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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Fed up with books being banned by the school administration, students at Island Trees High School in Long Island, New York sued the school board for this unconstitutional censorship in a case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court.
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Teaching Activity. By Samia Shoman. Rethinking Schools. 2014.
A social studies teacher uses conflicting narratives to engage students in studying the history of Palestine and Israel, focusing on the events of 1948.
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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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Book — Non-fiction. By James W. Loewen and illustrated by Nate Powell. 2024. 272 pages.
A graphic adaptation of the classic history book Lies My Teacher Told Me.
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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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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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Picture book. Written by Traci Huahn and illustrated by Michelle Jing Chan. 2024. 40 pages.
This picture book tells the true story of a fight for access to public education by an 8-year-old Chinese-American girl, Mamie Tape, and her parents.
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The “Marching Mothers” of Hillsboro sued the school district and began daily marches to desegregate elementary schools in this town in Ohio.
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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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Book — Fiction. By Nadine Pinede. 2024. 432 pages.
This story blends first love and political intrigue with a quest for justice and self-determination in 1930s Haiti.
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Picture book. By Traci Sorell, and illustrated by Frane Lessac. 2021. 40 pages.
Twelve Native American kids present historical and contemporary laws, policies, struggles, and victories in Native life.
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Teaching truthfully is more important than ever. While the right censors instruction with book bans and anti-CRT laws, we offer lessons to teach truthfully, outside the textbook, on immigration, climate, Palestine, labor solidarity, voting rights, and more.
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Picture book. By Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by James E. Ransome. 2024. 40 pages.
Shows how one enslaved man, secretly named Teach, helps others learn to read and write wherever he can.
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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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Book — Non-fiction. By Eve L. Ewing. 2025. 400 pages.
An examination of how the U.S. school system helps maintain racial inequality and social hierarchies.
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Teachers and administrators from the Florida Education Association (FEA) walked out in what is reported to be the first statewide teachers’ strike.
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The courts ruled in favor of the Mendez family and their co-plaintiffs in California, finding segregated schools to be unconstitutional.
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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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The Ku Klux Klan bombed the home of labor and voting rights activists Harry T. Moore and Harriette Moore — killing them both. Harriette Moore taught elementary school, secretly teaching her students Black history in the face of bans by the state superintendent.
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W. E. B. Du Bois, sociologist, historian, Pan-Africanist, author, and editor, was one of the most important scholars of the 20th century.
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Nadine and Patsy Córdova were targets of a white supremacist campaign after teaching ethnic studies through resources like 500 Years of Chicano History and sponsoring the school’s first chapter of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán).
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Five students from Indiana University at Bloomington (IU) started the Green Feather Movement to protest censorship.
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Howard University students seized the Administration Building, demanding changes in the discipline policy, the addition of courses in African American history, and more.
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Opening of the Malcolm X Liberation University in Durham, North Carolina.
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