Four students and a staffer at the University of South Florida faced felony charges following a rally protesting Florida governor DeSantis’ continued restrictions on and defunding of education in the state.
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In an attempt to gain pay equity for Black teachers in Maryland, William B. Gibbs Jr. became the lead plaintiff in the NAACP’s case for pay equity in Montgomery County, a case known as Gibbs v. Broome.
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With a list of five demands, Black and Puerto Rican students at City College of New York (CCNY) orchestrated a campus-wide closure that lasted more than two weeks.
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Book — Non-fiction. 2022. By Jon N. Hale. 348 pages.
An examination of Black high school student activism in the civil rights era, illustrating how Black youth supported liberatory movements and inspired their elders across the South.
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Article. By James W. Loewen. July 2015 in the Washington Post.
A critique of textbook and mainstream media coverage of the Civil War.
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Mexican-American youth walked out of school to protest racial discrimination in Denver, Colorado.
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Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools.
This lesson and accompanying article teach about the largest civil rights protest of the 1960s was in New York City, when hundreds of thousands of students stayed home to protest school segregation.
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The Tuskegee Student Uprising of 1968 was one of many instances when Black students fought to expand educational opportunities and create more equity on college campuses.
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In the case of John T. Scopes v. the State of Tennessee, the defendant, Scopes, was found guilty and fined $100 for teaching about evolution — which was illegal in the state at the time.
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In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects newspapers that print inaccurate statements, as long as no “actual malice” was intended, thereby upholding freedom of speech and severely limiting public officials from suing for defamation.
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Thaddeus Stevens gave a speech in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in defense of the Free Schools Act of 1834, which moved the state House to vote against repeal and the Senate to take another vote in support of free public schools.
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Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Robert Cohen, with a foreword by Tom Hayden and an afterword by Robert Reich. 2014. 320 pages.
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Teaching Activity. By Mark Sweeting. Rethinking Schools. 4 pages.
How one teacher engaged his students in a critical examination of the language used in textbooks to describe the internment.
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Teaching Activity. By Bob Peterson. Rethinking Schools. 7 pages.
How a 5th grade teacher and his students conducted research to answer the question: “Which presidents owned people?” Available in Spanish.
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Teaching Guide. Edited by Annika Butler-Wall, Kim Cosier, Rachel Harper, Jeff Sapp, Jody Sokolower, and Melissa Bollow Tempel. Rethinking Schools. 2016. 476 pages.
A collection of essays on how to create a nurturing classroom at different grade levels, curriculum, teachers coming out, organizing beyond classroom walls, and integrating LGBTQ+ content into teacher education programs and ongoing teacher education.
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Barbara Johns (16-years-old) led her classmates in a strike to protest the substandard conditions in Prince Edward County, Virginia.
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Educator and civil rights organizer Septima Clark was born in South Carolina.
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Article. By Laura Shelton. Rethinking Schools. 2022.
A 5th- and 6th-grade teacher asks her students to wrestle with what “identity” and “intersectionality” mean.
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Students at Brown University went on strike to demand that the university take a stand against the escalation of the Vietnam War into neighboring Cambodia.
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The first anti-Vietnam War teach-in occurred at the University of Michigan, with more than 3,000 students, faculty and community members gathering on campus to educate each other about escalating U.S. aggression in Vietnam.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Debbie Levy. 2025. 288 pages.
The story of John Scopes, a Tennessee teacher who was found guilty of teaching about evolution, and the nationwide debate that followed about what students should learn in school.
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Teaching Guide. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools., 2017, 2nd edition. 314 pages.
Lessons for teaching a range of writing genres while addressing social justice themes.
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Helen Keller wrote a letter to the students who planned on burning all books deemed “un-German.”
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After decades of organizing and strategic efforts by parents, teachers, lawyers, and more — the U.S. Supreme Court issued the unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education on school segregation.
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Article. By Bill Bigelow.
The story of how teachers, parents, and students in Portland, Oregon organized to demand that climate change be taught honestly and to pass a climate justice resolution.
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