Since launching in 2008, the Zinn Education Project has grown exponentially, reaching educators and activists across the United States and around the globe. This page features just a few of the project’s annual highlights. Visit our news page, press coverage, and newsletter archives for more information. To receive monthly updates, register for the website and you will be added to our email list.
Jump to: 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024
2024
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January 2024Launched a new series of Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online classes including conversations with authors Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Heather McGhee, Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., Julius B. Fleming Jr., Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, and more. |
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March 2024Launched a new lesson, “Teaching the Seeds of Violence in Palestine-Israel,” written by Bill Bigelow, that takes students back to the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries and helps them see the roots of today’s crisis. The lesson is a mixer/mystery activity on Zionism, anti-Zionism, peasant resistance, the Great War, the British Mandate, and more. |
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June 2024At more than 170 locations around the country, teachers and allies rallied to raise awareness about the threats to public education, LGBTQ+ students, and democracy on the June 8 #TeachTruth Day of Action. This election year, they made the message clear — challenge the media silence and encourage everyone to defend the freedom to learn. |
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October 2024Partnered with Prism in a series of interviews that sheds light on the resilience and courage of educators that are committed to teaching the full spectrum of people’s history in classrooms. |
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November 2024Attended the National Council for the Social Studies Conference in Boston, where the Zinn Education Project had an informational booth and hosted a number of interactive workshops. |
2023
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January 2023Launched a new series of Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online classes including conversations with authors Dayo Gore, Jeanne Theoharis, Kidada Williams, Linda Villarosa, Howard French, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and more. |
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March 2023Collaborated on an interactive installation on banned books at the SXSW international festival in Austin with the African American Policy Forum. The Teaching Banned Books Exhibit effectively raised awareness about ongoing threats to education, illuminated anti-history and anti-LGBTQ+ laws that are proliferating, and issued a call to action with thousands of visitors to this popular, annual event. Facilitated a Teaching for Climate Justice online workshop hosted by the Boston Teachers Union Climate Justice Committee, where participants examined classroom activities from the Zinn Education Project’s Teach Climate Justice campaign and Rethinking Schools. Also facilitated an in-person workshop on teaching Reconstruction in Brattleboro, Vermont, hosted by Epsilon Spires, where attendees reviewed interactive Zinn Education Project classroom lessons on the bottom-up history of this era. |
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May 2023An addition to our national report, Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle, this critique of commonly used U.S. history textbooks finds five overarching themes of their coverage of Reconstruction. |
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June 2023In dozens of cities, teachers and allies rallied to raise awareness about the threats to public education, LGBTQ+ students, and democracy on a June 10 #TeachTruth Day of Action. The creative engagement teachers seek to defend in the classroom was evident in the range of the day of action activities. The message was clear that day — instead of buckling to a well-funded hate campaign, we can and must defend the freedom to learn. |
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July 2023In the face of growing attacks on the teaching of history, and in solidarity with teachers who insist on their students’ right to study history and contemporary issues, The New Press partnered with the Zinn Education Project to send books to teachers and teacher educators in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. |
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September 2023The Zinn Education Project created a new, first of its kind timeline of the climate crisis that traces its roots from European colonial expansion and racial capitalism to present-day fossil fuel industry and government projects that exploit and destroy the Earth in the name of maximum profit. It also emphasizes moments and movements of resistance and activism that inform climate justice work today. Now in its fourth year, the Zinn Education Project continued to sponsor Teaching for Black Lives study groups, with more than 100 such study groups around the country. |
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October 2023We mourn the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives and grieve for those who have lost loved ones due to the ongoing occupation and massive bombardment. One cannot understand this tragedy without acknowledging its history. As educators, our role is to help students grasp and analyze this history. We created this resource guide to help students probe the long history of colonialism and resistance in Palestine and Israel — and the role that our own government has played. |
