1961–1974 Archives

A Revolution of Values (Teaching Activity) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Martin Luther King in New York City

Teaching Activity. By Jeanne Theoharis and Jessica Lovaas. 2026. 10 pages.
Reading, discussion questions, and activity about Martin Luther King's activism in New York on labor rights, police brutality, housing, and education. The reading is from a chapter in King of the North: Martin Luther King’s Freedom Struggle Outside of the South.

Music and Silence: The Passion and Protest of Pablo Casals

Book — Historical non-fiction. By Christy Mihaly, with illustrations by Mariona Cabassa. 2026. 56 pages.
An inspiring picture book biography of a UN Peace Medal recipient who used his songs — and his silence — to fight fascism, oppression, and violence.

June 30, 1966: Virginia Censorship Board Ceases Operations

The Virginia Division of Motion Picture Censorship, which racists used to promulgate white supremacy and negative stereotypes of African Americans since 1922, ceased operations.

Nov. 6, 1965: Draft Card Protest

Draft cards burned in solidarity with David Miller, a Catholic pacifist who was one of the first to publicly burn his draft card.

The Struggle Against the Prison Industrial Complex

Jesse Hagopian led a conversation with Garrett Felber, Safear Ness, and Stevie Wilson about the prison industrial complex, incarceration, and the history of resistance against that system.

Native American Activism: 1960s to Present

Overview of Native American activism since the late 1960s, including protests at Mt. Rushmore, Alcatraz, Standing Rock, and more.

We Shall Remain (Film) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

We Shall Remain: America Through Native Eyes

Film. PBS. 2009. 450 minutes.
Three hundred years of Native American history.

Banished

Film. Center for Investigative Reporting and Two Tone Productions. 2007. 84 minutes.
Filmmaker Marco Williams examined four examples of primarily white communities violently rising up to force their African-American neighbors to flee town.

Dec. 30, 1971: Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo Jr. Indicted for Releasing the Pentagon Papers

Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony J. “Tony” Russo Jr. were indicted for releasing the Pentagon Papers, detailing the secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

April 23, 1968: Columbia Student Occupation

Students for a Democratic Society, Student Afro-American Society and others began a nonviolent occupation of campus buildings at Columbia University.

Side entrance to the Governor’s mansion on Capital Street in Jackson on June 17, 1965.

June 17, 1965: Protest for Voting Rights in Jackson, Mississippi

Five-year-old Anthony Quin and his mother and siblings protested against the election of five Mississippi Congressmen from districts where Black people were not allowed to vote. Refused admittance, they sat on the steps and police-instigated mayhem ensued.

May 27, 1972: First African Liberation Day Demonstration on the National Mall

The first African Liberation Day drew some 60,000 demonstrators in cities across the United States and Canada, including one on the National Mall in Washington D. C.

Granny Came Here on the Empire Windrush

Picture book. By Patrice Lawrence. Illustrated by Camilla Sucre. 2025. 40 pp.
The book's young protagonist learns from her beloved grandmother about the Windrush generation in England.

Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train

Film. By Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller. 2010. 78 minutes.
Documentary on life and work of Howard Zinn.

Nov. 3, 1972: Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan Occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Protesters from the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) offices in Washington, D.C. for six days.

Memories From Mississippi Freedom Summer: “I Never Will Forget”

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Sarah Blanc. 2014. 115 pages.
A collection of interviews conducted by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program over seven years in Sunflower County, Mississippi. The stories provide a powerful first person introduction to the history of the Mississippi Civl Rights Movement.

Protestors Dow Chemical | Zinn Education Project

March 22, 1969: DC 9 Protest Dow Chemical Production of Napalm

Nine protesters smashed glass, hurled files out a fourth floor window, and poured blood on files and furniture at the Dow Chemical offices in Washington, D.C.

Until the Last Gun Is Silent

Book — Non-fiction. By Matthew F. Delmont. 2026. 368 pages.
The history of the Vietnam War with a focus on the African American experience in the antiwar movement and as returning soldiers.

What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement After 1965? Don’t Ask Your Textbook

By Adam Sanchez

Fifty years ago this week, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairperson Stokely Carmichael made the famous call for “Black Power.” Carmichael’s speech came in the midst of the “March Against Fear,” a walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to encourage African Americans to use their newly won right to vote. But while almost every middle and high school student learns about the Civil Rights Movement, they rarely learn about this march — or the related struggles that continued long after the Voting Rights Act.

Ten Things You Should Know About Selma Before You See the Film

By Emilye Crosby

On each anniversary year of the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act it helped inspire, national media focus on the iconic images of “Bloody Sunday,” the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the interracial marchers, and President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act. This version of history, emphasizing a top-down narrative and isolated events, reinforces the master narrative that civil rights activists describe as “Rosa sat down, Martin stood up, and the white folks came south to save the day.”

Here are 10 points to keep in mind about Selma’s civil rights history.

Bombed out cars by Jo Freeman | Zinn Education Project

‘Is This America?’: Sharecroppers Challenged Mississippi Apartheid, LBJ, and the Nation

By Julian Hipkins III and Deborah Menkart

Fannie Lou Hamer gripped the nation with her televised testimony of being forced from her home and brutally beaten (suffering permanent kidney damage) for attempting to exercise her constitutional right to vote.

“Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings?” she asked the credentials committee at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Period: 1961–1974

Martin Luther King in New York City

June 30, 1966: Virginia Censorship Board Ceases Operations

The Struggle Against the Prison Industrial Complex

Native American Activism: 1960s to Present

We Shall Remain: America Through Native Eyes

Banished

June 17, 1965: Protest for Voting Rights in Jackson, Mississippi

May 27, 1972: First African Liberation Day Demonstration on the National Mall

Granny Came Here on the Empire Windrush

Nov. 3, 1972: Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan Occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Memories From Mississippi Freedom Summer: “I Never Will Forget”

Sept. 15, 1963: 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

Undaunted By the Fight: Spelman College and the Civil Rights Movement, 1957-1967

Elegy for Peter Norman

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