Partnership Programs:

American Revolution
Native American Series
Southeast Asian Tour
STEMTEC
Teachers as Scholars
Witness for Freedom

 

 

 

Witness for Freedom

The Witness for Freedom project began in 1995 with the vision of Christine Compston, then Director of the National History Education Network. She approached Mary Alice Wilson at the Five College Public School Partnership with the idea of developing an institute for social studies teachers that would introduce them to the documents recently published by C. Peter Ripley in Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation. Together they solicited the participation of David Blight, Professor of History at Amherst College, and author of Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee. The Witness for Freedom Summer Institute was held in 1996 under their direction and involved twenty teachers from Western Massachusetts. The project was made possible by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives with additional support from the Nan and Matilda Heydt Fund of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.

Witness For Freedom Curriculum Guide (PDF) (1999)
The publication of this guide by Wendy Kohler and Gaylord Saulsberry of the Amherst Public Schools offers specific guidance for Massachusetts teachers and district personnel concerned with aligning classroom instruction with the state curriculum frameworks.

Witness For Freedom Handbook (PDF) For use with the Curriculum Guide.

(PDF files require Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 to view. Download free program)