Mission & Purpose

Mission

The American Institute for History Education’s mission is to provide substantive, engaging historical content and activities for teachers to use in their classrooms that will dramatically increase students’ comprehension of historical events, personalities, issues, and trends. The American Institute for History Education’s programs will also produce a marked increase in students’ problem solving and thinking skills, through substantive application activities. Students will see a historical continuum, not a series of disconnected events.

Purpose

Welcome to SojournerHistory, an online resource for infusing the African-American experience into your United States history class. Created by the American Institute for History Education, the site includes a vast collection of content, strategies, tools, and lessons designed for your classroom African-American history needs.

Named for the famed abolitionist and female suffragist Sojourner Truth, this web site explores the travails and triumphs of the African-American experience leading educators on a chronological journey through history, marking the important signposts that have defined both United States and African-American history. SojournerHistory is a powerful teaching tool for exposing students to the contributions African Americans have made to the social, political, economic, and cultural fabric of the United States.

Understanding the African-American experience begins, of course, with a journey back through centuries of African history. SojournerHistory begins by charting the African-American experience through African Origins, Slavery, the Revolution and the development of a New Nation, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Next it covers the rise of Jim Crow, the long Civil Rights Movement and then proceeds to the contemporary challenges of today, including the election of the nation’s first African-American president.