Period: 1975

Post-Civil Rights Era: 1975 – 2000

How to Survive a Plague

Film. Directed by David France. Public Square Films. 2012. 109 minutes.
This documentary is about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and the grassroots movement of activists, many of them in a life-or-death struggle, who seized upon scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease.
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Tigerbelle: The Wyomia Tyus Story

Book — Non-fiction. By Wyomia Tyus and Elizabeth Terzakis. 2018. 288 pages.
A young adult sports history that chronicles the life of Wyomia Tyus, the daughter of a tenant dairy farmer, who became the first person to win gold medals in the 100-meter sprint in two consecutive Olympic Games.
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Grenada education poster| Zinn Education Project

Grenada: ‘A Lovely Little War’

By Bill Bigelow
Anti-bullying curricula are the rage these days. But the official history curriculum teachers are provided often celebrates, or at least excuses, bullying among nations. Well, at least when the United States is the bully.

A good example is the U.S. invasion of Grenada — Operation Urgent Fury, as it was called by the Reagan administration — launched on Oct. 25, 1983. Grenada made an unlikely target of U.S. military might. Its main product was not oil but nutmeg. Its naval fleet consisted of about 10 fishing trawlers. Grenada’s population of 110,000 was smaller than Peoria, Illinois. At the time of the invasion, there was not a single stoplight in the entire country. So what put Grenada in the crosshairs of the Reagan administration?
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The Rebellious Lives of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow.
In this mixer lesson, students learn about Rosa Parks' many decades of activism by taking on roles from various times in her life. In this way, students learn about her radicalism before, during, and long after the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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