Primary+Sources

= = "Gift to the Future" by Christopher W. Czajka

While creating the PBS series African American Lives 2, teams of historians, librarians, and genealogical researchers examined thousands of legal documents, land records, photographs, and letters. The evidence of the past, left behind by those who lived it, can be a valuable tool for understanding the lives and stories of our ancestors and the world in which they lived. The passage of time, however, can prove challenging and destructive to the preservation of items of material culture.

In this activity, your will develop an understanding of the conditions and circumstances that contribute to successful preservation of documents and artifacts over time. During the Learning Activity, you will critically view video segments to examine surviving documents and artifacts from the past, and hypothesize on why these items have survived or been preserved. 1.   Your teacher will click on the link http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aalives/ 2.   Watch the introductory video on “African American Lives 2” on the data projector with your class. 3.   On your own watch any three of the video clips on the page. (You will need headphones for this activity.) 4.   Fill in the form embedded in this Wiki page. We will collect and compare your responses. 5.   Identify any “primary sources” that Dr. Gates used to identify the celebrities’ ancestors. (Write these down so you can share them with your classmates.) 6.   Why do you think these primary sources have survived? (Write your answers so you can share them with your classmates.)

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