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December 2023The Zinn Education Project team hosted seven interactive workshops, a dynamic exhibit, a drag story hour, and two receptions during the National Council for the Social Studies conference in Nashville. Thanks to a donation of books from the author and Dartmouth College, the Zinn Education Project offered 10,000 free paperback copies of Matthew Delmont’s book on African Americans during WWII to public school teachers, school librarians, and teacher educators, who have a plan for using the text. |
2022
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January 2022Launched the report, Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction, as reported in Time, Education Week, NPR, Learning for Justice, The Progressive, and many more. Launched a new series of Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online classes including conversations with authors Jeanne Theoharis, Martha S. Jones, Vikki Law, Johanna Fernández, Kidada E. Williams, Kelly Lytle Hernández, Alaina Roberts, Ashley Farmer, Bryan Stevenson, and Matthew Delmont. |
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March 2022In South Carolina, the Penn Center, the Zinn Education Project, and the International African American Museum hosted the first state-based workshop on the release of the national report, Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction. |
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May 2022Launched a campaign to offer for free copies of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, the young readers’ edition of a book by acclaimed historian Jeanne Theoharis, adapted by award-winning YA author Brandy Colbert, to teachers around the country. The Zinn Education Project shipped 13,000 copies of the book to teachers requesting copies to pair with their history or language arts curriculum, placing a special emphasis on distributing copies to educators in states with laws passed or pending that would ban teaching about institutionalized racism — which Rosa Parks spent much of her life resisting. |
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June 2022Coordinated the Pledge to Teach the Truth Days of Action 2022, in which teachers and allies across the country publicly pledged to #TeachTruth on June 11 and 12. They made their pledges at historic sites to provide examples of the history that teachers would be required to lie about or omit if the GOP anti-history bills become law. Launched a people’s history teacher leadership fellowship named for education activists C. J. Prentiss and Michael Charney. |
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July 2022Thirty middle and high school teachers participated in a workshop offered by the National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) and the Zinn Education Project on teaching Reconstruction. Participants met at NMAAHC to explore the museum’s special exhibit and engage in activities grounded in the Teach Reconstruction campaign lessons and the new report, Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction. |
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August 2022To commemorate Howard Zinn’s 100th birthday the Zinn Education Project hosted three events during the Howard Zinn Centennial Week, part of a yearlong celebration of his life and work. |
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September 2022The Zinn Education Project welcomed 100 new Teaching for Black Lives study groups this month selected to participate in a collective year-long inquiry into the book Teaching for Black Lives. |
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November 2022As part of the Teach the Black Freedom Struggle Online Classes series, the Zinn Education Project gave away 2,500 copies of the new book Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad, donated by author Matthew Delmont. |
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December 2022As part of the NFL’s annual My Cause, My Cleats initiative, Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll had cleats designed with artwork from the Zinn Education Project’s Teaching for Black Lives campaign, Civil Rights Movement educator Septima Clark, and #TeachTruth. Had a double booth at the National Council for the Social Studies Conference (NCSS) in Philadelphia. The Zinn Education Project hosted four popular workshops over two days, featured special guests at the booth, and offered free books to educators who shared their teaching stories. |
2021
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January 2021Launched a new series of “Teach the Black Freedom Struggle” online classes including conversations with authors Jarvis Givens, Dave Zirin, Kate Masur, Jeff Chang and Dave “Davey D” Cook, Cierra Kaler-Jones, Garrett Felber, Tera W. Hunter, Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross, Jeanne Theoharis and Pamela Horowitz, and many more. |
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March 2021Launched the Pledge to Teach the Truth campaign, in which teachers publicly pledge to continue their commitment to develop critical thinking that supports students to better understand problems in our society, and to develop collective solutions to those problems. Sign on now and refuse to lie to young people about U.S. history and current events. |
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May 2021Published a lesson and textbook critique on McCarthyism called “Subversives: Stories from the Red Scare” by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Wolfe-Rocca also wrote a corresponding article for the If We Knew Our History series, “More than McCarthyism: The Attack on Activism Students Don’t Learn About from Their Textbooks.” |
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June 2021Held a Pledge to #TeachTruth Day of Action, where teachers and allies across the country pledged to teach the truth, making their pledges at historic sites to provide examples of the history that teachers would be required to lie about or omit if the GOP anti-history bills become law. This Day of Action sparked national news coverage, with calls for more Days of Action to pledge to teach the truth. |
