The fact that the story of African Americans in the American Civil War has not yet fully been told few would argue with today. The story itself is complex and many-sided. We think that "Black, Copper, & Bright: The District of Columbia's Black Civil War Regiment" is a powerful, long overdue additional step on the long and winding road to a more complete understanding of that critical period in the history of both a nation and a race.

In making this documentary we wanted to present a different picture, indeed, a more human portrait of the black men and women of the nation's capital during the war. We have; therefore, deliberately deemphasized the focus on strategy and tactics to spend more time telling the little stories of sergeants and privates, of former slaves and Yankee officers that give more social depth to an era often portrayed as a stream of battlefields and generals. In short, we wanted to convey the lived experience of the time with all its pathos, sacrifices, and heroism.

As you view this documentary in your classroom, your students will encounter many unfamiliar individuals: Jacob Dodson, the explorer; Rev. Henry McNeal Turner, the chaplain; and Sergeant Charles Henry Brown, the fugitive slave who used the path of military service to bridge the chasm between slavery and freedom. Our hope is to introduce them to a new cast of historical personalities that will flesh out their understanding of the African American contribution to the war and the still unfolding national quest for justice and equality.

In this special classroom section constructed solely for teachers, you'll see that the documentary is designed to work in tandem with the book. Each chapter in the book relates to a specific part of the documentary. There are also chapter-specific discussion plans. In addition, there are multidisciplinary lesson plans especially crafted by experienced educators and links to other major sites teaching about various aspects of the Civil War.

By the end of the documentary, I hope that your students will be able to view both the war and the black contribution to it with fresh vigor and interest. The Civil War was the bloodiest war in American history and quite unique in the application of early technologies that would be used to even greater effect in wars of the twentieth century. At the same time, the "irrepressible conflict" was unique in another of its dimensions. The United States was the only major nation to have the chains of its slaves forever broken by the fire and steel of war. Most other major countries abolished slavery through some form of compensated emancipation. Why had our ancestors paid such a horrific cost? What was so different about the American experience that such frightful slaughter occurred? In both the book and documentary, through the prism of a black regiment out of the nation's capital, we will learn how this happened. In doing so, we will learn something about our ancestors and ourselves.

C.R. Gibbs, Author and Historian

Classroom Activities