Teach Truth 2026

The demand for the right to Teach Truth belongs in No Kings, May Day, immigrant rights, Pride, All of Us 250 on June 27, Juneteenth, July 4 and other rallies and celebrations. The need to protect the freedom to learn is part of every fight for justice.

Across the country teachers and allies are rallying to raise awareness about the threats to public education, LGBTQ+ students, immigrants, the climate, democracy, and more. Join us!

Bring the #TeachTruth message to public events all year.

Resources to Host Your Own Event

Add Your City to the Map!

Public Teach Truth events and other local education organizing efforts can be found on the national map below, hosted by our cosponsor Public School Strong/HEAL Together.

Events

Here is a list of public Teach Truth events, including those featured below.

Event Highlights

Here are descriptions and photos from some of the events to date. More are being held throughout the year.

Laguna Beach, California

On May 20, 2026, Laguna Beach educators, students, parents, and community members hosted a Teach Truth Day of Action featuring an interactive Banned Books pop-up display during an open community service fair including a book drive, and a screening of Banned Together followed by a multi-generational response panel.

Heather Hanson (on the far left), high school social studies teacher and event organizer, said,

Everyone loved the documentary, and the conversation was really thoughtful. My friend David Milton, a local artist who donated the rights to his original work of art, Still Life With Banned Books, to the American Library Association, was one of the adult speakers. The other adult speaker was Chris Kluwe, the activist and candidate for California Assembly 72. I also had four students, two activists who are juniors, and our two student board representatives, who are sophomores. So the thread for the speakers was that everyone was involved in similar issues to the students in the documentary, either as activists or as public servants, and I served as the moderator.

Washington, D.C.

The Texas youth group, SEAT on the Hill, hosted a Teach Truth reception in Washington, D.C. Their Mary Beth Tinker Fellows were in town for a week to make their voices heard in Congress. The reception included remarks by Representative Christian Menefee, lifelong activist Mary Beth Tinker, SEAT on the Hill executive director Cameron Samuels, and more.

Attendees included representatives from CODEPINK: Women For Peace, the American Library Association, and the National Coalition Against Censorship.

Kansas City, Kansas

The Ed Equity Collective (formerly SURJ KC) in Kansas City, Kansas hosted their annual Teach Truth event on May 23 at the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center. Michael Rebne (on the far right), physics teacher and former Teaching for Black Lives study group coordinator, reported:

Our day of action featured powerful speakers, including a strong advocate and teacher of immigrant children, a leader of a LGBTQ+ advocacy and policy organization, and a leader of an organization that serves unhoused LGBTQ+ teens and those experiencing other crises. We also hosted a local bookstore to sell Heather McGhee’s, The Sum of Us, which we will use for our upcoming biannual book club.

Approximately 20 people engaged in a banned book swap, Q&A with our speakers, and rally chants to keep our spirits high.

One of our participants called the event “an urgent call to action for school advocates to protect our most vulnerable students.”

It was an emotional and ultimately fortifying morning in community.

New Orleans, Louisiana

Littleton, Massachusetts

An Indivisible Littleton Massachusetts member, Sarah Buchholz, hosted a Teach Truth information table during a cold, windy morning rally with approximately 500 people in attendance.

Sarah reported,

I spoke to librarians and educators, current and retired, from all over New England. Their faces literally lit up seeing the messaging of our Teach Truth Campaign. We had a “So You Think You Know History” game, which was fun and eye-opening for all involved. The trivia questions helped start important conversations about historically silenced voices and erased histories. For example, did you know about the Mexican Underground Railroad or that Mexico fought and defeated Confederate soldiers during the Civil War?!

Participants asked their own questions related to erased and/or lesser known history. We all ended up learning from each other! Overall, it was an inspiring and invigorating event, and I’m already looking forward to the next one.

Brooklyn, New York

On May 30 and 31, 2026, the Brooklyn Teaching for Black Lives study group members hosted a #TeachTruth pop-up display at The Circle Keepers 2026 Peace and Justice Youth Conference and at the annual P.S. 261’s Rainbow Run Pride Celebration to raise awareness of ongoing book bans and the nationwide anti-education attacks on honest history. Kady Safar, math teacher and group member, said,

We passed out buttons and bookmarks, raised money for the Zinn Education Project, and made a photo wall for participants holding up #TeachTruth signs.