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July 2021Published lessons, discussion questions, and writing prompts for the New York Times bestselling book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith. As Smith suggests, one cannot understand the history of the United States without focusing on the centrality of slavery — and this history is essential to helping our students make sense of the world around them. |
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August 2021Held a second Pledge to #TeachTruth Days of Action, this time for the last weekend of the month, with teachers and allies across the country again gathering at historic sites to pledge to teach the truth in their classrooms. Teachers planned these activities as they returned to school for another challenging year. |
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September 2021Expanded the number of Teaching for Black Lives Study Groups from 30 to 100, supporting educators in 29 states with free professional learning opportunities. These study group meetings were based on a collective reading of Teaching for Black Lives and the recent issue of Rethinking Schools magazine. |
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November 2021Finalized research for our national report analyzing K–12 curriculum standards on Reconstruction across the country as part of our Teach Reconstruction Campaign, titled “Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction,” released in January 2022. |
2020
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January 2020Published a new unit written by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, Who Gets to Vote? Teaching About the Struggle for Voting Rights in the United States, that includes three lessons on voting rights, including the history of the struggle against voter suppression in the United States. We also published a hub for teaching the 15th Amendment with lesson plan materials, research tools, and educator guides on the 15th Amendment’s significance in 2020. |
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February 2020Visited classrooms to document how teachers taught Black history during Black Lives Matter in School Week of Action. Partnered with Color of Change to launch a new 15th Amendment campaign with a Voting Rights Toolkit. Distributed mini-grants to educators around the country to help fund their commemorative lessons about the history and legacy of the 15th Amendment. |
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March 2020Jumped into action in mid-March when the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools across the United States. Produced a series of remote learning resources: People’s Historians Online mini-classes, Teaching People’s History with Film, and People’s History Podcasts for Young People. Partnered with Seven Stories Press to make A Young People’s History of the United States free for a limited time and spread the word to thousands of parents, teachers, and students who took advantage of the no-cost download. Opened channels to collect educators’ stories about remote teaching. |
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April 2020Produced weekly interactive mini-classes about the Civil Rights Movement as part of the People’s Historians Online series with speakers Jeanne Theoharis, Jesse Hagopian, Courtland Cox, Judy Richardson, and Jessica Rucker. Commemorated the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and the first year of the Teach Climate Justice Campaign during the pandemic. Published Films with a Conscience, an annotated list of thoughtful films for teaching about topics like colonialism, labor struggles, Native Americans, warfare, and environmental justice. |
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May 2020Continued to respond to the pandemic with mini-classes by producing classes about Rethinking Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with Jeanne Theoharis, Women in the Black Panther Party with Robyn C. Spencer and Mary Phillips, Black Athletes and the Black Freedom Struggle with Dave Zirin, and the Black Left: 1930s to the Early 1950s with Robin D. G. Kelley. Inspired by the class with Jeanne Theoharis earlier in the series, Bill Bigelow wrote and the Zinn Education Project published a new lesson about Rosa Parks. |
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June 2020During the June Uprising, published guides Teach the Roots of the Rebellion and Teach the History of Policing. Produced additional people’s history online classes: Examining the Historical Roots of the 2020 Rebellion with Keisha Blain, Black Feminist Organizing: 1950s to the 21st Century with Barbara Ransby, Reconstruction, Citizenship, and Suffrage with Martha Jones and Tiffany Mitchell Patterson, Reconstruction and Juneteenth with Greg Carr, and A History of Rebellions with Jeanne Theoharis and Jesse Hagopian. |
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July 2020Celebrated Three Victories in the fight for Indigenous rights and against fossil fuels. Produced the final spring people’s history online series class, Abolitionists and Reconstruction with Manisha Sinha and Adam Sanchez. Launched a new book giveaway for Stolen Justice and published People’s History Lessons for Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You. The Zinn Education Project’s Instagram reached and exceeded 100,000 followers. |
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August 2020Invited teachers to apply for upcoming Teaching for Black Lives Teacher Study Groups. Published an open letter from scholars of U.S. history, urging school districts to devote more resources to the teaching of the Reconstruction era. Collected additional teacher stories about teaching remotely during the pandemic and distributed copies of “The 1619 Project.” Launched a new Teaching for Black Lives giveaway for stories about lessons from that guide. |
