Search Results - Zinn Education Project

Repair: Students Design a Reparations Bill

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. In this activity, students take on the role of activist-experts to improve upon a Congressional bill for reparations for Black people. They talk back to Congress’ flimsy legislation and design a more robust alternative.

“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.

How the Word Is Passed: Discussion Questions, Writing Prompts, and Teaching Ideas

Teaching ideas and discussion questions for How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith.

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix

Book - Non-fiction. By Ellen Miller-Mack, Craig Gilmore, Lois Ahrens, Susan Willmarth, and Kevin Pyle. 2008. This comic book presents the human stories behind the statistics.

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, 10th anniversary edition

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Book - Non-fiction. By Michelle Alexander. Introduction by Cornel West. 2010, updated 10th-anniversary edition released in 2020. A critical analysis of the role the justice system plays in the oppression of African Americans in the United States.

Attica Prison Uprising

Resource list. Overview with links to articles, books, primers, films, and websites about the Attica Prison Uprising for the classroom.

April 21, 1930: Inmates Burned Alive in Ohio State Penitentiary Fire

Three hundred twenty-two inmates were killed in a fire at the Ohio State Penitentiary.

Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling

Book - Non-fiction. By Marc Mauer and Sabrina Jones. 2012. Based on the popular book Race to Incarcerate, this graphic adaptation is a key resource to introduce a study of U.S. prison system to middle school readers and above.

Blood in the Water: The Attica Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

Book – Non-fiction. By Heather Ann Thompson. 2016. The hidden history of the infamous 1971 Attica Prison Uprising.

Slavery by Another Name

Film. By Sam Pollard, Catherine Allan, Douglas Blackmon and Sheila Curran Bernard. 2012. 90 min. Reveals the interlocking forces in the South and the North that enabled “neoslavery” post-Emancipation Proclamation.