Diversity in Early Black Communities

Primary Sources Activity (grades 5 & up)

The BC Archives holds many different kinds of primary sources such as newspaper articles, oral histories, photographs and maps. Historians make inferences and create histories and narratives of the past by using primary source records. Historical Thinking Concepts provide a framework for learning about and teaching history. They are woven throughout Social Studies in the BC school curriculum.

Instructions

Students select and view one of the images in the Look section, read one of the newspaper articles under primary documents at the top of the Read section, and select and listen to one of the audio files from the Listen section. Then, working in pairs or small groups, students reflect on the following questions:

• What do you wonder about the people who are in the photos, written about in the newspaper articles and those speaking in the audio files? What unanswered questions do you have about their lives? How could you search for other kinds of primary source evidence about these people?
• What can you infer about the people in the photo and the writer of the newspaper article? Are they part of the community they are writing about? How can you tell?
• What do you notice about the people or any items shown in the photo, and the language in the articles and in the audio files? Do writers and speakers today use the same kind of language? Notice where you might write or say something differently.