Book — Non-fiction. By Orisanmi Burton. 2023. 328 pages.
Drawing on oral history and applying Black radical theory in ways that center the intellectual and political goals of incarcerated people, this book argues that prisons are a domain of hidden warfare within U.S. borders.
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At 15 years old, William Freeman was incarcerated in the Auburn State Prison, America’s original prison for profit. From the start, he challenged the system of convict leasing.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Mary Frances Phillips. 2025. 320 pages.
The first biography of Ericka Huggins, a queer Black woman who brought spiritual self-care practices to the Black Panther Party.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Michaël Roy. 2024. 264 pages.
Through a reexamination of archival materials including antislavery newspapers, correspondence, and autobiographies, this book centers children’s participation in the campaign to abolish slavery in the United States.
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Picture book. By Shana Keller and illustrated by Laura Freeman. 2024. 40 pages.
Helps introduce young readers to the history of African American family members desperately trying to find their children, spouses, siblings, parents, and other loved ones during Reconstruction.
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In Norfolk, where schools had been closed for months rather than desegregate, 17 African American students began attending six previously all-white middle and high schools on February 2, 1959.
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The Columbia Avenue Riot began in the predominantly African American neighborhoods of North Philadelphia after an altercation with the police and continued for three days.
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Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools.
A high school social studies teacher describes a classroom simulation where students experience the effects of decades of racist federal housing policies.
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Following a kiss by a 7-year-old white girl, two young Black boys ages 8 and 9 were unlawfully arrested and brutally treated in Monroe, North Carolina.
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Book — Historical fiction. By Marcus Rediker and David Lester, with Paul Buhle. 2024. 176 pages.
This book imagines outlaw fugitive John Gwin and an eclectic crew of renegades as they attempt to disrupt and overthrow the colonial social order.
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Teaching Activity. By Hannah Gann, Nick Palazzolo, Keziah Ridgeway, and Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools. 2024. 23 pages.
This lesson highlights the complexity and diversity of thought as Civil Rights and Black Power leaders and organizations developed their views on Palestine-Israel.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge. 2023. 216 pages.
The story of Olaudah Equiano, from his childhood in Africa to his capture, enslavement, and eventual liberation.
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In the case of Buchanan v. Warley, the Supreme Court declared segregated housing to be unconstitutional.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Michael R. Fischbach. 2018. 296 pages.
Explores the connections between organizers of the Black Freedom Struggle and those struggling for Palestinian autonomy.
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Book — Non-fiction. By . 2024. 256 pages.
This young adult history offers a researched account with first-hand testimonies of how people in bondage were themselves a driving force behind their own emancipation.
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CeCe McDonald, a Black trans woman, was imprisoned following an act of white supremacist and transphobic violence in which McDonald defended herself and, in the process, her assailant was killed.
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A white mob dragged Black prisoner Bragg Williams from his jail cell and burned him at the stake in one of many acts of white supremacist violence in 1919 and beyond.
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Book — Historical fiction. By Jewell Parker Rhodes. 2025. 208 pages.
A chapter book on the experience of a late 19th century era Black family participating in the Oklahoma Land Rush.
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Book — Non-fiction. By John Swanson Jacobs. 2024. 288 pages.
A first-person narrative of the enslaved, lost for 169 years, now reproduced in full.
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The first free school south of the Mason-Dixon Line was established in Parkersburg, West Virginia, during the Civil War.
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U.S. Marshals arrested Shadrach Minkins, who had escaped from slavery in Norfolk, Virginia.
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Hercules, the head cook at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate and slave labor camp, escaped to freedom in Pennsylvania.
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Book — Historical fiction. By Laurie Halse Anderson. 2010. 336 pages.
Historical fiction based on the life of an enslaved teenager during the Revolutionary War.
Teaching Activity by Laurie Halse Anderson
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Patricia Stephens Due refused to pay bail after being arrested for a sit-in in Florida.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Eve L. Ewing. 2018. 240 pages.
This book flips the script about how we talk about "failing schools," using historical research and current data to show that Chicago's public schools are storehouses of memory, an integral part of their neighborhoods, and at the heart of their communities.
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