| Zinn Education Project

Echoes of Enslavement

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Students discover “echoes of enslavement” in their own state — discrete sites of remembering, forgetting, honoring, lying, or distorting — in this lesson based on the book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith.

Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction

Book - Non-fiction. By Kate Masur. 2021. The movement for equal rights in the decades before the Civil War.

Trans-Atlantic and Intra-American Slave Trade Database

Digital collection. Through this website, over 130,000 voyages made in the Trans-Atlantic and Intra-American slave trade can be searched, filtered, and sorted by variables including the port of origin, the number of enslaved Africans on board, and the ship's name.

Teaching Critically About Lewis and Clark: Challenging Dominant Narratives in K–12 Curriculum

Books — Non-fiction. By Alison Schmitke, Leilani Sabzalian, Jeff Edmundson. 2020. 216 pages. This much-needed guide unpacks the colonial narrative that dominates most mainstream histories of the Corps of Discovery expedition.

The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords

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

Who Fought to End Slavery? Meet the Abolitionists

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez, Brady Bennon, Deb Delman, and Jessica Lovaas. This mixer role play introduces students to the stories of famous and lesser-known abolitionists, through biography and investigation.

Poetry of Defiance: How the Enslaved Resisted

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Through a mixer activity, students encounter how enslaved people resisted the brutal exploitation of slavery. The lesson culminates in a collective class poem highlighting the defiance of the enslaved.

Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge

Book – Non-fiction. By Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Kathleen Van Cleve. 272 pages. 2019. This is the true story of Ona Judge who escaped from enslavement by George and Martha Washington.

Thomas Jefferson Advertisement Runaway Slave | Zinn Education Project

Freedom on the Move: Rediscovering the Stories of Self-Liberating People

Digital Collection. Crowdsourcing project that provides access to information, through thousands of print advertisements, about freedom-seekers and their would-be enslavers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Midnight Teacher 9781620141632 | Zinn Education Project

Midnight Teacher: Lilly Ann Granderson and Her Secret School

Picture book. By Janet Halfmann. Illustrated by London Ladd. 2018. 40 pages. Tells the story of Lilly Ann Granderson, an enslaved woman who taught hundreds of people in Kentucky and Mississippi to read.

May 23, 1838: The Trail of Tears Began

The forcible removal of Native American tribes, the Trail of Tears, began.

May 19, 1856: Charles Sumner Crime Against Kansas Speech

Charles Sumner delivered a speech denouncing slavery and the need for Kansas to become a free state.

Jan. 6, 1832: New England Anti-Slavery Society Founded

The New England Anti-Slavery Society was founded at the African Meeting House in Boston.

March 17: St. Patrick’s Day

Challenging myths about the Irish Potato Famine.

Unbound: A Novel in Verse

Book. Fiction. By Ann E. Burg. 2016. 352 pages. Story of a family fleeing slavery written in verse for grades 4-8.

Francis Scott Key Opposed “Land of the Free”

Article. By Jefferson Morley. "Star-Spangled Banner" songwriter Francis Scott Key opposed abolitionists and free speech in his role as district attorney of the city of Washington.

Roudanez: History and Legacy

Digital Collection. The work of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, founder of the first Black daily newspaper in the U.S., the New Orleans Tribune, with articles, excerpts, videos, and a timeline.

The Women Who Gave Us Christmas

Article. By William Loren Katz. 2010. The abolitionist influence on the history of Christmas celebrations in the United States.

Teaching Activity by William Loren Katz

Passenger on the Pearl: The True Story of Emily Edmonson’s Flight from Slavery

Book - Non-fiction. By Winifred Conkling. 2015. Young adult biography about Emily Edmonson who was one of 77 who attempted to escape slavery in Washington, D.C.

White House Black History | Zinn Education Project

Missing from Presidents’ Day: The People They Enslaved

By Clarence Lusane

Schools across the country are adorned with posters of the U.S. presidents and the years they served in office. U.S. history textbooks describe the accomplishments and challenges of the major presidential administrations — George Washington had the Revolutionary War, Abraham Lincoln the Civil War, Teddy Roosevelt the Spanish-American War, and so on. Children’s books put students on a first-name basis with the presidents, engaging readers with stories of their dogs in the Rose Garden or childhood escapades. Washington, D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution welcomes visitors to an exhibit of the first ladies’ gowns and White House furnishings.

Nowhere in all this information is there any mention of the fact that more than one in four U.S. presidents were involved in human trafficking and slavery.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton | Zinn Education Project

Seneca Falls, 1848: Women Organize for Equality

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. A role play allows students to examine issues of race and class when exploring both the accomplishments and limitations of the Seneca Falls Convention.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow