Finding Your Roots

Special Collection

The basic drive to discover who we are and where we come from is at the core of the 10-part PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the 12th series from Professor Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

Corporate funding is provided by The Coca-Cola Company, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s and American Express. Additional funding is provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Atlantic Philanthropies, Ford Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Support is also provided by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS.

RESOURCE	GRADE LEVEL	MEDIA TYPE
After Slavery In this video segment from Finding Your Roots, Kevin Bacon learns how his ancestor dedicated her life to educating freed slaves.	8-11	Video
The Colonization of the United States Using video segments from the PBS series Finding Your Roots, this lesson explores Spanish colonialism in the Southwest; the lesson also expands the discussion to include other countries that colonized in North America.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Coming to America Using video segments from the PBS series Finding Your Roots, this lesson explores why groups of people leave their native countries, often to come to the United States, and what major historical milestones prompted mass migrations.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Crescent City Gumbo: Race & Jazz in New Orleans This lesson uses video excerpts from the PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to explore the history of racial diversity and intermingling in New Orleans, and how it gave rise to the uniquely American art form of jazz.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Facing Muslim Stereotypes After September 11 In this video segment from Finding Your Roots, Yasir Qadhi shares his personal experience with Muslim stereotypes and anti-Muslim sentiments following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.	10-12	Video
Faith and Rebellion In this video segment from Finding Your Roots, Professor Henry Louis Gates discusses Maggie Gyllenhaal’s family’s religion, Swedenborgianism. The background of the religion is explored and Maggie shares her father’s rejection of the religion.	9-12	Video
Faith in Change: John Lewis This lesson uses video segments from the PBS series Finding Your Roots to explore the American civil rights movement of the 1960s through the personal experience of one of its most prominent leaders—Congressman John Lewis.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Founding Mothers This video segment from Finding Your Roots explains why some Jewish ancestries can be traced back thousands of years through DNA.	9-12	Video
Free, but not Free: Life of Free Blacks before the Civil War This hands-on, media-enhanced lesson explores the life of free blacks in the United States prior to the Civil War using video segments from Finding Your Roots.	9-11	Lesson Plan
Growing up under Jim Crow in Birmingham, Alabama In this video segment from Finding Your Roots, Condoleezza Rice discusses what life was like growing up in Birmingham, Alabama during the era of Jim Crow.	8-11	Video
Growing up under Jim Crow in Grapeland, Texas This video segment from Finding Your Roots features Ruth Simmons as she discusses her childhood in Grapeland, Texas as the daughter of sharecroppers.	8-11	Video
Growing up under Jim Crow in Piedmont, West Virginia and Chattanooga, Tennessee This video segment from Finding Your Roots details what life was like during the Jim Crow era in Chattanooga, Tennessee through the personal experiences of actor Samuel L. Jackson.	8-11	Video
A Hurried Escape This video segment from Finding Your Roots explains the division of Korea in 1948 through the personal experiences of Margaret Cho’s father.	9-12	Video
The Last Conquistador In this video segment from Finding Your Roots, the Spanish colonization of New Mexico is explored, and the story of the “Last Conquistador” is told.	9-12	Video
Leaving Poland In this video segment from Finding Your Roots, Martha Stewart learns the fate of her great-grandparents, who died during the Polish-Soviet War.	9-12	Video
The Most Powerful Instrument In this video segment from Finding Your Roots, Congressman John Lewis recalls the March on Selma, a civil rights protest focusing on the African American right to vote; the event began peacefully but ended violently.	9-12	Video
Mumbet This video segment from Finding Your Roots tells the story of Mumbet, a female slave who fought for (and won) her freedom after hearing the Declaration of Independence read.	8-11	Video
Only In America This video segment from the PBS series Finding Your Roots provides a brief biography of Congressman John Lewis, including his role in the civil rights movement.	9-12	Video
The Partition of India In this video segment from Finding Your Roots, the partition of India is explored through the personal experience of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s mother.	9-12	Video
The Pueblo Revolt This video segment from Finding Your Roots discusses the Pueblo Revolt, a battle in history in which Pueblo Indians revolted against Spanish colonists who were imposing their culture and religion on the Native Americans.	9-12	Video
The Quest for Religious Freedom In this lesson, video segments from the PBS series Finding Your Roots are used to explore how religion has played a part in attracting immigrants to the U.S. and the role it plays in the lives of modern American families.	10-12	Lesson Plan
Questioning Jewish Identity This video segment from Finding Your Roots details Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s struggle with her Jewish identity and explains how she overcame her doubts to ultimately become a rabbi.	10-12	Video
Realities of Life in the Jim Crow Era This hands-on, media-enhanced lesson explores life in the Jim Crow South using video segments from the PBS series Finding Your Roots.	8-11	Lesson Plan
Slavery in the North This video segment from Finding Your Roots discusses the existence of slavery in the North through the ancestry of Kevin Bacon.	8-11	Video
Slavery in the North This hands-on, media-enhanced lesson uses video segments from the PBS series Finding Your Roots to explore the extent to which slavery existed in the North.	8-11	Lesson Plan
Sources of History This media-enhanced lesson features video segments from the PBS series Finding Your Roots and explores primary source material - how it can reveal information about the past and the different information primary sources provide.	8-10	Lesson Plan
Tradition & Identity In this lesson, using video segments from the PBS series Finding Your Roots, students explore the ways in which family narratives are woven into individual identity.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Wanda Sykes’s Free Ancestors in the 1600s and 1700s This video segment from Finding Your Roots discusses Wanda Sykes’s long-standing free black ancestry. Her free ancestry traces back to her ninth great-grandmother, a white indentured servant who had a child with a slave.	9-11	Video
Wanda Sykes’s Free Black Ancestors in the 1850s In this video segment from Finding Your Roots, Wanda Sykes learns about her free black ancestors in the 1850s, before the Civil War.	9-11	Video

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