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September 2020Announced the forthcoming National Report on the Teaching of Reconstruction. Published remote teaching Google Docs on Google Drive from some of our most-popular and new lessons. Published a guide on teaching remotely, Teaching ZEP Lessons Remotely: Recommitting to the Why — If Not the How — of Our Pedagogy. Right-wing historians and the U.S. President took aim at the Zinn Education Project, Howard Zinn, and the New York Times 1619 Project. We defended the teaching of people’s history against these White House attacks. Teachers, and their friends and family, spoke out. Read what they had to say. Published the new lesson, Who’s to Blame? A People’s Tribunal on the Coronavirus Pandemic by Caneisha Mills. Seattle Mariners outfielder Braden Bishop auctioned an autographed copy of his Jackie Robinson Day bat to benefit the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle campaign. |
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October 2020Started the second season of online classes with a class on Civil Rights Movement organizing with Dr. Charles M. Payne. Announced our support and offered teaching resources for the Black Lives Matter at School Year of Purpose. Celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day and added over 50 new cities, states, and school districts to our Abolish Columbus Day Map. Promoted the Ida B. Wells Education Project “Lessons Inspired by Lovecraft Country” unit, based on the historical truths in the HBO show. |
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November 2020Launched a campaign to put people’s history books in the hands of Mississippi teachers after their governor threatened people’s history. Promoted voting rights teaching materials in the wake of the presidential and senatorial elections. Hosted Dr. Greg Carr for a Teach the Black Freedom Struggle people’s history online conversation with teachers about Paul Robeson, Political Outlaw: Lessons for Today from the Black Radical Tradition. Published a new lesson, “Teaching Climate Disobedience: Using the Film Necessity in the Classroom” by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca about multiple cohorts of climate activists that use the “necessity defense” as a political tool. |
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December 2020Continued to recruit and support people’s history teachers in the Teaching for Black Lives Study Groups. Hosted historian Kidada Williams and education scholar Tiffany Mitchell Patterson for a Teach the Black Freedom struggle online discussion about African American survivors of racist violence in the context of Reconstruction, drawing parallels to the contemporary moment. |
2019
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January 2019Brought new curriculum workshops to California teachers, who attended a professional development session with teacher-organizer Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. She led California educators in a workshop, the result of our ongoing collaboration with San Francisco librarians and new relationships with the UCLA School of Education. |
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April 2019Co-hosted a Reconstruction Teach-In at Howard University’s WHUT studios, where 80 teachers participated in workshops, talks, and gleaned new perspectives on the Reconstruction Era through a special screening of the new PBS documentary, Reconstruction: America After the Civil War. Launched the Teach Climate Justice Campaign to bring attention to and support teachers who want to teach about environmental justice and climate change. The campaign features new and existing lessons, articles, and organizing guides from the Zinn Education Project and Rethinking Schools. |
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May 2019Recruited forty-five Mississippi teachers for a workshop on Reconstruction in Jackson as part of the Teach Reconstruction campaign. The event was hosted by Southern Echo and the Zinn Education Project, with outreach support by the Mississippi Department of Education. |
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June 2019Hosted James Lowen to talk about his new young readers’ edition of Lies My Teacher Told Me in D.C., where he spoke to a packed room of teachers and fans. |
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August 2019Published a new lesson about redlining and housing segregation that introduces students to the 20th-century housing policies that contributed to the injustice of the modern wealth gap. It is based on Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law. |
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September 2019Over 400 educators pledged to Teach Climate Justice in advance of the global climate strike. The Zinn Education Project continues to encourage teachers to pledge to teach about the climate emergency. Join them. |
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November 2019As of November 2019, there are more than 100,000 educators signed up at the ZinnEdProject.org. |
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December 2019Zinn Education Project co-director Bill Bigelow offered full day Teach Climate Justice workshops for educators in Austin, Texas in late November and Brattleboro, Vermont in December. |
2018
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January 2018Provided 250 copies of A People’s History of the United States for young people in Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp. Learn more. |
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May 2018Developed and piloted a student project for the Teach Reconstruction campaign, called Make Reconstruction History Visible. |
