20th Century Archives

Breadline at McAuley Water Street Mission under Brooklyn Bridge, New York, circa 1930.

What Caused the Great Depression? The Widget Boom Game

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools.
A simulation helps students understand the causes of economic crises.

June 3, 1943: The Zoot Suit Riots

White U.S. servicemen and police entered a majority-Mexican American neighborhood in East Los Angeles and attacked and detained hundreds of young people in the “zoot suit riots.”

Jan. 22, 1932: La Matanza (“The Massacre”) Begins in El Salvador

The government of El Salvador launched a murderous, anti-indigenous and anti-leftist campaign that led to the deaths of 30,000 Salvadorans.

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Book — Non-fiction. By Ibram X. Kendi. 2016. 608 pages.
This book chronicles the origins and growth of anti-Black racist ideas, and their power, over the course of U.S. history.

Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the March on Washington

Book — Non-fiction. By Jacqueline Houtman, Walter Naegle, and Michael G. Long. 2019. 168 pages.
A biography of antiwar and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin.

Dirt and Deeds in Mississippi

Film. Produced and directed by David Shulman. Narrated by Danny Glover. 2015. 82 minutes.
Documentary about the pivotal role played by Black landowning families during the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi who controlled over a million acres in the 1960s.

Truth Has a Power of Its Own: Conversations About A People’s History

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn and Ray Suarez. Reprinted in paperback in 2022. 240 pages.
A collection of conversations between Howard Zinn and journalist Ray Suarez, conducted in 2007, about people's history.

book cover of ghosts in the schoolyard by Eve Ewing

Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side

Book — Non-fiction. By Eve Ewing. 2018. 240 pages.
This book flips the script about how we talk about "failing schools," using historical research and current data to show that Chicago's public schools are storehouses of memory, an integral part of their neighborhoods, and at the heart of their communities.

Trinkets and Beads

Film. By Christopher Walker. 1996. 52 minutes.
This documentary reveals the funny, heartbreaking, and thrilling story of the battle waged by indigenous people to preserve their way of life in the Amazon, in the face of international capitalism and colonialism.

Sing a Song: How Lift Every Voice and Sing Inspired Generations

Picture book. By Kelly Starling Lyons. Illustrated by Keith Mallett. 2019. 32 pages.
The 120-year history of the song through generations of her family who have passed it on — starting with a young girl who learned it in 1900 in Jacksonville, Florida, from her principal (James Weldon Johnson) and his brother.

Jan. 1, 1915: John Henrik Clarke Born in Alabama

The teacher, scholar, and Pan-Africanist intellectual leader was born in Alabama.

Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era

Book — Non-fiction. By Jerry Mitchell. 2020. 432 pages.
An account of one journalist's search for the long-buried truths that could bring killers to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, and the Mississippi Burning case.

Teach About Iran, Iraq, and the Escalating War

Teach students about U.S. imperialism and war in the Middle East, and offer a historical context, with people's history resources.

Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2003. 368 pages.
A selection of passionate, honest, and piercing essays looking at political ideology in the United States.

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

Book — Non-fiction. By Carol Anderson. 2018. 368 pages.
This history of voter suppression highlights the aftermath and challenges to the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

One Person, No Vote (YA edition): How Not All Voters Are Treated Equally

Book — Non-fiction. By Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden. 2019. 288 pages.
A young readers edition of Anderson's voter suppression analysis and history, One Person, No Vote.

Rad American History A-Z: Movements and Moments That Demonstrate the Power of the People

Book — Non-fiction. By Kate Schatz and illustrated by Miriam Klein Stahl. Ten Speed Press. 2020. 176 pages.
Paired with dynamic paper-cut art, readers explore several centuries of U.S. politics, culture, art, activism, and liberation.

What Our Students Should Know About the Struggle for the Ballot — but Won’t Learn from Their Textbooks

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

From voter ID laws to voter-roll purges, gerrymandering to poll closures to the deadly in-person voting conditions during a pandemic, the right to vote is under attack and the stakes are high. It is critical that students learn about the fight for voting rights, past and present.

March 24, 1966: Supreme Court Officially Abolishes Last Vestige of Poll Taxes

A U.S. Supreme Court decision bans poll taxes for state and local elections.

Battle of Algiers

Film. Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. 1966. 123 minutes.
This film documents the armed insurgency against the French colonial powers in Algiers, showing the brutality and desperation of war.

How History Got the Rosa Parks Story Wrong

Article. By Jeanne Theoharis. The Washington Post. 2015.
The radical life history of Rosa Parks, before and after the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights

Book — Non-fiction. By Lawrence Goldstone. 2020. 288 pages.
This young adult book documents the long and ongoing struggle for voting rights for African Americans.

The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords

Film. Directed and produced by Stanley Nelson. 1999. 83 minutes.
This documentary chronicles 150 years of Black journalists, printers, and Black-owned newspapers in the United States.

April 28, 1977: Disability Rights Sit-Ins Force Enactment of Section 504

Between April 5 and April 28, 1977, hundreds of disabled and handicapped activists organized, protested, and occupied government buildings around the country to pressure the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Joseph Califano, to enact Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and publish regulations to guide its enforcement.

Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision

Book — Non-fiction. By Barbara Ransby. 2005. 495 pages.
This biography chronicles Baker's long and rich political career as an organizer, an intellectual, and a teacher, from her early experiences in depression-era Harlem to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Time Period

Theme

Resource Type

Grade

Keywords