Black History Month Activities - Short Biographies for Famous African Americans

Use this no prep activity to introduce your students to 15 famous African American leaders and heroes using these comprehension cards with short reading passages / biographies and activities. These ELA activities make great upper elementary literacy or social studies centers or lessons during black history month, or any time throughout the school year.

Each of the comprehension cards includes a short black history month passage and a picture of a famous African American hero. Students can easily prepare the cards on their own to make this resource completely no prep.

There are a variety of nonfiction reading comprehension activities for students to complete using the comprehension cards, including:

• a sorting activity (sorting the famous African Americans into those born into slavery, those not born into slavery)
• an activity requiring students to find where each famous African American was born on a US map
• 2 pages of black history month comprehension questions (including questions that require students to use higher level thinking questions and defend their reasoning)
• a writing prompt
• a Venn Diagram to help students compare and contrast 2 famous African Americans
• a find the fib activity
• a time line activity

If students complete all of the reading comprehension activities, it will require close reading skills. Students will be reading the same nonfiction text repeatedly, looking for different things in the text. Great for 3rd grade and 4th grade students studying black history month.

There are biographies for each of the following famous African Americans :

• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Sojourner Truth
• Thurgood Marshall
• Booker T. Washington
• Frederick Douglas
• Harriet Tubman
• George Washington Carver
• Carol Moseley Braun
• Maya Angelou
• Jesse Owens
• Rosa Parks
• Duke Ellington
• Benjamin Banneker
• Louis Armstrong
• Hank Aaron

You might also be interested in:

Black History Month: Essay, Map, and Timeline

American Symbols Trading Cards

Kalena Baker, Teaching Made Practical