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July 2018Launched a new state of the art version of the Zinn Education Project website that allows for people’s history lessons to be read and downloaded from mobile devices. The new site also includes a digitized and searchable version of our popular “this day in history” series. |
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October 2018Defended the teaching of people’s history from attacks by Sam Wineburg, Jonathan Chait, and others. |
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November 2018Offered a Reconstruction workshop in North Carolina, hosted by the Durham Educators Association. Learn more. |
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December 2018Reached the milestone of 87,000 teachers registered to access people’s history lessons, an increase of 12,000 from 2017. Held people’s history workshops and had a booth full of teaching resources at the annual NCSS conference in Chicago. Mini-sessions on Reconstruction, a workshop on COINTELPRO, book giveaways and more helped to make the Zinn Education Project booth was a hot spot for exchanging ideas, sharing books, and gathering stories. |
2017
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January 2017Reconstruction was the key turning point in U.S. history—a period of democratic promise like no other. But a promise foreclosed by the terrorism of the defeated white elites seeking to hold on to “their” South. The Zinn Education Project commemorates the Reconstruction period with a new lesson, “Reconstructing the South: A Role Play,” written by Zinn Education Project co-director Bill Bigelow. Download lesson. |
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January 2017The Zinn Education Project posted “Standing with Standing Rock: A Role Play on the Dakota Access Pipeline,” by Wolfe-Rocca, her colleague Andrew Duden, and Zinn Education Project co-director Bill Bigelow. The lesson helps students grasp the issues at stake in the historic struggle of the Standing Rock Sioux for recognition of their treaty rights and for clean water for all. Download lesson. |
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March 2017When Arkansas legislation was introduced to ban all books by and about Howard Zinn in public schools, the Zinn Education Project offered to send free Zinn books and people’s history lessons to Arkansas teachers. In just one week, more than 700 requests came in as well as more than 300 donations to support this endeavor. The proposed book ban was featured on Democracy Now!, WBUR, Melville House, Boston Magazine, Common Dreams, and more. Read comments by Arkansas teachers and librarians who requested a book and comments from donors about why they contributed to the book drive. |
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November 2017The Zinn Education Project’s lessons were featured in an article in Teen Vogue. |
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November 2017Had a double booth at the National Council for the Social Studies Conference (NCSS) at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The Zinn Education Project hosted ten workshops over two days, featured special guests at the booth, and hosted a People’s History Trivia Night. Also had a table with books and materials at the Howard Zinn Book Fair at City College in San Francisco. Zinn Education Project staff and colleagues hosted three workshops related to the theme of “Black Reconstruction in Our Times.” Read more. |
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December 2017Hosted People’s History Trivia Nights in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., raising more than $4,300 for our work in 2018. At both events, everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves while learning non-trivial people’s history. Read more. |
2016
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February 2016Announced five teachers who won class set of A People’s History of the United States from our contest that garnered hundreds of inspiring stories from teachers teaching outside the textbook. Read more. |
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March 2016The Zinn Education Project posted five new articles and lessons on Foreign Policy, Civil Rights, and Economics.
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March 2016Our If We Knew Our History article “Why We Should Teach About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement” by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca was very popular and published on Common Dreams, Huffington Post, Alternet, and Portside. Read article.
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May 2016Launched a new profile series, Asian Americans and Moments in People’s History. Read more.
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May 2016This month, we reached the milestone of 60,000 teachers teaching outside the textbook. Why are so many teachers signing up to use people’s history lessons from the Zinn Education Project? Here’s just a few of the many reasons we’ve heard. Read more.
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June 2016Our If We Knew Our History article “What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement After 1965? Don’t Ask Your Textbook ” by Adam Sanchez was very popular and published on Common Dreams, Huffington Post, and History News Network. Read article.
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September 2016The Zinn Education Project joined the campaign to Abolish Columbus Day by providing resources and tools that include a downloadable 14-page packet, sample resolutions, a resource list, and a poster that teachers and students can use in campaigns to rename Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. Learn more.
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October 2016Our If We Knew Our History article “What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party—but Should” by Adam Sanchez and Jesse Hagopian was very popular and published on Common Dreams and Huffington Post. Read article.
