Teaching Activities (Free)

It’s a Mystery — White Workers Against Black Workers

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 8 pages.
In this “mystery” activity, students receive clues and discuss some of the factors that contributed to the intensification of racism in the 1920s in the United States.

Themes: African American, Labor, Racism & Racial Identity
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Cigar Makers' International Union of San Francisco stating "white made" cigars. | Image: University of California System

Cigar Makers’ International Union of San Francisco label stating “white labor” cigars, 1887. Source: University of California System.

A major obstacle to solidarity between workers has been and remains racial discrimination. Racism is so deeply embedded in our society that many students experience it as part of human nature. It’s a Mystery probes some of the social factors that contributed to racism in the 1920s.

One focus of this lesson is to explore why unions participated in racist practices. Unions are not only vehicles through which workers attempt to better themselves and their society, they can also embody elements of the society that their members have a stake in changing.

This is one of the 16 lessons available from The Power In Our Hands from Rethinking Schools.

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Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union: Black and White Unite? (Teaching Activity) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History
Teaching Activities (Free)

Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union: Black and White Unite?

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 12 pages.
Role play on farm labor organizing in the 1930s shows how racism had to be challenged to create effective worker alliances.

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‘Power In Our Hands’ Labor Lessons Now Available

The Zinn Education Project posted all the lessons from The Power in Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States, by Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond, published in 1988 by Monthly Review Press. The lessons are available as free downloads here. This comprehensive labor history curriculum is filled… Read more »

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