Ranked by firefighters as the fourth deadliest club fire in the history of the country, 209 concert-goers perished in this night club fire in Natchez, Mississippi.
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 2025. 36 pages.
This is a unit with three lessons. The first invites students to think critically about key issues that confronted the framers of the Constitution — examining the perspectives not only of the elites attending the actual Constitutional Convention, but also of enslaved African Americans, poor white farmers, and white workers. The other two lessons are: The Constitutional Convention: Who Really Won? — with students exploring whose interests the Constitution advanced — and Federalist Paper #10: Suppressing “Wicked Projects,” a critical reading activity on James Madison's seminal defense of the Constitution.
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Historian Matthew Delmont joined Rethinking Schools executive director Cierra Kaler-Jones to discuss his latest book Until the Last Gun Is Silent: A Story of Patriotism, the Vietnam War, and the Fight to Save America’s Soul. This class was part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.
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Activist Mike Africa Jr. and scholar Dr. Krystal Strong joined Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian to discuss the story of the MOVE organization, repairing histories of state violence, and the “On a MOVE” curriculum project in Philadelphia. This class was part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.
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Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. 2026. 264 pages.
A collection of essays and interviews with founding members of the Combahee River Collective and contemporary activists who reflect on the organization’s contributions to Black feminism and its impact on today’s struggles.
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Teaching Activity. By Jesse Hagopian. 2025. 19 pages.
A lesson for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. founding exploring the blues as both a cultural art form and a vehicle for political resistance.
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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.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw. 2026. 400 pages.
This memoir traces the way Crenshaw’s lived experiences led her to articulate the concepts of intersectionality and critical race theory.
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Book — Historical fiction. By Alex Wheatle. 2020. 192 pages.
Cane Warriors follows the true story of Tacky's War in Jamaica in 1760.
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Carrie Coleman Robinson, a Black school librarian in Alabama, brought a landmark case to the U.S. District Court alleging that Alabama’s Department of Education denied her equal protection as a department employee because of her race.
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Picture book. By Kesha L. Grant, with illustrations by Anastasia Magloire Williams. 2026. 48 pages.
Tells the story of James Forten, who served in the American Revolution and then dedicated his life to fighting for the ideals set forth by the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.”
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Book — Non-fiction. By David Lester and Marcus Rediker, and edited by Paul Buhle. 2026. 136 pages.
graphic history of how enslaved Africans on board the Amistad rebelled and captured the slave ship in 1839, challenging a whitewashed version of history and putting the Africans back at the center of their own freedom story.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Bryant. 2026. 320 pages.
Highlighting the lives of Paul Robeson and Jackie Robinson, this book tells the story of sports and fame, Black life in the United States, and the promise of integration through the Cold War lens of two transformative events.
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Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian will be in conversation with Howard Bryant about his book Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America. This class is part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.
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