- Zinn Education Project

A photograph of Black Panther children in a classroom with their teacher, Evon Carter, widow of Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, at the Intercommunal Youth Institute, the Black Panther Party school.

‘What We Want, What We Believe’: Teaching with the Black Panthers’ 10-Point Program

Teaching Activity. By Wayne Au. Rethinking Schools. 7 pages.
How students can use the Black Panther Party's 10-Point Program to assess issues in their own communities and to develop 10-Point Programs of their own. Available in Spanish.

Teaching Activity by Wayne Au

Salt of the Earth: Grounds Students in Hope

Teaching Activity. By S. J. Childs. Rethinking Schools. 6 pages.
The author describes how she introduces students to the classic 1953 film, Salt of the Earth, about a miners’ strike in New Mexico.

A Thousand Never Evers

Book — Fiction. By Shana Burg. 2008. 320 pages.
Set in 1963 Mississippi, this historical fiction introduces middle/high school readers to the life at that time through the experiences of a 12-year-old.

School Days: Hail, Hail, Rock ‘n’ Roll!

Teaching Activity. By Rick Mitchell. Rethinking Schools. 10 pages.
Description of a course on the history of music in the United States.

Mighty Times: The Children’s March

Film. By Hudson and Houston. Learning for Justice. 2005. 40 minutes.
This Academy Award-winning documentary film tells the heroic story of the young people in Birmingham, Alabama, who brought segregation to its knees.

Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968

Film. Produced by Judy Richardson and Bestor Cram. 2009. 57 minutes.
A documentary film that brings to light the story of the attack by state police on a demonstration in Orangeburg, South Carolina -- leaving three students killed and 28 injured.

February One

Film. Produced by Dr. Steven Channing. 2004. 61 minutes.
The story surrounding the 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins.

Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders

Film. By Joan Sadoff, Robert Sadoff, and Laura Lipson. 2002. 60 minutes.
Documentary film on women in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.

Teaching About the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Film. By Teaching for Change. 2006. 15 minutes.
First grade teacher Maggie Donovan (SNCC veteran) introduces her students to the fight to desegregate the buses, placing Rosa Parks in the context of the larger community efforts.

Pump Up the Blowouts: Reflections on the 40th Anniversary of the Chicano/a School Blowouts

Teaching Activity. By Gilda L. Ochoa. Rethinking Schools. 5 pages.
Reflections on teaching students about the 1968 walkouts by Chicano students in California.

Lessons in Solidarity: Grady Hospital Workers United

Teaching Activity. By Larry Miller. Rethinking Schools. 6 pages.
Story and discussion questions about a teacher's own experience of labor solidarity.

Daisy Bates, Little Rock 9, and NAACP officers | Zinn Education Project

Warriors Don’t Cry: Connecting History, Literature, and Our Lives

Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 21 pages.
Role play and writing activities for language arts and social studies on Brown v. Board and the Little Rock Nine. Designed for use with the memoir Warriors Don’t Cry.

Teaching Activity by Linda Christensen

Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories

Book — Non-fiction. By Ellen Levine. 1993. 192 pages.
Thirty African-Americans who were children during the 1950s and 1960s tell their true stories of what it was like for them to fight segregation in the South.

On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail

Book — Non-fiction. By Charles E. Cobb, Jr. 2008. 388 pages.
An educational travel guide to historic sites of the Civil Rights Movement.

Selma, Lord, Selma: Girlhood Memories of the Civil Rights Days

Book — Non-fiction. By Sheyann Webb and Rachel West Nelson as told to Frank Sikora. 1980. 168 pages.
The moving story of two young girls who were caught up in the 1965 movement in Selma, Alabama.

Rosa

Picture book. By Nikki Giovanni. Illustrated by Bryan Collier. 2005. 40 pages.
A beautifully illustrated book for children about Rosa Parks in the context of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The Black Upsurge Against Racial Segregation

Teaching Activity. By Tasha Boettcher.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 17 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the long Civil Rights Movement in America.

Losing Control in the 1970s

Teaching Activity. By Jennifer Rosebrook.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 20 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the legacy of scandal since the end of the Vietnam War and the Watergate break-in.

Letters from Mississippi: Reports from Civil Rights Volunteers and Freedom School Poetry of the 1964 Freedom Summer

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez. Introduction by Julian Bond. 2007.
Letters and poetry from Civil Rights Movement volunteers in the summer of 1964.

Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement

Book — Non-fiction. By Vincent Harding. 2010 (2nd edition). 240 pages.
A call to educators, clergy, and community activists to remember and keep alive the story of the Black-led freedom movement.

I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle

Book — Non-fiction. By Charles M. Payne. 1995. 506 pages.
A people's history of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.

Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi

Book — Non-fiction. By John Dittmer. 1995. 560 pages.
A detailed, grassroots description of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi.

Lessons from Freedom Summer: Ordinary People Building Extraordinary Movements

Teaching Guide. Edited by Kathy Emery, Linda Reid Gold and Sylvia Braselmann. Foreword by Howard Zinn. 2008. 456 pages.
Readings and lessons on the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project.

Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching

Teaching Guide and Website. Edited by Deborah Menkart, Alana D. Murray, and Jenice L. View. 2024. 390 pages.
This second edition provides lessons and articles for K–12 educators on how to go beyond a heroes approach to the Civil Rights Movement, with a focus on education, economics, labor, youth, women, and culture.

Teaching Activity by Deborah Menkart

My Mother the Cheerleader

Book — Fiction. By Robert Sharenow. 2009. 320 pages.
Louise's mother spends her mornings at the local elementary school with a group of women known as the Cheerleaders, who harass the school's first Black student, six-year-old Ruby Bridges.

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