1961–1974 Archives

May 13, 1968: Detroit Police Attack Poor People’s Campaign

On its way to Washington, D.C., the Poor People’s Campaign was attacked by the police in Detroit.

Sept. 13, 1965: People Against Racism Founded in Detroit

White members of the Northern Student Movement broke off to form a new group that was soon called People Against Racism, which organized white people by creating suburban freedom schools, developing school curriculum, raising the alarm on “law and order” politics, and through other means.

Fort Hood ASU Ellen Catalinotto (photo) | The Zinn Education Project

August 23, 1968: Forty-Three Black Soldiers Stage Sit-In at Ft. Hood

When the “Fort Hood 43” refused to board a plane to Chicago for riot-control duty against fellow African Americans, their non-violent act became one of the largest demonstrations of dissent in U.S. military history.

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.

Dec. 4, 1969: Black Panther Party Members Assassinated

Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were assassinated by police and FBI agents in Chicago, Illinois.

Viva La Causa

Film. Bill Brummel Productions. 2008. 39 minutes.
A documentary film and teaching guide on the grape strike and boycott led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the 1960s.

Woman screaming at Elizabeth Ann Eckford | Zinn Education Project

“A School Year Like No Other”: Eyes on the Prize: “Fighting Back: 1957-1962”

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 7 pages.
A companion lesson to the Eyes on the Prize segment on school desegregation.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Bayard Rustin: Behind the Scenes of the Civil Rights Movement

Book — Non-fiction. By James Haskins. 1997. 128 pages.
Biography for middle school readers of Bayard Rustin.

Ella Baker Painting | Zinn Education Project

Ella Josephine Baker

Profile. Brief biography of Ella Josephine Baker, 1903–1986, activist and civil rights organizer.

Medgar Evers

Profile. By Dernoral Davis.
Medgar Evers (July 2, 1925—June 12, 1963), Civil Rights Movement activist in Mississippi.

Maestra (Teacher)

Film. By Catherine Murphy. 2013. 32 minutes.
Documentary about the successful 1961 literacy campaign in Cuba.

Kids in Birmingham 1963

Digital collection. A resource for the stories of people who were children in Birmingham in 1963.

March 14, 1968: King Speaks About the “Other America” in the North

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the speech titled “The Other America” focusing on economic inequalities and white complicity in the North.

Feb. 22, 1974: Sam Lovejoy Topples Nuclear Plant Tower

Sam Lovejoy slipped onto the Montague Plains and sabotaged the 500-foot weather tower Northeast Utilities had erected to test wind direction at the site.

Feb. 24, 1969: Tinker v. Des Moines Case Wins Free Speech Rights for Students

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Tinker v. Des Moines that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

Feb. 19, 1968: Florida Teachers’ Strike

Teachers and administrators from the Florida Education Association (FEA) walked out in what is reported to be the first statewide teachers’ strike.

March 19, 1968: Howard University Protest

Howard University students seized the Administration Building, demanding changes in the discipline policy, the addition of courses in African American history, and more.

Lumumba at the 1960 Round Table conference | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Jan. 17, 1961: Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was Executed

Prime minister of the Republic of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was executed with the assistance of the governments of Belgium and the United States.

Jan. 25, 1972: Shirley Chisholm Began Historic Campaign for President

Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, opened her historic campaign for President.

Clyde McKay, Alvin Glatowski, Fred Emery (Photo) | Zinn Education Project

March 14, 1970: SS Columbia Eagle Mutiny

Two U.S. merchant seamen mutinied against the captain and crew aboard the SS Columbia Eagle, as it crossed the Pacific during the Vietnam War.

Teaching the 1964 New York City School Boycott

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools.
This lesson and accompanying article teach about the largest civil rights protest of the 1960s was in New York City, when hundreds of thousands of students stayed home to protest school segregation.

Teaching Activity by Adam Sanchez

Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision

Book — Non-fiction. By Barbara Ransby. 2024 (Second Edition). 512 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.

“Intolerable Conditions”: Teaching About Northern Racism Through Rosa Parks’s Detroit

Teaching Activity. By Say Burgin, Jeanne Theoharis, and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
Students learn to “talk back” to official accounts of the Detroit Uprising of 1967 by focusing on its root causes. They also get a fuller sense of Rosa Parks’s life and politics, and the Black freedom struggle outside of the South.

Teaching A People’s History of the March on Washington

Teaching Activity. By Jessica Lovaas and Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools. 2021. Updated in 2023.
A lesson with case studies from Los Angeles; Birmingham, Alabama; Brooklyn; Detroit; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Albany, Georgia; and Cambridge, Maryland — to introduce students to the diverse struggles across the United States that were represented at the March on Washington.

Teaching Activity by Adam Sanchez

Rosa Parks Lived a Long and Active Life, So Why Is This Timeline So Boring and Short?

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 3 pages.
This timeline activity builds on students’ viewing of the 2022 film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, and involves collaborating on a new timeline of Mrs. Parks' life.

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