Throughout Black History Month, the Center recognizes extraordinary African Americans throughout the nation’s history. Celebrate Black History Month by viewing our exhibits featuring some of the many African Americans who transformed constitutional history—including Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Robert Smalls, and Sojourner Truth—to better understand the long fight for freedom and equality.
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Throughout the Day, Grand Hall Lobby
Explore the lives of four American women—Harriet Robinson Scott, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Beecher Stowe—who confronted slavery through literature, lawsuits, and direct action in their efforts to free themselves and others from bondage.
Throughout the Day, Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality
Visit the National Constitution Center's feature exhibit on Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality, to examine a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Join us as we take a closer look at this famous document. Together we’ll explore why the President issued this Proclamation, what it meant for over four million Americans then held in bondage, and why the nation still required a constitutional amendment to permanently abolish slavery.
On loan from The Galbraith Family 2012 Trust
Throughout the Day, Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality
Join us in the Center’s compelling exhibit, Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality, for an inside look at the experiences of the soldiers who served in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. We’ll look at special artifacts, including a ladder badge worn by a volunteer infantryman in the 54th and a notice carried by Frederick Douglass giving him permission to travel freely between the states to recruit men to the newly founded force.
Throughout the Day, First Amendment Gallery
Explore the First Amendment through the lens of one the most influential demonstrations in our nation’s history, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Listen to the stories and experiences of civil rights organizations and activists that used their voice and agency to advocate for justice, domestic tranquility, and the general welfare of millions of disenfranchised Americans. We’ll look at special artifacts, including a March on Washington pennant that was carried by the participants of the march.
Loan, Freedom Forum's Newseum Collection
Throughout the Day, The 19th Amendment: How Women Won the Vote
Learn about the first Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., founded at Howard University in 1908, and their fight for equal rights in our exhibit, The 19th Amendment: How Women Won the Vote. This program examines a letter from the sorority’s founder and incorporator, Nellie M. Quander, and explores how Black women fought for equal suffrage and equal rights within the nation’s suffrage movement.
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Records of the National Woman’s Party
Offered weekends, Annenberg Lobby
Explore the lives of famous African American freedom fighters during story time. Learn about the incredible lives of Ida B. Wells, Harriet Tubman, Henry Box Brown, and more as we read books honoring the bravery and brilliance of famous African Americans from history.
Pick up a special Black History Month brochure designed to facilitate a self-guided tour of the main exhibition, focusing on rare artifacts. In recent years, the museum has displayed a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, items from President Obama’s inauguration, an anti-slavery plate and pitcher, and an original printing of the Supreme Court’s controversial Dred Scott decision.
10 a.m.-5 p.m., Grand Hall Lobby
Explore the lives of influential African American figures while creating and collecting your own trading cards! Learn about the incredible lives of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Hiram R. Revels, Mae Carol Jemison, and more!
Friday, February 2 | Noon ET
Explore the lives of four American women—Harriet Robinson Scott, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Beecher Stowe—who confronted slavery through literature, lawsuits, and direct action in their efforts to free themselves and others from bondage.
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Tuesday, February 6 | Noon ET
A National Constitution Center museum educator will lead virtual audiences on a live guided tour of our exhibit that traces the triumphs and struggles that led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The tour will help students to better understand the long fight for women’s suffrage, and also highlight some of the many African American women who transformed constitutional history—Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Ida B. Wells.
Register NowTuesday, February 13 | Noon ET
Students are invited to celebrate the First Amendment and the Civil Rights Movement during a virtual tour of the National Constitution Center’s newest gallery, The First Amendment. Protecting some of our most cherished freedoms—religious liberty, free speech, a free press, the freedom of assembly, and the right to petition—the First Amendment is a pillar of democracy and the American way. We’ll take a closer look at how leaders of the Civil Rights Movement used the First Amendment to create constitutional change.
Register NowThursday, February 15 | Noon
In celebration of Black History Month, explore the history of the African American fight for freedom during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods with historians Edda Fields-Black, author of Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War, and James Oakes, author of Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865. Thomas Donnelly, chief content officer at the National Constitution Center, moderates.
Register NowTuesday, February 20 | Noon ET
Explore the Center’s compelling exhibit, Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality, as one of our museum educators leads viewers through the exhibit. Learn how constitutional clashes over slavery set the stage for the Civil War, and how the nation transformed the Constitution after the war during the Reconstruction period. Along the way, you’ll hear the stories of famous African American freedom fighters central to abolition movement and the battle for freedom and equality for all.
Register NowWednesday, February 21 | 6:30-8p.m. ET
During this session, participants will explore the 14th Amendment and the battles for equality in America. Educators will examine the clauses of the 14th Amendment and the battle over their meaning from Reconstruction to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision on marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges. We will also explore America’s first and second civil rights movements, the Constitution and women, and modern interpretations of the 14th Amendment. Valinda Littlefield from the University of South Carolina joins us.
Register NowFriday, February 23 | Noon ET
Students are invited to join us for a celebration of student voices in the Civil Rights Movement. Together we’ll discover the stories of the Little Rock Nine, a group of students who insisted on equality for all, and how their actions shaped our constitutional history.
Register NowWednesday, February 28 | 1pm ET
Join National Constitution Center Chief Content Officer Tom Donnelly for a look at Black voices throughout history. Using selected documents from the Founders’ Library, he will share how these primary sources authored by Black Americans have shaped constitutional history. He will also discuss his career as a historian and law professor, as well as answer questions from participants.
Register NowEach collection of Learning Materials on our Interactive Constitution: Classroom Edition contains video lessons and recordings of previous Scholar Exchanges, plus links to podcasts, blog posts, Interactive Constitution essays, and more. Great topics for African American History Month include:
Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and professor of history at The Johns Hopkins University, joins National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen for a discussion on the 19th Amendment, with a focus on voting rights of African American women, a topic professor Jones explores in her newest book, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. Jones also discusses her career as an author and historian, and answers questions from participants.
Watch the VideoStudy the words of Frederick Douglass, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and other American heroes with video highlights from FOURTEEN, a theatrical performance that sheds light on the Reconstruction era, the period after the Civil War, through dramatic interpretation of original texts—all available for free on our website.
Watch these clips:
In November 1920, millions of women across the country voted under the 19th Amendment. But for millions of other women, the fight was not over. Exhibit Developer Elena Popchock shares the story of the amendment’s ratification and legacy.
Inside the Exhibit VideoCivil rights icon Congressman John Lewis introduces March: Book One—the first in a graphic novel trilogy that shares Congressman Lewis’ remarkable story with new generations. Book One spans Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their fight against segregation through nonviolent activism. A keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in 1963, and a Medal of Freedom recipient from President Obama, the late Congressman Lewis also explored modern constitutional questions related to equal rights.
Town Hall VideoOn this special episode of We the People, we examine the life of one of America’s most influential abolitionists, orators, writers, and statesmen—Frederick Douglass. Growing up as an enslaved person in Maryland, Douglass set himself apart by learning to read and write at an early age. After escaping from slavery, Douglass moved to Massachusetts where he became involved with local anti-slavery groups and newspapers. Ardently advocating for abolition, Douglass toured the country with William Lloyd Garrison and spoke extensively about the relationship between the Constitution and slavery in America.
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Discover primary texts and historical documents that span American history and have shaped the American constitutional tradition.
