of one person and one speech, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream." Fifty years later, this powerful speech has become the central focus for the march and civil rights in the U.S, yet a lot of other speeches and individuals were (and are) equally important.

In this post, I thought I would share some resources related to this important date in history. First, I want to highlight an invaluable online video resource, The Teaching Channel. There, you can find hundreds of classroom videos of lessons specifically tied to the Common Core Standards. Inside this archive, you can find about 14 videos related to the Standford History Education Group's project, Reading Like a Historian. At the Stanford site, you can find over 75 quality PRIMARY SOURCE lessons for U.S. and World History.

Here are some lesson ideas for today's historic event from both sites:

1) Teaching Channel's Corroboration Lesson Video for March on Washington (note the full lesson is linked in the lower right-hand corner when you scroll down the screen).

2) Stanford History Education Group's Corroboration Lesson Plan for Civil Rights Act of 1964, which includes an excerpt from the speech John Lewis gave at the march in 1963.