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.
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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.
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Teaching ideas and discussion questions for How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith.
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Book — Non-Fiction. By Elizabeth Hinton. 2021. 224 pages.
The rebellion and movement for Black lives of 2020 had clear precursors, this book explains, and any attempt to understand that crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Heather Ann Thompson. 2016. 752 pages.
The hidden history of the infamous 1971 Attica Prison Uprising.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Paul Butler. 2018. 320 pages.
A former federal prosecutor explains how the criminal justice system works against the people and how we can disrupt its abuse.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Bryan Stevenson. 2019. 288 pages.
This young adult adaptation provides readers a glimpse into the lives of the wrongfully imprisoned.
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Books — Non-fiction. Howard Zinn. 1974.
Howard Zinn's book on the way justice really works in the U.S. and how it can change for the better.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Michelle Alexander. Introduction by Cornel West. 2010, updated 10th-anniversary edition released in 2020. 336 pages.
A critical analysis of the role the justice system plays in the oppression of African Americans in the United States.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Andrea Pitzer. 2017. 480 pages.
Starting with 1890s Cuba, this book is a chronological and geopolitical history of concentration camps that is filled with prisoner perspectives.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2003. 368 pages.
A selection of passionate, honest, and piercing essays looking at political ideology in the United States.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Victoria Law. 2021. 240 pages
An accessible guide for activists, educators, and all who are interested in understanding how the prison system oppresses communities and harms individuals.
Teaching Activity by Victoria Law
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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.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Marc Mauer and Sabrina Jones. 2013. 128 pages.
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.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Ellen Miller-Mack, Craig Gilmore, Lois Ahrens, Susan Willmarth, and Kevin Pyle. 2008. 104 pages.
This comic book presents the human stories behind the statistics.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Michael Bronski, adapted for by Richie Chevat. 2019. 336 pages.
A young adult readers edition of the original text explores the history of LGBTQ+ experiences in the U.S. since 1500.
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Article. By Rachel Boccio. Rethinking Schools, Winter 2018.
A Connecticut educator who taught English to incarcerated young men for 20 years describes what happened when she introduced her students to the Canadian “Leap Manifesto.”
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Film. By Sam Pollard, Catherine Allan, Douglas Blackmon and Sheila Curran Bernard. 2012. 90 minutes.
Reveals the interlocking forces in the South and the North that enabled “neoslavery” post-Emancipation Proclamation.
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Resource list. Overview with links to articles, books, primers, films, and websites about the Attica Prison Uprising for the classroom.
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Website. NoKidsinPrison uses art to model, imagine and advocate for alternatives to youth incarceration by lifting up the voices of youth most impacted by the criminal justice system through art and culture.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie. 2022. 400 pages.
No More Police calls on us to turn away from systems that perpetrate violence in the name of ending it toward a world where violence is the exception, and safe, well-resourced and thriving communities are the rule.
Teaching Activity by Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie
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