Lessons of Freedom

FAIN: CZ-50093-05

Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture (Baltimore, MD 21202-4403)
A. T. Stephens (Project Director: February 2004 to March 2007)
Mirma A. Johnson (Project Director: March 2007 to November 2008)

Endowment for staff salaries, teacher development institutes and workshops, curriculum development, public programming, and acquisitions on the history and culture of African Americans in Maryland.

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture ("Museum") is conducting a $4 million campaign to support and secure its signature interpretive program, Lessons of Freedom. The Museum has joined with Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick, State Superintendent of Schools and the Maryland State Department of Education ("MSDE") to create a long-term American history curriculum based on the Museum's permanent exhibition's themes and objects. Lessons of Freedom will have an enduring impact on students and teachers as an integral part of the MSDE's state curriculum, dynamic lesson plans written by Maryland teachers and reviewed by nationally-renown scholars, supported with informative teacher backgrounds, recommended resources, and reinforcement activities. The result of more than two years of planning, Lessons of Freedom will advance students' knowledge of the governing principles and continuing resonance of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights with 70 model lessons, linked to Federal and State standards, for grades 4-8. Planned to improve student scores on the state achievement test, Lessons of Freedom will reach more than 870,000 public school students and 50,000 teachers throughout Maryland. When fully implemented, Lessons of Freedom and the Museum/MSDE Partnership will serve as a national model for its methodology and an ideal instructional tool for schools throughout the country. As a focal point of its campaign, the Museum requests a $1,000,000 We the People Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. NEH funding will provide Lessons of Freedom with both an imprimatur of Federal support and a powerful incentive for participation by prospective donors.