Just as Free as I am: Primary Sources from Tennessee
This 72-page booklet is a non-fiction reading text for grades 7-12. It was created because of the requirement that reading and language arts teachers expose students to more non-fiction, and is also there to help social studies and history teachers cover primary sources.
The booklet contains 16 chapters. All of them are primary sources. All segments were chosen by how interesting the subject matter is and how well they were written.
Click on the images to the right to see parts of the book.
* Fascinating excerpts from autobiographies of legendary hunter David Crockett, civil rights activist Ida B. Wells; Cumberland County doctor May Wharton; newspaper reporter Louis Brownlow; businessman James E. Caldwell; and Morris Frank, the first blind man ever led by a seeing eye dog
* Three first-person accounts of the Trail of Tears: one from a missionary, one from a participant and one from an 1838 Nashville newspaper
* Sections of Sam R. Watkins' gripping Civil War memoirs
* A transcript of an interview with civil rights leader Bernard Lafayette
* A section called "a sample of insults" written by former newspaper editor and Tennessee Governor William Brownlow -- who may have been the best insulter to ever live!
* The actual newspaper articles that appeared the day after the 19th amendment to the US Constitution was approved by the Tennessee State House
* A dramatic account of the Battle of Kings Mountain from a foot soldier
* A first-person account of the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-12
* An excerpt from an 1858 Harper's magazine article describing a wild ride through the part of the Tennessee River then known as "the suck."