Racism & Racial Identity Archives

The Power in Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States

Teaching Guide. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 1988. 184 pages.
Role plays and writing activities project high school students into real-life situations to explore the history and contemporary reality of employment (and unemployment) in the U.S.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

Feb. 12, 1946: Isaac Woodard Blinded by Police

Isaac Woodard Jr., a Black army sergeant, was beaten and left blind in both eyes by white police officers within hours of being discharged from the army.

The Testimony of Henry Adams, Freedman: Hope, Terror, and Exodus in the Post-Civil War South

Book — Non-fiction. By Henry Adams. 2026. 286 pages.
The testimony of Henry Adams, who traveled to the nation's capital to tell an unforgettable story of violence, resistance, and social action in the post-Civil War South.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks: Young Readers Edition

Book — Non-fiction. By Jeanne Theoharis and Brandy Colbert. 2021.
This biography of Rosa Parks accessibly examines her six decades of activism, challenging young readers’ perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the Civil Rights Movement.

“Intolerable Conditions”: Teaching About Northern Racism Through Rosa Parks’s Detroit

Teaching Activity. By Say Burgin, Jeanne Theoharis, and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
Students learn to “talk back” to official accounts of the Detroit Uprising of 1967 by focusing on its root causes. They also get a fuller sense of Rosa Parks’s life and politics, and the Black freedom struggle outside of the South.

We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance

Book — Non-fiction. By Kellie Carter Jackson. 2026. 304 pages.
A reframing of the past and present of Black resistance — both nonviolent and violent — to white supremacy.

ain’t i a woman: black women and feminism

Book — Non-fiction. By bell hooks. 2014. 206 pages.
Examines the impact of sexism on Black women during slavery, the devaluation of Black womanhood, Black male sexism, racism among feminists, and the Black woman’s involvement with feminism.

Michele Roberts, environmental justice coordinator | Zinn Education Project

The Red Dot of Environmental Racism

Teaching Activity. By Alma Anderson McDonald.
A teacher looks back on her childhood to discover the meaning of environmental racism. Linda Christensen offers ways to teach about this story with students.

"Running the Negro out of Tulsa" | Zinn Education Project

Burned Out of Homes and History: Unearthing the Silenced Voices of the Tulsa Massacre

Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 20 pages.
Teaching about racist patterns of murder, theft, displacement, and wealth inequality through the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.

Teaching Activity by Linda Christensen

May 31, 1921: Tulsa Massacre

In one of countless white supremacist massacres in U.S. history, white supremacists destroyed a thriving Black community in Oklahoma, known today as the Tulsa Massacre.

A colorful painting of people being deported back to Mexico, by Kaelyn Savard.

Deportations on Trial: Mexican Americans During the Great Depression

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this lesson, students analyze who is to blame for the illegal, mass deportations of Mexican Americans and immigrants during the Great Depression.

Teaching Activity by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

"Freedom might be too great a temptation" Marker Text | Zinn Education Project

Feb. 18, 1797: Hercules Escapes from Enslavement by George Washington

Hercules, the head cook at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate and slave labor camp, escaped to freedom in Pennsylvania.

Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America

Book — Non-fiction. By Damario Solomon-Simmons. 2026. 400 pages.
The story of the Tulsa Race Massacre as told through the historic legal case for reparations and the deeply moving stories of survivors and descendants of the Massacre.

Sept. 18, 1850: Fugitive Slave Act Passed

The U.S. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Teaching “Mexican Repatriation”: Uncovering Histories of Deportation and Belonging

Teaching Activity. By Erin Green. 2025. Rethinking Schools.
A 5th-grade teacher engages students in a unit on the forced deportation of 2 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans from the United States during the Great Depression.

Feb. 12, 1793: First Fugitive Slave Act

Signed into law by President George Washington, the first Fugitive Slave Act in the United States gave owners of the enslaved the right to reclaim those who escaped.

Dec. 4, 1969: Black Panther Party Members Assassinated

Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were assassinated by police and FBI agents in Chicago, Illinois.

Dec. 6, 1865: 13th Amendment Ratified

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially ended the institution of slavery.

They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I

Book — Non-fiction. By Kidada Williams. 2012. 281 pages.
This book documents African Americans' testimonies about racial violence during Jim Crow, and the crusades against that violence that became political training grounds for the Civil Rights Movement.

The Heroes We Need Today: Teaching About the Radical Ida B. Wells

Teaching Activity. By Matt Reed. Published by Rethinking Schools. 2023.
This mixer activity helps students uncover the radical legacy of Ida B. Wells.

May 4, 1884: Ida B. Wells Protests Segregated Seating on Train

Ida B. Wells stood up to injustice by refusing to change seats on a segregated Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern Railroad train, leading to a legal battle over racially discriminatory laws.

Ida B. Wells, Voice of Truth

Picture book. By Michelle Duster, with illustrations by Laura Freeman. 2022. 40 pages.
An inspiring picture book biography of the groundbreaking journalist and civil rights activist as told by her great-granddaughter Michelle Duster.

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Book — Non-fiction. By Trevor Noah. 2019. 304 pages.
The story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist.

What the Koch Brothers Want Students to Learn About Slavery

By Adam Sanchez

Given that the billionaire Charles Koch has poured millions of dollars into eliminating the minimum wage and paid sick leave for workers, and that in 2015 he had the gall to compare his ultra-conservative mission to the anti-slavery movement, he’s probably the last person you’d want educating young people about slavery. Yet the history-teaching wing of the Koch brothers empire is seeking to promote an alternate narrative to slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement After 1965? Don’t Ask Your Textbook

By Adam Sanchez

Fifty years ago this week, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairperson Stokely Carmichael made the famous call for “Black Power.” Carmichael’s speech came in the midst of the “March Against Fear,” a walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to encourage African Americans to use their newly won right to vote. But while almost every middle and high school student learns about the Civil Rights Movement, they rarely learn about this march — or the related struggles that continued long after the Voting Rights Act.

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