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December 2016The Zinn Education Project (ZEP) had a lively two days of discussions and community building during the 2016 National Council for the Social Studies annual conference. Held in Washington, D.C., Dec. 2-3, the ZEP booth was a haven for teachers to talk about the challenges of teaching in these times, browse people’s history books, meet ZEP staff and volunteers, and get books. Read more.
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December 2016Hosted the first-ever People’s History Trivia Night in Washington, D.C. Scheduled during the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference, this fundraising event brought together people’s history teachers and friends from around the country. Read more.
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December 2016Released the first-ever Zinn Education Project t-shirts available with a donation of $25. Learn more.
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2015
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January 2015Our If We Knew Our History article, “Ten Things You Should Know About Selma,” is published on Common Dreams. It gains widespread visibility and impacts countless educators’ understanding of the struggle for voting rights on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. Read article. |
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January 2015Reached 150,000 Facebook FansMore than 150,000 people are receiving the history they were never taught in school through our popular “This Day in History” posts. Become a fan today! |
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January 2015Commemorated the 5th year anniversary of Howard Zinn’s death. As co-directors Bill Bigelow and Deborah Menkart wrote, “When we remember and honor Howard Zinn, we remember and honor the social movements that he chronicled and joined.” Read letter. |
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February 2015We published the article “Time to Tell the Truth About Slavery at Mount Vernon” by educator Sudie Hofmann that creates a buzz on social media networks. Read article. |
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March 2015Our 2012 If We Knew Our History article, “The Real Irish American Story Not Taught in Schools,” by Bill Bigelow is popular once again and republished on Irish Central, “the largest Irish news and culture site in North America.” Read article. |
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March 2015We posted four new articles and activities on environmental justice issues:
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March 2015Our If We Knew Our History article, “Lying to Children About the California Missions and the Indians,” by Deborah A. Miranda is published on Huffington Post. Read article.
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May 2015We featured the article, “Rethinking Cinco de Mayo,” by Sudie Hoffman in our If We Knew Our History series on the Huffington Post and the Zinn Education Project websites. Read article. |
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May 2015The Zinn Education Project posted three new articles and activities on race, housing, and displacement. These include:
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May 2015As the Pentagon commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, the Zinn Education Project joined in the Lessons of Vietnam: The Power of Protest event in Washington, D.C. and promoted our teaching resources on Vietnam and anti-war movements. Read more.
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June 2015In June, we reached the milestone of 50,000 teachers registered to download free lessons that bring people’s history into the classroom from the Zinn Education Project. Since our founding in 2008, the Zinn Education Project has grown from 4,000 teachers to 50,000—nearly half of this growth occurring in the last two years. Read more.
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July 2015The Zinn Education Project was one of three progressive groups selected for the July 2015 CREDO donations ballot, resulting in a donation of $60,000. Read more. |
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July 2015Reached 200,000 Facebook FansIn just 6 months, we gained another 50,000 fans, totaling more than 200,000 people who are receiving the history they were never taught in school through our popular “This Day in History” posts. Become a fan today! |
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July 2015Our If We Knew Our History article, “W. E. B. Du Bois to Malcolm X: The Untold History of the Movement to Ban the Bomb,” by Vincent J. Intondi is published on Huffington Post and Common Dreams. Read article. |
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July 2015“Bringing Climate Into the Classroom,” an article describing the This Changes Everything writing retreat is published in the summer issue of Radical Teacher. Read article. |
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August 2015Posted the article “The Voting Rights Act: Ten Things You Should Know” by Emilye Crosby and Judy Richardson to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act being signed into law. Read article. |
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August 2015“Climate Change and School in a Yup’ik Fishing Village” by Jill Howdyshell is published by a This Changes Everything retreat participant in Rethinking Schools. Read article. |
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October 2015Our If We Knew Our History article, “Time to Abolish Columbus Day” by Bill Bigelow, is published on Common Dreams, Huffington Post, and Alternet. Read article. This article had unprecedented reach with a combined 140,000+ Likes on Common Dreams and the Huffington Post. It was referenced in national news media, including MSNBC, The Washington Post, Nonprofit Quarterly, and Common Dreams, and was posted on AlterNet. Read more. |
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November 2015Received and posted more “Our Favorite Teacher” stories from former students of Howard Zinn. Read collection. |
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November 2015Received generous donation from a retired teacher for a “People’s History Organizer for People’s History Teachers.” Launched campaign to fully fund the campaign. Read more.
