Laws & Citizen Rights Archives

June 15, 1982: Plyler v. Doe Supreme Court Decision

Striking down a Texas state law, the Supreme Court ruled that “all children, regardless of immigration status, have a constitutional right to a free public education from kindergarten to 12th grade.”

Banned Together

Film. Directed by Kate Way. 2024. 93 minutes.
Follows three students and their adult allies as they fight to reinstate 97 books suddenly pulled from their school libraries.

All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence (Revised Edition)

Book — Non-fiction. By Emily L. Thuma. 2024. 256 pages.
A vital history of organizing within and beyond the walls of women’s prisons in the 1970s, illuminating a crucial chapter in today’s abolition feminist struggles.

The 21 plaintiffs filing suit against the U.S. government.

Aug. 12, 2015: Filing of Juliana v. United States

The constitutional climate case Juliana v. United States was filed by 21 youth against the U.S. government. The defendants said that the government's policies are causing catastrophic climate change and constitute a violation of their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property.

Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital

Book — Non-fiction. By Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove. 2019. 624 pages.
Tells the tumultuous, four-century story of race and democracy in our nation’s capital.

Aug. 13, 1955: Lamar Smith Murdered

Lamar Smith, 63-year-old farmer and WWI veteran, was shot dead in Brookhaven, Mississippi, for urging African Americans to vote.

Aug. 16, 1955: Paul Robeson Lost Court Appeal

Paul Robeson lost his court appeal to have the U.S. State Department grant him a passport.

Labor Matters

Teaching Activity. By Learning for Justice.
Introduces students to the role of the labor movement in securing contemporary benefits such as the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, and workplace safety regulations.

The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them

Book — Non-fiction. By Aziz Rana. 2024. 824 pages.
An account of how people in the United States came to revere the Constitution and what this reverence has meant domestically and around the world.

The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back

Book — Non-fiction. By Madiba K. Dennie. 2024. 304 pages.
Shows readers that the Constitution belongs to them and how, by understanding its possibilities, they can use it to fight for their rights.

What Rights Do We Have?

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 8 pages.
This lesson teaches some of the nuts and bolts of labor unions and then moves beyond to ask students to consider what rights they have at work, and to recognize that “rights” depend in large part on what people have fought for and won.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

Book — Non-fiction. By Eric Foner. 2020. 304 pages.
Traces the arc of the three foundational Reconstruction amendments from their origins in antebellum activism to their virtual nullification by narrow Supreme Court decisions and Jim Crow state laws.

Aug. 22, 1964: Sharecroppers Demand Delivery of Full Suffrage in the U.S.

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and the other members of the MFDP at the Democratic National Convention, questioned the nation about the lack of “one person, one vote” in the United States.

Mary Beth Tinker on Constitution Day

Free speech activist Mary Beth Tinker on the importance of teaching truthfully about the U.S. Constitution.

U.S. Constitution | Zinn Education Project

Sept. 17, 1787: U.S. Constitution Signed

The U.S. Constitution was signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

May 7, 1955: Murder of Rev. George W. Lee

Rev. George W. Lee, one of the first African Americans registered to vote in Humphreys County since Reconstruction and head of the Belzoni, Mississippi NAACP, was murdered.

June 10, 1966: Ben Chester White Murdered

Ben Chester White, caretaker on a farm, was brutally murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Natchez, Mississippi.

Sept. 22, 1954: Hillsboro’s “Marching Mothers” Sue to Desegregate Schools

The “Marching Mothers” of Hillsboro sued the school district and began daily marches to desegregate elementary schools in this town in Ohio.

Oct. 6, 1917: Fannie Lou Hamer Born

Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist, was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi.

Oct. 1, 1964: Free Speech Movement

The Free Speech Movement was launched at UC–Berkeley.

Sept. 29, 1841: Frederick Douglass Protests Segregated Travel

In protest of Jim Crow discrimination on public transportation, Frederick Douglass and his friend, white politician James N. Buffum, boarded a Eastern Railroad Company train, in a first class car and were promptly ejected from the train.

On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century

Book — Non-fiction. By Sherrilyn A. Ifill. 2018. 240 pages.
Examines the lynchings of Black Americans between 1890 and 1960 and the racial trauma still resounds across the country.

Asian Americans in the People’s History of the United States

Profile. Brief profiles of people and events from Asian American and Pacific Islander people's history.

Learning About the Unfairgrounds: A 4th-Grade Teacher Introduces Her Students to Executive Order 9066

Teaching Activity. By Katie Baydo-Reed. Rethinking Schools. 10 pages.
Students hold a mixer and a mock trial in preparation for reading literature about Japanese American incarceration.

Teaching the Hidden Story of Japanese Latin Americans During WWII

Teaching Activity. By Moé Yonamine. Rethinking Schools. 18 pages.
Poetry, photography, and text are used in this role play to teach about the seldom told history of Japanese Latin American incarceration during WWII.

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