1945 Archives

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.

We Are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin

Picture book. By Larry Dane Brimner. 2007. 48 pages.
A sophisticated picture book on key civil rights leader Bayard Rustin.

We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired

Book — Non-fiction. By M.J. O'Brien. 2014. 340 pages.
An up-close study of the story behind the iconic photographs of the Jackson, Mississippi sit-ins.

Teaching Activity by M.J. O'Brien

World War II and McCarthyism

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 16 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on domestic opposition to the "good war" and the impact of McCarthyism.

Disguising Imperialism: How Textbooks Get the Cold War Wrong and Dupe Students

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

The perpetual interventionism and global hegemony exercised by the U.S. government today urgently need to be questioned and dismantled. Such a monumental task requires a citizenry armed with clear-eyed understandings of its past. That cannot be accomplished when the Cold War is sanitized and downsized, confined to one chapter of a textbook . . .

July 18, 1946: Murder of Maceo Snipes

WWII veteran Maceo Snipes was murdered after casting his vote in the Georgia Democratic Primary.

July 19, 1958: Dockum Drug Store Sit-In

Ron Walters, Carol Parks-Haun, and other leaders in the NAACP Youth Council organized a sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Moore's Ford Bridge | Zinn Education Project

July 25, 1946: Moore’s Ford Bridge Lynching

Two young African American couples — one of the men a WWII veteran — were lynched near the Moore’s Ford Bridge.

July 26, 1950: No Gun Ri Massacre

During the No Gun Ri Massacre, the U.S. Army ordered that all Korean civilians traveling and moving around the country must be stopped.

Why We Should Learn About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement (If We Knew Our History) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Why We Should Teach About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

On March 8, 1971 — while Muhammad Ali was fighting Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden, and as millions sat glued to their TVs watching the bout unfold — a group of peace activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole every document they could find.

Delivered to the press, these documents revealed an FBI conspiracy — known as COINTELPRO — to disrupt and destroy a wide range of protest groups, including the Black freedom movement. The break-in, and the government treachery it revealed, is a chapter of our not-so-distant past that all high school students — and all the rest of us — should learn, yet one that history textbooks continue to ignore.

Sept. 29, 1951: “A Call to Negro Women” Sojourners for Truth and Justice

A decade before the March on Washington, a group of Black women known as the Sojourners for Truth and Justice gathered in Washington D.C. to advocate for their rights.

Aug. 1, 1952: Sarah Keys Refuses to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus

Sarah Keys refused to give up her seat on a state-to-state charter bus, prompting the landmark court case, Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company.

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