- Zinn Education Project

Labor Matters

Teaching Activity. By Teaching Tolerance.
Introduces students to the role of the labor movement in securing contemporary benefits such as the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, and workplace safety regulations.

Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond.
Role play on the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Mass.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

Protesting the First World War

Teaching Activity. By Colby Smart.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 14 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on anti-war efforts during the first World War, as well as the U.S. government's response.

“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.

Testing, Tracking, and Toeing the Line: A Role Play on the Origins of the Modern High School

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 13 pages.
A role play on the origins of the modern high school allows students to question aspects of schooling they often take for granted, such as tracking (“ability grouping”) and standardized testing — and to reflect on the racial biases of these so-called reforms.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

The Great Migration: Journey to the North

Picture book. By Eloise Greenfield. Illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. 2011. 32 pages.
A picture book that introduces the historic story of the Great Migration to young readers.

Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library

Picture book. By Carole Boston Weatherford and Eric Velasquez. 2017. 48 pages.
This picture book is a tribute to Arturo Schomburg, the Afro Puerto Rican historian collector and activist who chronicled the Black history of the Diaspora.

1919

Book — Non-fiction. By Eve L. Ewing. 2019. 96 pages.
Poetic reflections on the Chicago Race Riots of 1919 — part of 'Red Summer' — in a history told through Ewing's speculative and Afrofuturist lenses.

Angel Island: Gateway to Gold Mountain

Book — Non-fiction. By Russell Freedman. 2014. 96 pages.
An account of Angel Island, California, the entry point for one million Asian immigrants in the early 20th century.

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands

Book — Non-fiction. By Kelly Lytle Hernández. 2022. 384 pages.
Taking readers to the frontlines of the magonista uprising and the counterinsurgency campaign that failed to stop them, Kelly Lytle Hernández puts the magonista revolt at the heart of U.S. history.

Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson

Book — Non-fiction. Written and illustrated by Sharon Rudahl. Edited by Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware. 2020. 142 pages.
The first-ever graphic biography of Paul Robeson charts Robeson’s career as a singer, actor, scholar, athlete, and activist who achieved global fame.

Bread & Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream

Book — Non-fiction. By Bruce Watson. 2006. 352 pages.
The riveting story of one of the most remarkable strikes in U.S. history.

Bread and Roses, Too

Book — Fiction. By Katherine Paterson. 2006. 275 pages.
Moving young adult historical-fiction novel based on a major strike in Lawrence, Mass., in 1912.

Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South

Book — Non-fiction. By Robert Rodgers Korstad. 2003. 576 pages.
Chronicles the rise and fall of the union that represented thousands of African American tobacco factory workers in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The Dreamer

Book — Fiction. By Pam Muñoz Ryan. 2010. 384 pages.
An introduction to the life of Pablo Neruda as a child in historical fiction for young adults.

Fannie Never Flinched (Book) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Fannie Never Flinched: One Woman’s Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union Rights

Book — Non-fiction. By Mary Cronk Farrell. 2016. 56 pages.
Biography of labor union activist Fannie Sellins.

The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme

Book — Non-fiction. By Joe Sacco. 2013. 54 pages.
Illustrated book depicting the horrific Battle of Somme, emblematic of a hideous war.

Teaching Activity by Joe Sacco

Helen Keller: Rebellious Spirit

Book — Non-fiction. By Laurie Lawlor. 2001. 176 pages.
A biography that sheds light on Helen Keller as rebel and activist.

Lawrence and the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike

Book — Non-fiction. By Robert Forrant and Susan Grabski. 2013. 128 pages.
Images, documents, and quotes tell the story of the 1912 landmark strike.

A Peoples History of the United States Book | Zinn Education Project

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2005, with a new introduction by Anthony Arnove in 2015. 784 pages.
Howard Zinn's groundbreaking work on U.S. history. This book details lives and facts rarely included in textbooks—an indispensable teacher and student resource.

Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America

Book — Non-fiction. By Cameron McWhirter. 2012. 368 pages.
A chronicle of white supremacist violence in major U.S. cities across the nation after World War I.

Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South

Book — Non-fiction (with CD). Edited by William H. Chafe, Raymond Gavins and Robert Korstad. 2008. 346 pages.
Extensive oral history of African American life under segregation.

Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal

Book — Fiction. By Margarita Engle. 2016. 272 pages.
Historical fiction in free verse about the building of the Panama Canal.

The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside of the South

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Brian Purnell and Jeanne Theoharis with Komozi Woodard. 2019. 352 pages.
This important work shows how the Jim Crow North maintained inequality in the nation’s most liberal places, and chronicles how activists worked to undo those inequities born of Northern Jim Crow.

They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I

Book — Non-fiction. By Kidada Williams. 2012. 281 pages.
This book documents African Americans' testimonies about racial violence during Jim Crow, and the crusades against that violence that became political training grounds for the Civil Rights Movement.