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November 2015Thanks to a donation from HarperCollins, we launched a month-long contest for teachers to win a class set of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Read more.
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December 2015Reached a milestone: 11,000 new registered teachers in 2015. We now have more than 55,700 teachers using our materials, teaching outside the textbook. |
2014
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January 2014We reached two milestones: 100,000 lessons downloaded and 1,000,000 all-time visitors to the website. |
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February 2014Launched a new series, “How Many Black Abolitionists Can You Name?” Read more.
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February 2014Our If We Knew Our History article, “Missing from President’s Day: The People They Enslaved” by Clarence Lusane was very popular and shared widely. Read article.
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March 2014Thanks to our donors, we posted 16 new labor lessons from The Power In Our Hands. Read more. |
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March 2014Launched a new series, “Women in Labor History.” Read more. |
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March 2014Posted several of our most popular lessons in Spanish. Read more. |
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March 2014The American Federation of Teachers journal included our letter to the editor in response to the attack they published a year earlier on Howard Zinn and A People’s History. They continue to refuse to publish our full critique, and only published the 150-word letter to the editor after some AFT members launched a campaign on the fourth anniversary of Zinn’s death. Read more. |
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Spring 2014A survey team, led by Zinn Education Project fellow and assistant professor Katy Swalwell, surveyed more than 800 people in the Zinn Education Project network. A full summary is in process. Read a few of the hundreds of survey comments. |
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April 2014Our If We Knew Our History article, “A People’s History of Muslims in the United States” by Alison Kysia was very popular and published on the Huffington Post, Common Dreams, Portside, and Informed Comment. Read article. |
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April 2014Participated in a symposium at New York University to dedicate Howard Zinn’s papers. We were honored to have author and activist Alice Walker give opening remarks and participate actively in our session. Read more. |
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May 2014Reached 100,000 Facebook FansMore than 100,000 people are receiving the history they were never taught in school through our popular “This Day in History” posts. Become a fan today! |
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June 2014A Japanese TV network interviewed Zinn Education Project teacher Moé Yonamine who wrote about the hidden history of Japanese Latin American internment in the United States. Read more. |
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July 2014Connected Civil Rights Movement veterans with high school students to share their experiences through virtual “visits.” Read more. |
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August 2014Partnered with the This Changes Everything project (based on the book by Naomi Klein and film by Avi Lewis) to convene a group of teachers to develop curriculum. Read more. |
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August 2014Our If We Knew Our History article by Julian Hipkins III and Deborah Menkart commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Read more. |
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September 2014Gave more visibility to the student-led walk out in Colorado protesting curriculum changes to “downplay social strife” and emphasize “patriotism” and the “free enterprise system.” Read more. |
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November 2014Our If We Knew Our History article by Bill Bigelow, “The Koch Brothers Sneak into School,” exposed how the Koch brothers funnel millions of dollars every year to shape the social studies curriculum. Read more. |
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November 2014Thanks to the generosity of two donors, we were able to expand our presence from one to three booths at the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference in Boston. At the conference, we organized a (silent) protest of the Bill of Rights Institute, a Koch Foundation funded organization. Read more. |
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December 2014Convened 20 teachers for the Zinn Education Project/This Changes Everything writing retreat weekend near Portland, Oregon, led by Rethinking Schools editors Linda Christensen and Bill Bigelow. |
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December 2014Reached a milestone: 10,000 new registered teachers in 2014. We now have more than 44,500 teachers using our materials, teaching outside the textbook. |
2013
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March 2013New, improved, and enhanced version of the Zinn Education Project website launched. |
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April 2013Partnered with StoryCorps to promote the animated short “Facundo the Great” with resources for teaching the politics of naming. Read more. |
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June 2013Reached 30,000 registered users for the website. |
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July 2013Gave national visibility to the attempt to censor Howard Zinn in public schools by Mitch Daniels with the publication of “Indiana’s Anti-Howard Zinn Witch Hunt” by Bill Bigelow. |
