Resources for 2021 National History Day

Still searching for resources for your National History Day project? Dive into the following selection of resources to get you started!

Throughout history, people used the professional press or created their own media to gain attention for their causes.

Listen to Moses Newsom, a journalist who covered major events from the Civil Rights movement, discuss his work in these videos: Journalists on Ole Miss Violence, TV's Influence in 1962, 'Emmett Till in Mississippi', 'Facing a Mob'

'The Una' was the first periodical of the women's rights movement to be owned, edited and published by a woman.

This pamphlet, Southern Horrors' by Ida B. Wells, exposed the truth about racially motivated lynchings in the United States.

Explore how the freedom of press was used by Americans throughout history to share information and ideas. 

James Horton, historian of African-American history, discusses the role of the black press in connecting communities.

In this video, war reporter Sebastian Junger tells the tale of Isaiah Thomas, who published the first eyewitness account of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775.

This bulletin from the Associated Press alerts newsrooms that the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle had successfully landed on the moon July 20.

The Student Voice, the SNCC newspaper, responds to the lack of coverage in the mainstream press of violence toward blacks and civil rights workers.

This abolitionist newspaper's issue on Dec. 1, 1837, covers the killing of the journalist who opposed slavery.

The Mattachine Review was produced by a pioneering gay rights group with the intent to educate the LGBTQ+ community and the general public. 

Explore how people used the other four freedoms -- religion, speech, assembly and petition-- to communicate their ideas. 

After local clergy criticize her for public activism, Sarah Grimké pens letters arguing that women should have equal rights as men. In the letters, addressed to the head of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, Grimké argues that God created the sexes as equals.

Explore the power of speech as journalist Merv Aubespin remembers meeting Martin Luther King Jr. for the first time and being awed by the power of his leadership.

An attack transforms James Meredith's March Against Fear into a mass protest.

1894: Coxey's Army tests limits on protest when Jacob Coxey leads an "army" of unemployed men to the U.S. Capitol to protest economic policies

Find more project ideas among our 1,500+ digital resources of historical front pages, artifacts, original newsreels and photographs. These primary sources have explanatory text and are searchable by topic, century, person and more.

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