- Zinn Education Project

Seneca Falls, 1848: Women Organize for Equality

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 17 pages.
A role play allows students to examine issues of race and class when exploring both the accomplishments and limitations of the Seneca Falls Convention.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Sharecroppers Challenge U.S. Apartheid: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Teaching Activity. By Julian Hipkins III, Deborah Menkart, Sara Evers, and Jenice View.
Role play on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) that introduces students to a vital example of small “d” democracy in action. For grades 7+.

Teaching Activity by Deborah Menkart

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.

Teaching SNCC: The Organization at the Heart of the Civil Rights Revolution

Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools. 24 pages.
A series of role plays that explore the history and evolution of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, including freedom rides and voter registration.

Teaching Activity by Adam Sanchez

Who Gets to Vote? Teaching About the Struggle for Voting Rights in the United States

Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 2020.
Unit with three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression in the United States.

Teaching Activity by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

Constitution Role Play: Whose “More Perfect Union”? and The Constitutional Convention: Who Really Won?

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 24 pages.
The U.S. Constitution endorsed slavery and favored the interests of the owning classes. What kind of Constitution would have resulted from founders who were representative of the entire country? That is the question addressed in this role play activity.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Reconstructing the South: A Role Play

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 17 pages.
This role play engages students in thinking about what freedpeople needed in order to achieve — and sustain — real freedom following the Civil War. It's followed by a chapter from the book Freedom's Unfinished Revolution.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

Celebration of the 15th Ammendment | Zinn Education Project

The 15th Amendment

Teaching materials and guides on the 15th Amendment's significance in 2020 — its 150th anniversary and an election year.

Evicted!: The Struggle for the Right to Vote

Picture book. By Alice Faye Duncan and illustrated by Charly Palmer. 2022. 64 pages.
This critical civil rights book for middle-graders examines the little-known Tennessee's Fayette County Tent City Movement in the late 1950s and reveals what is possible when people unite and fight for the right to vote.

John Lewis in the Lead: A Story of the Civil Rights Movement

Picture book. By Jim Haskins and Kathleen Benson. Illustrated by Benny Andrews. 2006. 32 pages.
The life of Civil Rights Movement activist and Congressman John Lewis.

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.

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.

The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Gabrielle Foreman, Jim Casey, and Sarah Patterson. Introduction by P. Gabrielle Foreman. 2021.
This volume of essays is the first to focus on the Colored Conventions movement, the nineteenth century’s longest campaign for Black civil rights.

Count Them One by One: Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote

Book — Non-fiction. By Gordon A. Martin Jr. 2014. 272 pages.
A detailed portrait of brave individuals who risked everything in their fight for the right to vote.

One Person, No Vote (YA edition): How Not All Voters Are Treated Equally

Book — Non-fiction. By Carol Anderson with Tonya Bolden. 2019. 288 pages.
A young readers edition of Anderson's voter suppression analysis and history, One Person, No Vote.

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

Book — Non-fiction. By Carol Anderson. 2018. 368 pages.
This history of voter suppression highlights the aftermath and challenges to the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America

Book — Non-fiction. By Keisha N. Blain. 2021. 200 pages.
A riveting account of the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, highlighting the relevance of her activism on the politics of today.

Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights

Book — Non-fiction. By Lawrence Goldstone. 2020. 288 pages.
This young adult book documents the long and ongoing struggle for voting rights for African Americans.

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All

Book — Non-fiction. By Martha S. Jones. 2021. 368 pages.
This book excavates the lives and work of Black women from the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond.

The Voting Booth

Book — Fiction. By Brandy Colbert. 2020. 304 pages.
A novel for high school students that centers on voting rights — weaving in a myriad of voter suppression tactics and the importance of everyone playing a role in fighting for the right to vote.

Citizenship Schools: They Say I’m Your Teacher

Film. Directed by Lucy Massie Phenix and Catherine Murphy. 2019. 9 minutes.
Documentary about Citizenship Schools.

Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot

Film. Produced by Bill Brummel. Learning for Justice. 2015. 40 minutes.
Documentary about the students and teachers of Selma, Alabama who fought for voting rights.

Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Article. By Howard Zinn. From Chapter 6 of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.
Zinn describes the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) voting rights campaign called Freedom Day in Hattiesburg, Miss.

Lowndes County and the Voting Rights Act

Article. By Hasan Kwame Jeffries.
History and significance of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization.

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.