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How to — and How Not to — Teach Role Plays

Considerations regarding the planning and use of role plays for teaching people's history.

Rosa Parks: Countering the Master Narrative

Teaching Activity. By Jesse Hagopian. 4 pages.
With a short video and readings with competing viewpoints, students will learn about master narratives and counter-narratives and how they apply to Rosa Parks’ life. This activity can be introduced before watching the film or reading the book, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.

Who Killed Reconstruction? A Trial Role Play

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. 2022. Rethinking Schools
A role play about the demise of Reconstruction that helps students get beyond the question “Was Reconstruction a success or failure?”

The Color Line

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 6 pages.
A lesson on the countless colonial laws enacted to create division and inequality based on race. This helps students understand the origins of racism in the United States and who benefits.

Sharecroppers Challenge U.S. Apartheid: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Teaching Activity. By Julian Hipkins III, Deborah Menkart, Sara Evers, and Jenice View.
Role play on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) that introduces students to a vital example of small “d” democracy in action. For grades 7+.

Repair: Students Design a Reparations Bill

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this activity, students take on the role of activist-experts to improve upon a Congressional bill for reparations for Black people. They talk back to Congress’ flimsy legislation and design a more robust alternative.

Subversives: Stories from the Red Scare

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this mixer lesson, students meet 27 different targets of government harassment and repression to analyze why disparate individuals might have become targets of the same campaign, determining what kind of threat they posed in the view of the U.S. government.

Water and Environmental Racism

Teaching Activity. By Matt Reed and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Rethinking Schools.
A mixer activity, inspired by the 2016 Democracy Now! documentary Thirsty for Democracy, introduces students to the struggle of residents to access safe water for drinking, cooking, and bathing in the majority-Black cities of Flint, Michigan; Jackson, Mississippi; and Newark, New Jersey.

From the New Deal to the Green New Deal: Stories of Crisis and Possibility

Teaching Activity. By Suzanna Kassouf, Matt Reed, Tim Swinehart, Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, and Bill Bigelow.
The stories of twenty people whose lives were touched by the New Deal of the 1930s come to life in this classroom activity, intended to open students' minds to the possibilities of a Green New Deal.

Teaching A People’s History of the March on Washington

Teaching Activity. By Jessica Lovaas and Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools. 2021. Updated in 2023.
A lesson with case studies from Los Angeles; Birmingham, Alabama; Brooklyn; Detroit; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Albany, Georgia; and Cambridge, Maryland — to introduce students to the diverse struggles across the United States that were represented at the March on Washington.

Two Thumbs Up: Movies and Documentaries to Use (and Avoid) When Teaching Civil Rights

Article from "Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement" edited by Hasan Kwame Jeffries.
A critical review of films on the Civil Rights Movement and institutionalized racism, with dozens of recommendations of films to watch and those to avoid.

The Black History of the White House

Book — Non-fiction. By Clarence Lusane. 2010. 544 pages.
The untold story of African Americans in the White House from the 18th century to the present, including the presidents who held people in bondage.

Lowndes County and the Voting Rights Act

Article. By Hasan Kwame Jeffries.
History and significance of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization.

Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights

Book — Non-fiction. By Cynthia Stokes Brown. 2002. 192 pages.
Four short biographies of white people who've fought against racism in U.S. history.

“We Return Fighting”: The Black Freedom Struggle During WWII

Matt Delmont shared stories from his new book, Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad. This session was part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.

Until Justice Be Done: The Civil Rights Movement Before the Civil War

Teach Reconstruction campaign adviser Kate Masur joined high school teacher Jessica Rucker on Tuesday, Oct. 5, to speak about the history of the movement for equal rights that courageously battled racist laws and institutions, in the North and South, in the decades before the Civil War.

Films with a Conscience

Article. The films listed below are ones that can help students gain insights into how the world works. Many of these also alert students to how individuals and social movements have tried to make life better.

The Voting Rights Act: Ten Things You Should Know

Article. By Emilye Crosby and Judy Richardson. 2015.
Key points in the history of the 1965 Voting Rights Act missing from most textbooks.

Kelly Lytle Hernández on the 1910 Mexican Revolution

Author Kelly Lytle Hernández spoke about the magonistas, a group of agitators who challenged Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century. This session is part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.

Teaching White Supremacy: America’s Democratic Ordeal and the Forging of Our National Identity

Book — Non-fiction. By Donald Yacovone. 2022. 464 pages.
This book details the battle over historical memory in public schools and how the white elite has devoted extraordinary resources to perpetuating racist ideas in each generation through K-12 curriculum.

Alaina Roberts on Black Freedom on Native Land

Alaina Roberts discussed the Reconstruction era connections between Black freedom and Native American citizenship in the context of westward expansion onto Native land. This session is part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.

#TeachTruth Media Guide

Teach truth media toolkit with talking points, responses to FAQs, and best practices.

Kidada Williams on I Saw Death Coming

Historian Kidada E. Williams shared stories from her new book, I Saw Death Coming, a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period. This session was part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.

Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw on Teaching Truthfully About U.S. History

Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, joined Cierra Kaler-Jones and Jesse Hagopian of Rethinking Schools to discuss Critical Race Theory and ongoing attempts to ban truthful and honest teaching of history. This session was part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.

Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching

On December 6, we hosted Jarvis Givens for a talk on his book, Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching, in conversation with Jesse Hagopian and Cierra Kaler-Jones.