Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Book - Non-fiction. By Brandy Colbert. 216 pp. 2021. History of Oklahoma including Trail of Tears, Reconstruction, Black towns, Red Summer, Jim Crow, Black and white newspapers, lynchings, Tulsa Race Massacre, and the ongoing fight for reparations and historical memory. Continue reading
Challenge Islamophobia Lessons and resources to place Islamophobia firmly within a U.S. context and shared cultural history. Continue reading
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Hip-Hop History Books - Non-fiction. By Jeff Chang and Davey D Cook. 2021. 352 pages. An essential guide for understanding hip-hop music and culture. Continue reading
Lives in Our Lineage: A Lesson on Oral Histories Teaching Activity. By Cierra Kaler-Jones. In this lesson, students use key excerpts from How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith as inspiration for a project where they tell their and their loved ones’ stories. Continue reading
How We Remember: The Struggle Over Slavery in Public Spaces Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow, Jesse Hagopian, Cierra Kaler-Jones, Ana Rosado, and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. In the lesson, students receive facts about each of the sites of memory in How the Word Is Passed and imagine how they might choose commemorate what occurred there. They then compare that to how the respective site is commemorated and described by docents. Continue reading
Fugitive Pedagogy Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching Book - Non-fiction. By Jarvis R. Givens. 2021. 320 pages. Details the long assault on Black education that occurred from the period of enslavement through the life of one of the founders of the Black studies tradition, Carter G. Woodson. Continue reading
The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World Book - Non-fiction. By Dave Zirin. 2021. A book about the politics of sport, and the impact of sports on politics, reveals that essential dimension of the new movement for racial justice in the United States. Continue reading
Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People Book - Non-Fiction. By Kekla Magoon. 2021. An account of militant revolutionaries and human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community. Continue reading
Echoes of Enslavement Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Students discover “echoes of enslavement” in their own state — discrete sites of remembering, forgetting, honoring, lying, or distorting — in this lesson based on the book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s Book - Non-Fiction. By Elizabeth Hinton. 2021. The rebellion and movement for Black lives of 2020 had clear precursors, this book explains, and any attempt to understand that crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past. Continue reading
Seizing Freedom Podcast Podcast. Written and hosted by Kidada E. Williams. 2021. A Black history podcast tells stories "drawn from archives of voices from American history that have been muted time and time again." Continue reading
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts Book - Non-fiction. By Rebecca Hall. Illustrated by Hugo Martinez. 2021 Rebecca Hall documents the process of her own research -- and what she learned -- about women who organized to challenge slavery. In graphic novel format. Continue reading
How the Word Is Passed: Discussion Questions, Writing Prompts, and Teaching Ideas Teaching ideas and discussion questions for How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. Continue reading
Teacher Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities Our Students Deserve Book - Non-fiction. Edited by Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson. 2021. Teacher Unions and Social Justice is an anthology of more than 60 articles documenting the history and the how-tos of social justice unionism. Continue reading
How to Change Everything: The Young Human’s Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other Book — Non-fiction. By Naomi Klein and Rebecca Stefoff. 2021. Young leaders are showing the world that this moment of increasingly dangerous climate change is also a moment of great opportunity — an opportunity to change everything for the better. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance Book — Non-fiction. By Mia Bay. 2021. From stagecoaches and trains to buses, cars, and planes, this book explores racial restrictions on transportation and resistance to the injustice. Continue reading
Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History Book - Non-fiction. By Michel-Rolph Trouillot. 2015. Placing the West’s failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolution — the most successful slave revolt in history — alongside denials of the Holocaust and the debate over the Alamo, Trouillot offers a stunning meditation on how power operates in the making and recording of history. Continue reading
Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction Book - Non-fiction. By Kate Masur. 2021. The movement for equal rights in the decades before the Civil War. Continue reading
To ‘joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War Book - Non-fiction. By Tera W. Hunter. 1998. An examination of post-Civil War lives of African American women, focusing on their labor organizing, leisure, hope, and struggle. Continue reading
The Boys Who Said No Film. Directed by Judith Ehrlich. 2020. A documentary uses interviews and found footage to tell the inspiring story and impact of the anti-Vietnam War draft resistance movement. Continue reading
Racial Equity Tools (Website) Website. RET offers research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working for racial justice at every level. Continue reading
The Mis-Education of the Negro Book — Non-fiction. By Carter G. Woodson. 1933. Originally released in 1933, The Mis-Education of the Negro continues to resonate today, raising questions about the legacy of slavery and enduring white supremacy. Continue reading
The Lost Education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the Hidden Heroes Who Fought for Justice in Schools Book - Non-fiction. By Vanessa Siddle Walker. 2018. This history tells the little-known story of how black educators in the South laid the groundwork for 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education and weathered its aftermath. Continue reading
Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Book - Non-fiction. By Brandy Colbert. 216 pp. 2021. History of Oklahoma including Trail of Tears, Reconstruction, Black towns, Red Summer, Jim Crow, Black and white newspapers, lynchings, Tulsa Race Massacre, and the ongoing fight for reparations and historical memory. Continue reading
Challenge Islamophobia Lessons and resources to place Islamophobia firmly within a U.S. context and shared cultural history. Continue reading
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Hip-Hop History Books - Non-fiction. By Jeff Chang and Davey D Cook. 2021. 352 pages. An essential guide for understanding hip-hop music and culture. Continue reading
Lives in Our Lineage: A Lesson on Oral Histories Teaching Activity. By Cierra Kaler-Jones. In this lesson, students use key excerpts from How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith as inspiration for a project where they tell their and their loved ones’ stories. Continue reading
How We Remember: The Struggle Over Slavery in Public Spaces Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow, Jesse Hagopian, Cierra Kaler-Jones, Ana Rosado, and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. In the lesson, students receive facts about each of the sites of memory in How the Word Is Passed and imagine how they might choose commemorate what occurred there. They then compare that to how the respective site is commemorated and described by docents. Continue reading
Fugitive Pedagogy Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching Book - Non-fiction. By Jarvis R. Givens. 2021. 320 pages. Details the long assault on Black education that occurred from the period of enslavement through the life of one of the founders of the Black studies tradition, Carter G. Woodson. Continue reading
The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World Book - Non-fiction. By Dave Zirin. 2021. A book about the politics of sport, and the impact of sports on politics, reveals that essential dimension of the new movement for racial justice in the United States. Continue reading
Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People Book - Non-Fiction. By Kekla Magoon. 2021. An account of militant revolutionaries and human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community. Continue reading
Echoes of Enslavement Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Students discover “echoes of enslavement” in their own state — discrete sites of remembering, forgetting, honoring, lying, or distorting — in this lesson based on the book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s Book - Non-Fiction. By Elizabeth Hinton. 2021. The rebellion and movement for Black lives of 2020 had clear precursors, this book explains, and any attempt to understand that crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past. Continue reading
Seizing Freedom Podcast Podcast. Written and hosted by Kidada E. Williams. 2021. A Black history podcast tells stories "drawn from archives of voices from American history that have been muted time and time again." Continue reading
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts Book - Non-fiction. By Rebecca Hall. Illustrated by Hugo Martinez. 2021 Rebecca Hall documents the process of her own research -- and what she learned -- about women who organized to challenge slavery. In graphic novel format. Continue reading
How the Word Is Passed: Discussion Questions, Writing Prompts, and Teaching Ideas Teaching ideas and discussion questions for How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. Continue reading
Teacher Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities Our Students Deserve Book - Non-fiction. Edited by Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson. 2021. Teacher Unions and Social Justice is an anthology of more than 60 articles documenting the history and the how-tos of social justice unionism. Continue reading
How to Change Everything: The Young Human’s Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other Book — Non-fiction. By Naomi Klein and Rebecca Stefoff. 2021. Young leaders are showing the world that this moment of increasingly dangerous climate change is also a moment of great opportunity — an opportunity to change everything for the better. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance Book — Non-fiction. By Mia Bay. 2021. From stagecoaches and trains to buses, cars, and planes, this book explores racial restrictions on transportation and resistance to the injustice. Continue reading
Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History Book - Non-fiction. By Michel-Rolph Trouillot. 2015. Placing the West’s failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolution — the most successful slave revolt in history — alongside denials of the Holocaust and the debate over the Alamo, Trouillot offers a stunning meditation on how power operates in the making and recording of history. Continue reading
Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction Book - Non-fiction. By Kate Masur. 2021. The movement for equal rights in the decades before the Civil War. Continue reading
To ‘joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War Book - Non-fiction. By Tera W. Hunter. 1998. An examination of post-Civil War lives of African American women, focusing on their labor organizing, leisure, hope, and struggle. Continue reading
The Boys Who Said No Film. Directed by Judith Ehrlich. 2020. A documentary uses interviews and found footage to tell the inspiring story and impact of the anti-Vietnam War draft resistance movement. Continue reading
Racial Equity Tools (Website) Website. RET offers research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working for racial justice at every level. Continue reading
The Mis-Education of the Negro Book — Non-fiction. By Carter G. Woodson. 1933. Originally released in 1933, The Mis-Education of the Negro continues to resonate today, raising questions about the legacy of slavery and enduring white supremacy. Continue reading
The Lost Education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the Hidden Heroes Who Fought for Justice in Schools Book - Non-fiction. By Vanessa Siddle Walker. 2018. This history tells the little-known story of how black educators in the South laid the groundwork for 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education and weathered its aftermath. Continue reading