Ina Pannell-SaintSurin, retired educators and group co-coordinator, reported

Some notable networking moments were when one organizer asked us to join their Juneteenth event in Harlem. Another was when a mother asked us to table at their “Freedom to Read” event in Queens in October. And our youngest visitor, Rosie, came to the event with Luda, her mother and a member of our alumni study group. Rosie helped at our #teachtruth table and at the end of the day, Rosie shared that she now wants to be a teacher who values teaching the truth. What a day of inspiration, networking, and hope.

Harlem, New York

Rootz&Wingz collaborated with Sister’s Uptown Bookstore and Cultural Center, the oldest Black-owned bookstore in Manhattan, to host a Teach Truth day of action. Families, educators, and community members came together in Harlem to choose from an abundant selection of free books, exchange ideas with educators, and relax in the cultural community hub.

Salem, Ohio

Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past hosted the third annual Salem Teach Truth History Walking Tour on June 20.

Heather Smith, middle school teacher and event organizer, reported back,

We had 25 people in attendance, including a man from Salem who learned about it from the Zinn Education Project. He shared that he had taken classes with Howard Zinn and that each class opened his eyes and changed the way he thought about things.

We had a display about Salem history with books and information about the places we would explore on our walk since the structures are no longer there. I made buttons about one of the sites with the faces or Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth.

Before we walked, I read the Statement of Significance for the Mt. Zion AME Zion Church that recently applied for a Historical Marker and told about the 1852 interaction between Douglass and Truth in Salem that is inscribed on her tombstone in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Youngstown, Ohio

Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past hosted it’s annual week-long Freedom School June 15–19 at the Tyler Museum.

Heather Smith, middle school teacher and event organizer, said,

This year we had a full class of almost 30 kids in grades 4–9. We also had close to a dozen Sojourn high school students there as mentors who have gone on the Sojourn the Past journey south. This was our third freedom school and we focused on James Meredith and Vernon Dahmer. We focused on civil rights, nonviolence, and voter education. During the week, kids wrote poetry, made art about nonviolence, and presented in groups about their research.

The Vindicator and WKBN reported on the freedom school.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Lancaster Friends School hosted a Teach Truth pop-up display at Lititz Pride. Many attendees stopped at the school tent to learn more about the Teach Truth movement. Event hosts Trex Proffitt and Andrea Carty guided visitors through the information and handed out postcards to visitors of all ages.

Seattle, Washington

For the second year, the Seattle Public Library partnered with teachers from Seattle Caucus of Rank & File Educators (SCORE) to create a display of student work with an interactive element. Sixth grade students from Seattle Public Schools submitted poems, essays, and other artwork exploring the following questions:

• Why is teaching truth important to you?
• What does decolonize 1776 mean?
• What does revolution mean?
• What change do you want to see?
• What do justice and democracy mean?

In addition to displaying the students’ artwork and writing, the library shared handouts, promoted the Books Unbanned program, and created a booklist for America250 and Teach Truth.

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

On Juneteenth, a new coalition called America 433+ hosted a teach-in at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The event featured speakers, writing postcards to representatives, and an invitation to children to pledge to be resistance rangers and receive a Junior Resistance Ranger badge. People of all ages stepped up to take the Junior Ranger pledge.

America 433+, named for the more than 433 National Park Service locations, is a coalition of Resistance Rangers, Branch 4, Race Forward Action and Public School Strong, and the Zinn Education Project (Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change).

One of the teach-in speakers was Ranger Elizabeth, who worked at Harpers Ferry for years trying to get the stories of the Black raiders told with an exhibit that remains “under construction” since 2019.

About a dozen young people from a summer camp took the Junior Resistance Ranger pledge and read Junior Ranger activity booklets from two other National Park Service sites (Arlington House and Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home) which the rangers are not allowed to distribute under this administration.

A number of news outlets reported on the teach-in, including NBC.

Emily Erickson, who attended the event and is an education and English major at Wellesley College, reflected,

While it was saddening hear the stories of censorship, it was very moving to be in community with so many people dedicated to fighting for the preservation of true histories that do not shy away from hard truths. While our government is actively trying to hide these histories away from the public eye, this event shone a bright light on the importance of preserving Black history and empowered the audience to do so in their communities.