1945 Archives

Rethinking What We Know About the Vietnam War

Teaching Activity. Zinn Education Project. 21 pages.
Two lessons to introduce key facts about the Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers, documents that provide essential history that is often ignored by textbooks.

Ruth and the Green Book

Picture book. By Calvin Alexander Ramsey with Gwen Strauss. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. 2010. 32 pages.
Story for young readers about an African American family travelling during the Jim Crow era and the networks of support and services listed in The Green Book.

Salt of the Earth: Grounds Students in Hope

Teaching Activity. By S. J. Childs. Rethinking Schools. 6 pages.
The author describes how she introduces students to the classic 1953 film, Salt of the Earth, about a miners’ strike in New Mexico.

Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation

Picture book. By Duncan Tonatiuh. 2014. 40 pages.
Upper elementary school picture-book about the Mendez v. Westminster case to desegregate California schools.

Separate No More: The Long Road to Brown v. Board of Education

Book — Non-fiction. By Lawrence Goldstone. 2021.
A portrait of the road to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

Sept. 2, 1945: Vietnam Declared Independence from France

Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of Vietnam from France.

Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality

Book — Non-fiction. By Richard Kluger. 2004. 880 pages.
One of the first texts, now a classic, on Brown v. Board of Education.

Teaching Activity by Richard Kluger

Stealing Home: Eminent Domain, Urban Renewal, and the Loss of Community

Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 9 pages.
Teaching about patterns of displacement and wealth inequality through the history of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop communities and the building of Dodger Stadium.

Teaching Activity by Linda Christensen

Teaching the “American War” 75 Years After Vietnamese Independence

Here are resources to help students probe the roots of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the impact of the Vietnam War — which the Vietnamese rightly call “The American War” — and resistance to the war.

Teaching the Vietnam War: Beyond the Headlines

Teaching Activity. By the Zinn Education Project. 100 pages.
Eight lessons about the Vietnam War, Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers, and whistleblowing.

The Admirable Radical: Staughton Lynd and Cold War Dissent, 1945–1970

Book — Non-fiction. By Carl Mirra. Foreword by Howard Zinn. 2010. 240 pages.
Story of Staughton Lynd, one of the most visible figures of the New Left, from 1945-1970.

The Bomb

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2010. 100 pages.
Zinn's personal reflections and political analysis on the WWII bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Royan, and more.

The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth, & Harlem's Greatest Bookstore ( Book) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth, and Harlem’s Greatest Bookstore

Picture book. By Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. 2015. 32 pages.
Tells the story of Lewis Michaux Sr.'s Harlem bookstore that was a center of African American history, scholarship, debate, and activism, for grades 2-5.

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Book — Non-fiction. By Richard Rothstein. 2017. 368 pages.
A history of the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments that promoted racial segregation.

Teaching Activity by Richard Rothstein

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Book — Non-fiction. By Jeanne Theoharis. 2013. 320 pages.
A revealing window into Rosa Parks’ politics and years of activism.

The Southern Mystique

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 1964.
In one of his earliest published works, Howard Zinn writes about his experiences teaching and organizing with the Civil Rights Movement in the South.

The Untold History of the United States DVD

Film. By Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. 2014. 4 discs – 796 minutes.
TV series that re-examines various under-reported events of U.S. history since World War II.

The Untold History of the United States: Young Readers Editions, Vols 1 (1898-1945) & 2 (1945-1962)

Book — Non-fiction. By Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. Adapted by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and Eric S. Singer. Vol 1. 2014. 400 pages. Vol 2. 2019. 320 pages.
These are two volumes of illustrated histories, adapted for students from a documentary book and film of the same name.

The Vietnam Wars: 1945-1990

Book — Non-fiction. By Marilyn B. Young. 1991. 448 pages.
A detailed history of the Vietnam War.

This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Leslie G. Kelen. 2012. 256 pages.
Presents the Civil Rights Movement through the work of nine activist photographers who lived within the movement and documented its activities by focusing on the student activists and local people who together made it happen.

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.

Vietnam: An Antiwar Comic Book

Book — Non-fiction. By Julian Bond and illustrated by T. G. Lewis. 1967. 19 pages.
This "graphic novel" from the 1960s was written to provide a critical analysis of the Vietnam War in an easy to read format.

Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer

Picture book. By Carole Boston Weatherford. Illustrated by Ekua Holmes. 2015. 45 pages.
Illustrated biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, activist for voting and economic rights from Mississippi.

Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s

Book — Non-fiction. Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer. 1991. 692 pages.
Oral histories of the Civil Rights Movement spanning three decades.

Coretta Scott King (R) with Women Strike for Peace founder Dagmar Wilson, 1963 | Zinn Education Project

W. E. B. Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb

By Vincent Intondi

When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. announced his strong opposition to the war in Vietnam, the media attacked him for straying outside of his civil rights mandate. In so many words, powerful interests told him: “Mind your own business.” In fact, African American leaders have long been concerned with broad issues of peace and justice — and have especially opposed nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, this activism is left out of mainstream corporate-produced history textbooks.

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