Teach African and African American history as part of the full historical record. These three pathways build historical knowledge, source literacy, geographic thinking, and civic voice with increasing depth.
Each unit has an inquiry question, a content focus, evidence students can study, and a finished assessment. Select primary sources appropriate for students, identify their creators and contexts, and teach African people as thinkers and actors across eras. Infuse these inquiries into geography, civics, economics, literacy, art, science, and existing history units throughout the year.
This is original curriculum planning by Ma’at Cultural Curriculum Consultants. Its Amistad content and grade band organization draw on resources from the New Jersey Amistad Commission. Verify local pacing and exact performance expectations before adoption.
K–2 students use stories, images, oral histories, and maps. Grades 3–5 compare accounts, place events on timelines, and explain change with evidence. Teach enslavement honestly without graphic simulation or assigning children the roles of enslaved people.
Study family and neighborhood stories, African American community builders, and the difference between a rule and a fair rule.
Explore African diasporic storytelling, music, and family traditions through named creators and places, avoiding a single story of a continent.
Map the Great Migration and examine reasons families left and the institutions they built in new places, including New Jersey.
Connect abolition, the Civil War, emancipation, Juneteenth, and later community organizing through decisions made by Black people.
Students trace connections across Africa, the Atlantic world, and New Jersey. Every unit pairs maps with multiple perspectives and distinguishes a source’s words from the historian’s interpretation.
Use the Five Themes of Geography to examine Mali, Swahili coastal cities, and their trade, environments, and intellectual traditions.
Investigate the Atlantic trade, colonial labor systems, changing laws, and the actions of enslaved and free Africans. Place the Amistad uprising in its specific 1839 context.
Study the Constitution, representation, Black participation in the Revolution, abolitionist petitions, and Reconstruction amendments.
Research Black communities, institutions, labor, and resistance through a local landmark or state heritage site.
Students assess the creation and limits of archives, compare historians’ interpretations, and defend arguments using primary and secondary sources. These inquiries can serve U.S. history, world history, sociology, and advanced study.
Analyze African political contexts, the trade’s scale and human impact, plantation economies, finance, and sustained resistance.
Compare twentieth century independence movements and Pan African organizing through Ghana, the Congo, South Africa, and Tanganyika without reducing leaders to one model.
Connect Reconstruction, segregation, migration, civil rights organizing, voting access, and the role of Black institutions.
Examine classification, archival silences, textbook framing, and the purpose and implementation of New Jersey’s Amistad mandate.
Thirty books that strengthen cultural identity, deepen historical understanding, and encourage independent thought. These selections include joy, imagination, and achievement alongside resistance and struggle.
Use this companion to the Amistad Curriculum for reading at home, family conversations, and community book groups. African, African American, and Indigenous perspectives are joined by other cultural voices that broaden understanding. Grade placements are suggestions and can be adjusted for reading ability and maturity. Some titles may already be available in school collections.
Sulwe
Encourages children to recognize the beauty of dark skin and question colorism.
Hair Love
Celebrates natural hair, a father’s care, and the everyday beauty of Black family life.
I Am Enough
Builds confidence, belonging, and respect for differences.
We Are Water Protectors
Introduces Indigenous stewardship and responsibility toward land and water.
The Snowy Day
Centers a Black child’s curiosity and joy in an ordinary neighborhood adventure.
The Undefeated
Celebrates African American achievement, creativity, and perseverance.
The People Could Fly
Preserves African American folktales rooted in imagination, ancestral memory, and freedom.
Freedom Over Me
Uses historical records and imagined voices to restore individuality and dreams to people held in slavery.
We Are Still Here!
Introduces the continuing presence, sovereignty, and resilience of Native nations.
Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters
Presents an African tale that invites discussion about kindness, character, and leadership.
One Crazy Summer
Explores sisterhood, community organizing, and the Black Panther movement through children’s experiences.
Brown Girl Dreaming
Connects family, migration, segregation, and the discovery of a young writer’s voice.
Indian No More
Examines federal termination policy, relocation, and the persistence of Indigenous identity.
The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963
Combines family humor with a powerful encounter with Civil Rights history.
The Last Last-Day-of-Summer
Gives Black children space to be inventive heroes in a playful fantasy adventure.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Examines land ownership, family dignity, and resistance to racism.
New Kid
Explores belonging, racial assumptions, and navigating a predominantly white private school.
The First Rule of Punk
Celebrates Mexican American identity, music, creativity, and finding community.
When Stars Are Scattered
Explores Somali refugee experiences, education, family responsibility, and hope.
March, Book One
Introduces Civil Rights organizing through John Lewis’s experiences and graphic storytelling.
The Hate U Give
Examines racial injustice, community, and the courage required to speak publicly.
The Marrow Thieves
Uses speculative fiction to explore Indigenous survival, language, and cultural memory.
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People
Encourages readers to examine United States History through Indigenous perspectives.
American Street
Explores Haitian identity, immigration, family relationships, and life in Detroit.
Darius the Great Is Not Okay
Explores Persian heritage, mental health, friendship, and belonging across cultures.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Encourages examination of intellectual growth, political transformation, and self determination.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Centers a Black woman’s voice, autonomy, and search for a meaningful life.
Things Fall Apart
Presents Igbo community life and the disruptive effects of European colonialism.
The Fire Next Time
Challenges readers to examine race, religion, national identity, and responsibility.
Firekeeper’s Daughter
Explores contemporary Ojibwe identity, community obligations, and difficult ethical choices.
For younger children, read together and invite drawing, storytelling, and questions. For older readers, guided discussion can help with books involving violence, sexual harm, substance use, or strong language.
The framework above is free to read. Four page previews from the classroom packets are available below. Full sets are not yet offered for instant purchase. These are planned individual educator prices for each four unit band set, with lesson plans, student readings, source activities, assessments, teacher notes, and answer keys. Request availability before purchasing.
Four units with separate K–2 and 3–5 activities and developmentally appropriate assessments.
View K–5 sample PDFAsk about K–5Four inquiry units with maps, source analysis, RACE writing, and teacher guidance.
View 6–8 sample PDFAsk about 6–8Four advanced units with document based inquiry, argument writing, and policy analysis.
View 9–12 sample PDFAsk about 9–12Individual educator use with that educator’s students. Department, school, district, LMS, and organization licenses are quoted separately. No payment is collected on this page; pricing and availability are confirmed by email.
Plan each unit against the applicable New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Social Studies, especially historical inquiry, geography, civics, and economics, and pair it with grade appropriate ELA reading, writing, speaking, and listening expectations. The packet previews include unit specific standards alignment tables for each grade band.
Teacher note: Review materials for historical accuracy and developmental fit. Contextualize dehumanizing language in primary sources; provide content notice and an alternate source when appropriate. Never stage enslavement simulations.
