Four Black teenagers tried to enter the whites-only St. Helena branch of the Audubon Regional Library in Greensburg, Louisiana. Instead, the library closed. Undeterred, the St. Helena Four continued to try to desegregate the local library and other segregated facilities.
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In an act of civil disobedience against the whites-only Greenville County Public Library, eight young Black people entered the library, began reading, and were subsequently arrested. They became known as the Greenville Eight, and the library finally desegregated months later after many legal battles.
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The infamous Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida swirled with allegations of cruelty, rape, and physical abuse for nearly all of its 111 years.
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Book — Historical fiction. By Tananarive Due. 2023. 576 pages.
Follow 12-year-old Robbie Stephens Jr., who journeys into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
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To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the ending of slavery in the United States, the Black World’s Fair, also known as the American Negro Exposition, was held at the Chicago Coliseum from July through September 1940.
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Article. By Ana Rosado, Gideon Cohn-Postar, and Mimi Eisen. 2022. 44 pages.
The report includes assessments of education standards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, along with findings and recommendations for how to improve instruction on Reconstruction.
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Teaching Activity. By Matt Reed. Published by Rethinking Schools. 2023.
This mixer activity helps students uncover the radical legacy of Ida B. Wells.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Erica Armstrong Dunbar, with Candace Buford. 2023. 288 pages.
A biography of Susie King Taylor, a nurse, teacher, and freedom fighter.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Terry Catasús Jennings and Rosita Stevens-Holsey, illustrated by Ashanti Fortson. 2022. 288 pages.
A biography of Pauli Murray, a queer civil rights and women’s rights activist who fought in the trenches for many of the rights we now take for granted.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn, adapted by Rebecca Stefoff with additions by Ed Morales. Translated by Hugo García Manríquez. 2023. 608 pages.
A Spanish translation of the young adult version of the best-selling A People’s History of the United States.
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One third of the students at Harrison Technical High School staged a walkout to protest the lack of African American history classes, overcrowding and poor conditions, and more.
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Wharlest Jackson (1930–1967), treasurer of the Natchez, Mississippi branch of the NAACP, was assassinated with a car bomb.
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The destruction of a local Black elementary school and the refusal to allow Black children to attend the all-white school led to a years-long battle for desegregation in Old Fort, North Carolina.
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A month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Black soldiers on R&R in the town of Alexandria, Louisiana were attacked by local and military police, with dozens murdered and countless others injured in this brutal instance of Jim Crow violence.
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The United States celebrated its first national Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, three years after the holiday was signed into law and eighteen years after the fight for a King holiday began.
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The first Maine Anti-Slavery Society Convention was held in Augusta.
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The first Colored Convention in Maine was an opportunity for northern Black abolitionists to organize and strategize for racial justice and the freedom of those still enslaved throughout the South.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Ricardo Nuila. 2023. 384 pages.
Tells the story of five uninsured Houstonians who are each struggling with life-threatening ailments and denied critical care until they arrive at Ben Taub Hospital, where they find a crucial model of innovative healthcare.
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The Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) provided support to civil rights workers in Mississippi at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and raised awareness of the health care disparities due to racism in the United States.
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During his 33 years, Abraham Galloway accomplished more than most. An abolitionist, a freedom fighter, a spy, a politician, Galloway rose to prominence during the Civil War and Reconstruction, leaving a legacy of Black leadership and resistance to white supremacy and white violence.
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In protest of Jim Crow discrimination on public transportation, Frederick Douglass and his friend, white politician James N. Buffum, boarded a Eastern Railroad Company train, in a first class car and were promptly ejected from the train.
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Ida B. Wells stood up to injustice by refusing to change seats on a segregated Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern Railroad train, leading to a legal battle over racially discriminatory laws.
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The Harlem Park Three — Alfred Chestnut, Andrew Stewart, and Ransom Watkins — spent decades imprisoned on a wrongful conviction before gaining their freedom in 2019.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Wesley C. Hogan. 2019. 368 pages.
This comprehensive collection documents and assesses young people’s interventions in the fight for democracy in the United States.
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