Sticking with the traditional people such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, or Harriet Tubman is all well and good. Their stories are important, interesting, and essential to American history. But world history teachers need something different for their classrooms.

Adding more Black history doesn’t necessarily mean adding more Black American history. World history teachers need options for African history and culture. Here is my collection of Black African history in my TpT store, that can be added to your world history classes.

Historical African Landmarks focuses on the geography and history of Africa while celebrating the unique cultural heritage of many different time periods and kingdoms. Students can read more in-depth histories about the Great Zimbabwe, Kilwa Kisiwani, Jebel Barkal, and the University of Sankore. I also included a history about the ancient and modern city of Mogadishu.

These readings explore how these places came to be important, the height of their existence, and eventual declines or downfalls. There is a brief summary after each location that students can complete.

The print edition comes with a TpT Easel™ ready lesson. This version cannot be loaded to any website. The Google Classroom™ ready version is ready to be assigned digitally. It was created exclusively for use in Google Classroom™ and may not be loaded to any other website.

Inspiration struck twice for this resource. First, I had researched the history of the English language as background for a different resource but decided that there had to be another nerd like me who would appreciate the information. I packaged it and launched the History of the English Language. I began to wonder about other languages, particularly ancient languages. Got me thinking about Africa.

I was then reading a fantastic article about the history of the Punic language. I loved the idea that it was considered a beautiful, diplomatic language that even some of the learned Roman emperors thought it was worth trying to preserve the language. It died anyway but I decided it was time to research the old languages of Africa.

Organized as a series of infographics, students will have an easy time reading the information about the languages included. I kept the information about the languages brief because this was designed for high school students. Too much language information about extinct, ancient languages will overload them.

You can print out the information for students to read on their own or display them on the wall. Experiment with a project. See if students can find primary resources from digital libraries written in those languages. See if students can create a timeline of events for cultures that spoke these languages. Let your imagination run wild when designing your lesson plan.

The first two resources in my Queens of Africa series are the Kandake’s of Kush and the Queens of Ethiopia.

The Kandakes of Kush suffer from environmental issues in preserving their documents as well as territorial conquests that no doubt destroyed many historical records. We do however know of several women who ruled in their own right and some that even challenged the dominance of the Egyptians. This resource is a great way to focus on ways historical records disappear as well as how others can change the narrative to fit their needs.

The Queens of Ethiopia is interesting because we see a definite change from the traditional matriarchal culture to a dominating, patriarchal one. This resource comes with a trigger warning for mature themes. Be sure to download the preview to see the passages that may be problematic for your classroom.

Queens of Madagascar showcase a history of the effects of colonization. When Europeans set their sights on Africa, the last monarchs of Madagascar (all women) worked hard to keep their country safe but ultimately were overpowered. The final monarch was essentially a prisoner for life. Read more about her story and others in this resource.

Warrior and Rain Queens are a small collection of stories of queen regnants around Africa. One of the women, the Rain Queen, is alive and well and her story can be an interesting conversation about the role of monarchies in the world today, mythological powers often assigned to monarchs, as well as modern issues such as women’s rights and the political influence women carry among her male political counterparts.

Click on each image to see these resources in my TpT store. Bundles are available for some. Happy teaching.

***************************************************

Follow me:

If you liked this then maybe you’d also like: