Curricular Materials

The following curricular materials were developed to teach the history of school desegregation in Boston and beyond and incorporate the use of primary source materials. To find primary source materials to use with these and other lesson plans, visit Using the Collection to learn about the different ways to search and explore the Boston Public School Desegregation Collections.

City of Boston Archives Curricular Materials

The City of Boston Archives developed a series of grade school lesson plans to accompany their materials on school desegregation in Boston. Visit lesson plans that feature the use of materials from their collections below.

Key People and Terms

Included in the City of Boston Archive's curricular materials is a list of key people and terms for understanding school desegregation in Boston. Click here to download a PDF of their list of terms. Here are some examples of key terms and individuals:

  • Judge Arthur Garrity: was a United States Federal judge who became best known for issuing the 1974 order that Boston schools would carry out desegregation by means of forced busing.
  • Segregation: the action or state of setting someone or something apart from other things or people. The forced separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment.

Boston Public Schools Curricular Materials

The History of Boston Busing & Desegregation is a project initiated by the Boston Public Schools' history department in 2014 to collect resources and develop curricular materials for elementary, middle, and high school teachers.

A Long Road from Brown: Desegregation in Virginia

A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities funded a week long workshop entitled "A Long Road from Brown: Desegregation in Virginia," for teachers of grades 6-12 to re-frame the teaching of school desegregation. This workshop resulted in the creation of curricula that explored school desegregation and its impact. A sample of the curricula are listed below: