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. 224 pages. 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. 400 pages. 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. 95 minutes. 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
Rethinking America’s Past Book — Non-fiction. By Robert Cohen and Sonia E. Murrow. 2021. 344 pages. The first work to use archival and classroom evidence to assess the impact that Zinn's classic work has had on historical teaching and learning and on U.S. culture. Continue reading
The Mis-Education of the Negro Book — Non-fiction. By Carter G. Woodson, with an introduction by Jarvis Givens. 2023. 224 pages. 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
The First Rainbow Coalition Film. Directed and produced by Ray Santisteban. Nantes Media LLC. 2019. 56 minutes. In this documentary, Chicago's Black Panther Party forms alliances across lines of race and ethnicity with other community-based movements in the city to collectively confront issues such as police brutality and substandard housing. Continue reading
Kids on the March: 15 Stories of Speaking Out, Protesting, and Fighting for Justice Book — Non-fiction. By Michael Long. 2021. 204 pages. A history of children's activism in the United States, focusing on 20th and 21st-century marches, strikes, and social justice movements. Continue reading
47 Book — Fiction. By Walter Mosley. 2006. 272 pages. A young boy learns to survive under slavery and struggles for his own liberation with help from a mysterious stranger, Tall John. Continue reading
This Promise of Change: One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality Book — Non-fiction. By Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy. 2019. 320 pages. Told from the perspective of Jo Ann Allen, this book tells the story of twelve Black students who integrated Clinton High School in Tennessee in 1956. Continue reading
Pacific Climate Warriors Speak at Climate Strike Film clip. Pacific Climate Warriors. 2019. During the Global Climate Strike on Sept. 20, 2019, the Pacific Climate Warriors in Portland showed up at their rally carrying their identity with pride and speaking their truths as Pacific islanders fighting for their homes. Continue reading
Video Poems by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner Film clip. Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. Various years. Video poems by a Marshallese artist show the injustices and harm of environmental racism, nuclear weapons, and climate change around the world. Continue reading
9to5: The Story of a Movement Film. Directed and produced by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar. Working Women Documentary Project LLC. 2021. While Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" song is well known, this documentary captures the real-life 9-to-5 organizing to address issues of working women in the early 1970s that led to a union. 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. 224 pages. 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. 400 pages. 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. 95 minutes. 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
Rethinking America’s Past Book — Non-fiction. By Robert Cohen and Sonia E. Murrow. 2021. 344 pages. The first work to use archival and classroom evidence to assess the impact that Zinn's classic work has had on historical teaching and learning and on U.S. culture. Continue reading
The Mis-Education of the Negro Book — Non-fiction. By Carter G. Woodson, with an introduction by Jarvis Givens. 2023. 224 pages. 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
The First Rainbow Coalition Film. Directed and produced by Ray Santisteban. Nantes Media LLC. 2019. 56 minutes. In this documentary, Chicago's Black Panther Party forms alliances across lines of race and ethnicity with other community-based movements in the city to collectively confront issues such as police brutality and substandard housing. Continue reading
Kids on the March: 15 Stories of Speaking Out, Protesting, and Fighting for Justice Book — Non-fiction. By Michael Long. 2021. 204 pages. A history of children's activism in the United States, focusing on 20th and 21st-century marches, strikes, and social justice movements. Continue reading
47 Book — Fiction. By Walter Mosley. 2006. 272 pages. A young boy learns to survive under slavery and struggles for his own liberation with help from a mysterious stranger, Tall John. Continue reading
This Promise of Change: One Girl’s Story in the Fight for School Equality Book — Non-fiction. By Jo Ann Allen Boyce and Debbie Levy. 2019. 320 pages. Told from the perspective of Jo Ann Allen, this book tells the story of twelve Black students who integrated Clinton High School in Tennessee in 1956. Continue reading
Pacific Climate Warriors Speak at Climate Strike Film clip. Pacific Climate Warriors. 2019. During the Global Climate Strike on Sept. 20, 2019, the Pacific Climate Warriors in Portland showed up at their rally carrying their identity with pride and speaking their truths as Pacific islanders fighting for their homes. Continue reading
Video Poems by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner Film clip. Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. Various years. Video poems by a Marshallese artist show the injustices and harm of environmental racism, nuclear weapons, and climate change around the world. Continue reading
9to5: The Story of a Movement Film. Directed and produced by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar. Working Women Documentary Project LLC. 2021. While Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" song is well known, this documentary captures the real-life 9-to-5 organizing to address issues of working women in the early 1970s that led to a union. Continue reading
