“The Carceral State” Online Class
Garrett Felber and abolitionist organizer Stevie Wilson talk about the growth of the carceral state and resistance movements.
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Period: 1961
People’s Movement: 1961 – 1974
The Boys Who Said No
Film. Directed by Judith Ehrlich. 2020. A documentary uses interviews and found footage to tell the inspiring story and impact of the anti-Vietnam War draft resistance movement.
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The First Rainbow Coalition
Film. Directed and produced by Ray Santisteban. Nantes Media LLC. 2019. 56 minutes.
In this documentary, Chicago's Black Panther Party forms alliances across lines of race and ethnicity with other community-based movements in the city to collectively confront issues such as police brutality and substandard housing.
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Julian Bond’s Time to Teach: A History of the Southern Civil Rights Movement
Book - Non-fiction. By Julian Bond. Edited by Pam Horowitz and Jeanne Theoharis with an afterword by Vann Newkirk II. 2021. 356 pp.
For over two decades, civil rights activist Julian Bond taught a popular class on the history of the Civil Rights Movement. This book contains the wisdom and teachings from that class.
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“Riots,” Racism, and the Police: Students Explore a Century of Police Conduct and Racial Violence
Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
Students explore three documents produced in the wake of three major episodes of racial violence (1919, 1967, 2014) to understand the long trajectory of police violence in Black communities.
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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.
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What Our Students Should Know About the Struggle for the Ballot — but Won’t Learn from Their Textbooks
By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
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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.
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks: Young Readers Edition
Book — Non-fiction. By Jeanne Theoharis and Brandy Colbert. 2021.
This biography of Rosa Parks accessibly examines her six decades of activism, challenging young readers’ perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the Civil Rights Movement.
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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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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.
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Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson
Book — Non-fiction. By Barbara Ransby. 2013. 373 pages.
This biography of cosmopolitan anthropologist Eslanda Cardozo Goode Robeson explores her influence on her husband's early career, their open marriage, and her life as a prolific journalist, a tireless advocate of women's rights, and an outspoken anti-colonial and antiracist activist.
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Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong
Picture book. By Dawn Bohulano Mabalon and Gayle Romasanta. Illustrated by Andre Sibayan. 2018.
The first nonfiction illustrated Filipino-American history book for children tells the story of labor activist Larry Itliong, who organized farmworkers on the West Coast in the mid-20th century.
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Crip Camp
Directed by Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht. Netflix. 2020. 107 minutes. A groundbreaking summer camp galvanizes a group of teens with disabilities to help build a movement, forging a new path toward greater equality.
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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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Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights
Book — Non-fiction. By Lawrence Goldstone. 2020. 288 pp.
This young adult book documents the long and ongoing struggle for voting rights for African Americans.
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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.
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One Person, No Vote (YA edition): How Not All Voters Are Treated Equally
Book - Non-fiction. By Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden. 2019. 288 pp.
A young readers edition of Anderson's voter suppression analysis and history, One Person, No Vote.
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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.
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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.
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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. 168 pages. 2019.
A biography of antiwar and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin.
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Freedom Libraries: The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South
Book — Non-fiction. By Mike Selby. 208 pages. 2019.
This book reveals the histories of grassroots "freedom libraries" that were at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South and tells the stories of courageous people who operated and used them.
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Dirt and Deeds in Mississippi
Film. Produced and directed by David Shulman. Narrated by Danny Glover. 82 minutes. 2015
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.
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April 30, 1963: Bristol Bus Boycott
The Bristol Bus Boycott began in England, inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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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. 400 pages. 2014. Vol 2. 320 pages. 2019.
These are two volumes of illustrated histories, adapted for students from a documentary book and film of the same name.
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Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968
Picture book. By Alice Faye Duncan. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. 2018. 40 pages.
A historical fiction picture book that presents the story of nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson, who in 1968 witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike.
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