5 Resources to Help You Commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

You’re probably already aware, but Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is less than a week away! To help you and your students commemorate Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement, we’d like to share five of our favorite online resources with you.

5 Resources to Help You Commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Civil Rights and the 1950s: Crash Course US History
Crash Course is one of our favorite video series. In less than 12 minutes, John Green guides viewers through the economic expansion of the 1950s, the Civil Rights movement, and the early careers of Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks and Earl Warren.

In addition to this, viewers also learn about Brown vs. Board of Education, and the lesser known Mendez vs. Westminster, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and a whole lot more.

An Interactive Civil Rights Chronology
This interactive timeline is an online companion to Professor John M. Balkin's What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said (NYU Press 2001). The chronology explores civil rights issues from 1502 to 2000.

Before the Boycott
This eLearning activity invites students to travel back in time and play the role of a school newspaper reporter assigned to ride the Montgomery bus system in 1955.

This activity is intended to help students understand the complex and inconsistent rules of riding the bus during that period in history.

At the end of the assignment, students are asked to describe their reaction to the tour. From that, a customized news story is generated from the students’ perspective.

Click here to launch the activity.

We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement
This website was put together by the National Park Service. Here students will find an interactive map that includes 49 important civil rights locations and substantive descriptions of each. 

Freedom Riders
Here you’ll find a collection of civil rights resources including an interactive map that allows users to retrace the Freedom Rides of 1961 and information about important events that occurred between 1942 and 1961.

In addition to this, you’ll find Freedom Riders, a two-hour documentary about the courageous band of civil rights activists who, in 1961, creatively challenged segregation in the American South.