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August 2013Launched “Howard Zinn, Our Favorite Teacher” series of tributes and remembrances by former students from Boston University and Spelman College. [This series has been moved to the Howard Zinn website.] |
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August 2013Facebook fans reach 50,000. |
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October 2013Revitalized the McCarthy anti-censorship era Green Feather Movement campaign, this time in defense of people’s history, with buttons, stickers, and postcards distributed at Howard Zinn Read-Ins, Indiana teacher conferences, and the National Council for the Social Studies. |
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December 2013Responded to the American Educator attack on Howard Zinn and A People’s History with the review “Bashing Howard Zinn: A Critical Look at One of the Critics” by Alison Kysia. |
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December 2013Facebook fans reach 60,000. |
| More highlights from 2013 |
2012
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January 2012Gave national visibility to Tucson, Arizona’s banning of the Mexican American Studies program. Classes were terminated and books were banned, including A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn and Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow, Zinn Education Project co-director and Rethinking Schools editor. An Arizona judge who upheld the ban decree found that the Tucson program was teaching Latino history and culture “in a biased, political, and emotionally charged manner.” In the article “‘Repeat After Me: The United States Is Not an Imperialist Country—Oh, and Don’t Get Emotional About War,’” Bill Bigelow argues, “The problem with the school curriculum in this country is that it is not emotionally charged enough.” |
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March 2012Launched the If We Knew Our History series on Huffington Post, Alternet, and Common Dreams. |
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April 2012Melody Schneider, the 20,000 registered teacher, explains why she registered, “My students and I are looking for truth in history, something real that they can connect to.“ |
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May 2012Reached the milestone of 20,000 teachers registered for the Zinn Education Project. Read more. |
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June 2012Partnered with Democracy Now! at the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE) on a workshop titled “Teaching a People’s History, Teaching Democracy Now!: Role Play on the Climate Crisis and Online Resources for Critical Media Literacy.” |
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November 2012Sean Arce awarded the Myles Horton Education Award for Teaching a People’s History at National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference in Seattle. Read more |
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November 2012Had a major presence at the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference in Seattle. Educators from across the country met and talked about teaching people’s history. ZEP sponsored three special sessions and featured books by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change, people’s history resources, and a raffle. Read more. |
2011
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January 2011One of 40 progressive organizations selected for the 2011 CREDO/Working Assets donations ballot. |
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Summer 2011Selected as a national partner for the Storycorps National Teacher Initiative. Listen to conversations here. |
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September 2011The dedication of the Zinn Room at Busboys and Poets with keynote speakers Cornel West, Beverly Daniel Tatum, and many more, was a fundraiser for the Zinn Education Project. Read more. |
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December 2011Had a booth at the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) 2011 Conference in Washington, D.C. Almost every visitor to the booth signed up for the Zinn Education Project website (if they weren’t already registered), voted for the Zinn Education Project on the CREDO/Working Assets donations ballot, and completed a survey to help us plan for 2012. ZEP hosted a special information session called “Teaching a People’s History and Challenging Myths About the Civil War” with guest speaker James W. Loewen. Read more. |
2010
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January 2010Conducted an Author on Air interview with Howard Zinn based on questions submitted by teachers from across the country. |
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Spring 2010Began the Teaching Outside the Textbook campaign by soliciting stories from teachers about how they teach a people’s history. Essays were submitted by 88 teachers. Sent A People’s History of the United States class sets to 21 teachers. |
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Summer 2010At the request of the filmmakers, produced the teaching guide for The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. |
2009
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December 2009Launched new website, with over 75 free downloadable teaching activities and hundreds of books, films, and posters. |
2008
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June 2008Distributed 4,000 free teaching people’s history packets to educators across the United States and its territories. The packet included the DVD Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, a copy of A People’s History of the United States, and a teaching guide developed especially for this project. (Report on the distribution of the 4,000 packets.) |
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November 2008Helped to coordinate the keynote presentation by Howard Zinn at the National Council for the Social Studies Conference and gave a copy of the Teaching a People’s History teaching guide to 800 attendees. |
