Organizing Archives

Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt

Book — Non-fiction. By Hasan Kwame Jeffries. 2010. 372 pages.
History of the role that activists in Lowndes County played in spurring Black activists nationwide to fight for civil and human rights in new and more radical ways.

On the Road to Voting Rights: Freedom Day in Selma, 1963

Article. By Howard Zinn. Excerpt from Chapter 5 of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.
Howard Zinn’s first-hand account of Selma’s Freedom Day in 1963.

April 15, 1960: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Founding

Founding of the youth-led Civil Rights Movement organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Stepping into Selma: Voting Rights History and Legacy Today

Teaching Activity. Teaching for Change. 2015. 20 pages.
Introductory lesson on key people and events in the long history of the Selma freedom movement.

SNCC Digital Gateway

Digital collection. Historical materials, profiles, timeline, map, and stories on SNCC’s voting rights organizing.

Passenger on the Pearl: The True Story of Emily Edmonson’s Flight from Slavery

Book — Non-fiction. By Winifred Conkling. 2015. 176 pages.
Young adult biography about Emily Edmonson who was one of 77 who attempted to escape slavery in Washington, D.C.

The Voting Rights Act: Ten Things You Should Know

Article. By Emilye Crosby and Judy Richardson. 2015.
Key points in the history of the 1965 Voting Rights Act missing from most textbooks.

Teaching Activity by Emilye Crosby

Counter Histories

Digital Collection. Produced by John T. Edge and the Southern Foodways Alliance; directed by Kate Medley.
Five short films that document the civil disobedience staged at segregated lunch counters in the 1950s and 60s.

The Devil Is Here in These Hills

Book — Non-fiction. By James Green. 2015. 448 pages.
History of one of the most protracted and deadly labor struggles in U.S. history that was waged in West Virginia.

Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer

Picture book. By Carole Boston Weatherford. Illustrated by Ekua Holmes. 2015. 45 pages.
Illustrated biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, activist for voting and economic rights from Mississippi.

The Missouri Tigers and the Hidden History of Black College Football Activists

Article. By Dave Zirin. 2015.
The protest by the University of Missouri football team placed in the context of a long history of activism by college athletes.

Teaching Activity by Dave Zirin

Blood in the Water: The Attica Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

Book — Non-fiction. By Heather Ann Thompson. 2016. 752 pages.
The hidden history of the infamous 1971 Attica Prison Uprising.

How to Abolish Columbus Day and Get an Indigenous Peoples’ Day Resolution Passed

Article. By Mahtowin Munro.
Campaign guidelines from the organizer of a successful effort to abolish Columbus Day and establish Indigenous Peoples' Day in Cambridge, Mass.

When We Fight, We Win (Book) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

When We Fight We Win!: Twenty-First-Century Social Movements and the Activists That Are Transforming Our World

Book — Non-fiction. By Greg Jobin Leeds, Dey Hernandez Vazquez, and AgitArte. 2016. 208 pages.
A visually rich and inspiring book of 21st century leaders and activists distill their wisdom, sharing lessons of what makes and what hinders transformative social change.

Rad Women Worldwide (Book) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Rad Women Worldwide: Artists and Athletes, Pirates and Punks and Other Revolutionaries Who Shaped History

Book — Non-fiction. By Kate Schatz. Illustrated by Miriam Klein Stahl. 2016. 112 pages.
Profiles of women who fight for social justice around the world.

Children holding signs - Indigenous Peoples Day Parade - Seattle | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Support Indigenous Rights: Abolish Columbus Day

By Bill Bigelow

The movement to abolish Columbus Day and to establish in its place Indigenous Peoples' Day continues to gather strength, as every month new school districts and colleges take action. This campaign has been given new momentum as Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas assert their treaty and human rights. Especially notable is the inspiring struggle in North Dakota to stop the toxic Dakota Access Pipeline, led by the Standing Rock Sioux.

Dave Archambault, chairperson of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, explains that the oil pipeline “is threatening the lives of people, lives of my tribe, as well as millions down the river. It threatens the ancestral sites that are significant to our tribe. And we never had an opportunity to express our concerns. This is a corporation that is coming forward and just bulldozing through without any concern for tribes.”

The “bulldozing” of Indigenous lives, Indigenous lands, and Indigenous rights all began with Columbus’s invasion in 1492.

Coretta Scott King (R) with Women Strike for Peace founder Dagmar Wilson, 1963 | Zinn Education Project

W. E. B. Du Bois to Coretta Scott King: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb

By Vincent Intondi

When the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. announced his strong opposition to the war in Vietnam, the media attacked him for straying outside of his civil rights mandate. In so many words, powerful interests told him: “Mind your own business.” In fact, African American leaders have long been concerned with broad issues of peace and justice — and have especially opposed nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, this activism is left out of mainstream corporate-produced history textbooks.