Ask students to research and create a biography styled after the virtual exhibit in Activity 4: Finding Freedom | Museum of the American Revolution. Students should research and create a slideshow that highlights 5-10 events in the person’s life during the American Revolution. Link each slide to primary and secondary sources (using the ‘How do we Know’ links on the virtual exhibit as an example). Some biography suggestions include: 

  • Colonel Tye, a Black Loyalist
  • Prince Estabrook
  • Lemuel Haynes 
  • Peter Salem
  • James Forten
  • James Armistead Lafoyette 
  • Salem Poor 

Students can find other notable men of color from the Revolutionary Era in The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, published in 1855 by William Cooper Nell, the first published Black historian in the United States.

Create a biography