Articles Archives

The Missouri Tigers and the Hidden History of Black College Football Activists

Article. By Dave Zirin. 2015.
The protest by the University of Missouri football team placed in the context of a long history of activism by college athletes.

Teaching Activity by Dave Zirin

The Power In Our Hands: Introduction

Article. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 1988.
Teaching insights and introduction to using The Power In Our Hands curriculum book.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond

The Real Bread and Roses Strike Story Missing from Textbooks

Article. By Robert Forrant. 2013.
The author challenges the common myth that the Bread and Roses Strike was spontaneous.

The Truth About Helen Keller

Article. By Ruth Shagoury.
A review of children's picture books about the life of Helen Keller reveals the omission of any description of her active role in key social movements of the 20th century.

Teaching Activity by Ruth Shagoury

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.

Teaching Activity by Emilye Crosby

The Women Who Gave Us Christmas

Article. By William Loren Katz. 2010.
The abolitionist influence on the history of Christmas celebrations in the United States.

Teaching Activity by William Loren Katz

There’s Infinitely More to Martin Luther King Jr. Than ‘I Have a Dream’

Article. By Craig Gordon.
Back in 2001, I was trying to get my eleventh grade U.S. history class to focus on a passage from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Unfortunately, I was not surprised when a student protested, "We already know about him. We're tired of hearing about Martin Luther King."

Time to Abolish Columbus Day

Article. By Bill Bigelow. 2015. If We Knew Our History Series. When the school curriculum celebrates Columbus, children are taught that it’s OK for white people to rule over peoples of color and that militarily powerful nations can bully weaker nations. By his own account, Columbus enslaved people, destroyed cultures, and terrorized those who challenged his rule. It’s time to abolish Columbus Day.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Who Freed the Slaves (Material) | Zinn Education Project

Timeline on the Civil War and Abolition

Student Handout. By Bill Bigelow. 3 pages.
This timeline can be used as a resource for lessons on the Civil War, President Lincoln, the 54th Regiment, and the end of slavery.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

What War Looks Like

Article. By Howard Zinn. 2002.
Background reading for teachers and high school students on the impact of war.

Whitewashing Our First President

Article. By Clarence Lusane. 2014.
Critical review of an upper elementary non-fiction book about George Washington and the people he kept in bondage.

Teaching Activity by Clarence Lusane

Whitewashing Our Past: A Proposal for a National Campaign to Rethink Textbooks

Article. By Bob Peterson.
A critique of social studies textbooks and the rationale for a campaign to rethink them.

Whom Will We Honor Memorial Day?

Article. By Howard Zinn. 1976.
Essay urging readers to rethink Memorial Day, who we honor, and what resources we prioritize.

Why I’m Rooting for Tommy Lee Jones

Article. By William Katz. 2013.
An opportunity to highlight Congressman Thaddeus Stevens' fight for equality.

Howard Zinn Speaking at NCSS, 2008 - | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Why Students Should Study History: An Interview with Howard Zinn

Background Reading. By Howard Zinn. 1994.
Interview conducted by Barbara Miner on a number of questions about the study of history.

Why Students Should Study History: Article Excerpts

Article. Howard Zinn interview by Barbara Miner. 1994. Rethinking Schools magazine. I started studying history with one view in mind: to look for answers to the issues and problems I saw in the world about me. By the time I went to college I had worked in a shipyard, had been in the Air Force, had been in a war. I came to history asking questions about war and peace, about wealth and poverty, about racial division.

Textbook Myths About President Woodrow Wilson

Article. By James W. Loewen.
Excerpt about President Woodrow Wilson from "Lies My Teacher Told Me" (The New Press).

drawing of a protester being erased from a chalkboard.

The Attack on Anti-Racist Teaching Attacks Environmental Justice Teaching

The right-wing legislation restricting lessons on history and systemic racism also denies students climate literacy.

The Overthrow of Democracy in Chile — A Timeline

Article. Timeline by Bill Bigelow. 2023.
A timeline of the overthrow of democracy in Chile — the fall of Salvador Allende and the rise of Augusto Pinochet.

Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction

Article. By Ana Rosado, Gideon Cohn-Postar, and Mimi Eisen. 2022. 44 pages.
The report includes assessments of education standards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, along with findings and recommendations for how to improve instruction on Reconstruction.

Five Films for Teaching the Rebellions of the 1960s

Article. By greg wickenkamp. 2024.
A description of the top five films for teaching about the uprisings of the 1960s, plus a handful of honorable mentions.

Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Article. By Howard Zinn. From Chapter 6 of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.
Zinn describes the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) voting rights campaign called Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Miss.

Why Do People Believe Myths About the Confederacy? Because Our Textbooks and Monuments Are Wrong

Article. By James W. Loewen. July 2015 in the Washington Post.
A critique of textbook and mainstream media coverage of the Civil War.

Guns and the Southern Freedom Struggle: What’s Missing When We Teach About Nonviolence

By Charles E. Cobb Jr.

The best way to understand this Mississippi movement episode is...as a story of organizers and the communities they were embedding themselves in during the Freedom Movement of the 1960s. Within this organizing experience, guns in the hands of supporters sometimes existed in tension with the nonviolence usually used to define movement philosophy and practice, but that more often existed in tandem with nonviolence. In other words, something more complex was at play.

March on Washington | Zinn Education Project

Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington

By Bill Fletcher Jr.

August 28 marks the anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Publicly associated with Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, this march brought more than 250,000 people to the nation’s capital. The day went down in history as a powerful show of force against Jim Crow segregation. Over time this great event has risen to levels of near mythology. The powerful speech by Dr. King, replayed, in part, for us every January on Martin Luther King Day, has eclipsed all else — so much so that too many people believe that the March on Washington was entirely the work of Dr. King. It is also barely remembered that the March on Washington was for freedom and jobs.

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