People’s Historian: Lerone Bennett Jr.

For the Howard Zinn Centennial, we are highlighting people’s historians who preceded Howard Zinn and those who are expanding the field today. One historian we feature is Lerone Bennett Jr., who was senior editor of Ebony magazine.
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Teaching People’s History Is Under Attack

This year, back-to-school season arrives with continued attacks on teachers and bans on accurate history. Challenging traditions of white supremacy was central to Reconstruction and still is today, as the Right tries to quell surges in democracy and justice.
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Prentiss Charney Teacher Fellows

Beginning with the 2022-2023 school year, the Zinn Education Project launched the Prentiss-Charney Teacher Fellows program. Named for education activists C. J. Prentiss and Michael Charney, the fellowship offers support for a cohort of people's history teacher leaders each year.
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There Is Power in Numbers

We need to expose the right's agenda and be visible in our defense of teaching people's history. Don't let the right control the narrative. We ask EVERYONE (including YOU) reading this news post to defend the right to #TeachTruth.
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Prentiss Charney Fellows 2022–2023

Meet the first class of Prentiss Charney Fellows of the Zinn Education Project for the 2022-2023 school year. The fellowship offers support for a cohort of people’s history educator leaders to study, learn, and organize together for one year.
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Climate Chaos Is Crashing Through the World

It is urgent that educators of conscience commit ourselves to equipping our students to recognize the breadth of the climate emergency, to probe its social and economic causes, and to come to see themselves as activists for a just society and a stable climate.
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Teach Truth Days of Action 2022

Teachers and allies across the country pledged to teach truth on June 11 and 12, 2022. 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.
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Kelly Lytle Hernández on the 1910 Mexican Revolution

Author Kelly Lytle Hernández spoke about the magonistas, a group of agitators who challenged Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century. This session is part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.
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Kidada E. Williams on Seizing Freedom

On May 9, the Zinn Education Project hosted author Kidada E. Williams in conversation with Jesse Hagopian about the imaginative, defiant ways that Black people sought and enacted freedom throughout U.S. history. This history is highlighted in her podcast Seizing Freedom, which focuses on and brings to life voices that have been muted time and time again. This session is part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.
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Johanna Fernández on the Young Lords

On Monday, April 25, 2022, historian Johanna Fernández spoke about the history of the Young Lords, the Puerto Rican counterpart of the Black Panther Party. This session was part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online people’s history series.
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Secret Memo From High School Principals

In New York in the late 1960s, students in the Young Lords and the Black Panther Party were considered such a threat to the establishment that an association of high school principals issued a secret memo about “limits of permissible dissent.”
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