Civil Rights Movements Archives

How Red Lines Built White Wealth: A Lesson on Housing Segregation in the 20th Century

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Rethinking Schools.
The mixer role play is based on Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, which shows in exacting detail how government policies segregated every major city in the United States with dire consequences for African Americans.

Teaching Activity by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the March on Washington

Book — Non-fiction. By Jacqueline Houtman, Walter Naegle, and Michael G. Long. 2019. 168 pages.
A biography of antiwar and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin.

Dirt and Deeds in Mississippi

Film. Produced and directed by David Shulman. Narrated by Danny Glover. 2015. 82 minutes.
Documentary about the pivotal role played by Black landowning families during the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi who controlled over a million acres in the 1960s.

Sept. 1, 1965: Klan Raid Family Home in Hayneville, Alabama

The Ku Klux Klan shot into the home of Freedom Library organizer Pattie Mae McDonald and her family to terrorize them.

Freedom Libraries: The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South

Book — Non-fiction. By Mike Selby. 2019. 208 pages.
This book reveals the histories of grassroots "freedom libraries" that were at the heart of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South and tells the stories of courageous people who operated and used them.

August 21, 1939. Arrest of five young Black men for peaceful protest at the whites-only "public" library in Alexandria, Va.

Aug. 21, 1939: African Americans Arrested for Going to Public Library

Five Black men were arrested for staging a peaceful sit-in at the Alexandria “public” library that denied access to African Americans, making this the anniversary of one of the earliest instances of this form of non-violent protest that became popular in the mid-20th century.

Members of the Black 14 holding a sign during their protest

Oct. 17, 1969: 14 Black Student Athletes Fired at Hint of Protest

Fourteen Black football players at the University of Wyoming were fired when their coach learned they wanted to wear black armbands during a game against Brigham Young University.

Sing a Song: How Lift Every Voice and Sing Inspired Generations

Picture book. By Kelly Starling Lyons. Illustrated by Keith Mallett. 2019. 32 pages.
The 120-year history of the song through generations of her family who have passed it on — starting with a young girl who learned it in 1900 in Jacksonville, Florida, from her principal (James Weldon Johnson) and his brother.

Celebration of the 15th Ammendment | Zinn Education Project

The 15th Amendment

Teaching materials and guides on the 15th Amendment's significance in 2020 — its 150th anniversary and an election year.

Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era

Book — Non-fiction. By Jerry Mitchell. 2020. 432 pages.
An account of one journalist's search for the long-buried truths that could bring killers to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, and the Mississippi Burning case.

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

Book — Non-fiction. By Carol Anderson. 2018. 368 pages.
This history of voter suppression highlights the aftermath and challenges to the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Southern Mystique

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 1964.
In one of his earliest published works, Howard Zinn writes about his experiences teaching and organizing with the Civil Rights Movement in the South.

Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 1968.
A cogent defense of civil disobedience.

May 9, 1968: Ocean Hill-Brownsville Teachers’ Strike of 1968

Teachers went on strike for seven months, against community control, after Black and Puerto Rican parents organized for better schools for their children in New York City.

One Person, No Vote (YA edition): How Not All Voters Are Treated Equally

Book — Non-fiction. By Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden. 2019. 288 pages.
A young readers edition of Anderson's voter suppression analysis and history, One Person, No Vote.

Rad American History A-Z: Movements and Moments That Demonstrate the Power of the People

Book — Non-fiction. By Kate Schatz and illustrated by Miriam Klein Stahl. Ten Speed Press. 2020. 176 pages.
Paired with dynamic paper-cut art, readers explore several centuries of U.S. politics, culture, art, activism, and liberation.

What Our Students Should Know About the Struggle for the Ballot — but Won’t Learn from Their Textbooks

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

From voter ID laws to voter-roll purges, gerrymandering to poll closures to the deadly in-person voting conditions during a pandemic, the right to vote is under attack and the stakes are high. It is critical that students learn about the fight for voting rights, past and present.

March 24, 1966: Supreme Court Officially Abolishes Last Vestige of Poll Taxes

A U.S. Supreme Court decision bans poll taxes for state and local elections.

How History Got the Rosa Parks Story Wrong

Article. By Jeanne Theoharis. The Washington Post. 2015.
The radical life history of Rosa Parks, before and after the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights

Book — Non-fiction. By Lawrence Goldstone. 2020. 288 pages.
This young adult book documents the long and ongoing struggle for voting rights for African Americans.

April 28, 1977: Disability Rights Sit-Ins Force Enactment of Section 504

Between April 5 and April 28, 1977, hundreds of disabled and handicapped activists organized, protested, and occupied government buildings around the country to pressure the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Joseph Califano, to enact Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and publish regulations to guide its enforcement.

A New Lesson on Rosa Parks

Bill Bigelow wrote a lesson about Rosa Parks' long life of activism, inspired by Jeanne Theoharis's stories in the People's Historians Online series.

Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision

Book — Non-fiction. By Barbara Ransby. 2005. 495 pages.
This biography chronicles Baker's long and rich political career as an organizer, an intellectual, and a teacher, from her early experiences in depression-era Harlem to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

May 26, 1956: Tallahassee Bus Boycott Sparked by Students’ Protest

Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson sparked a city-wide boycott in Tallahassee, Florida when they were arrested for refusing to move from the whites-only seats of a segregated bus.

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All

Book — Non-fiction. By Martha S. Jones. 2021. 368 pages.
This book excavates the lives and work of Black women from the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond.

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