In the News

Bill Resnick talks to the Zinn Education Project’s Jesse Hagopian about the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” the recent Florida law led by Governor Ron DeSantis, that is aimed at criminalizing teaching Black history, banning books and limiting what can be taught, claiming that Critical Race theory is itself racist, and more. The conversation exposes the malicious deceit of Desantis’ justifications, and the current impact of the law, with other states enacting similar laws, and teachers fearful and intimidated.

Professor Matthew Delmont has engaged thousands of high school teachers in exploring the history of the World War II era from the perspective of Black Americans. With critical race theory and the College Board’s new AP course on African American studies mired in political controversy, Delmont feels a sense of urgency to correct “a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to study history.”

In the wake of Florida’s headline-grabbing efforts to reshape the content of the College Board’s A.P. African American Studies course, publishers at New Press recently scrapped their catalog just before it was set to go the printer, replacing the cover with new art calling out the banning of New Press books, and the back cover with text calling attention to events in Florida and the surge in censorship efforts. The publisher is also reaching out to offer free books to teachers — including a recent partnership with the Zinn Education Project that will offer free New Press books to teachers in Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.

“I think the College Board needs to be abolished,” said Jesse Hagopian, a campaign organizer at the Zinn Education Project focused on Black history. “It’s an institution that was founded in eugenics and white supremacy, and we have far better models of education to look to. We should be moving towards educational approaches based in ethnic studies, Black studies, or people’s history. There are so many different models for empowering students with education that are far more impactful than the College Board.”

The book Teaching for Black Lives was first published in 2018 during the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement. The book has 50 chapters written by scholars, teachers, and community educators... The Zinn Education Project, Rethinking Schools, and Teaching for Change support the campaign.

. . . This article highlights resources that social studies educators can bring into their classrooms to teach climate change and connect it to the effect it has on communities, governance, population movements, and much more. . . . Another resource for teaching climate change is the Zinn Education Project, which features teaching activities, testimonials, and experiences in “From the New Deal to the Green New Deal: Stories of Crisis and Possibility.”

Though nineteen states have passed laws or imposed rules to restrict how public school teachers discuss race, racism, or other subjects deemed  “divisive” in their classrooms, many educators are pushing back on these boundaries and are using every tool at their disposal to help students understand U.S. history and social justice movements.

In fact, more than 13,000 teachers in forty-seven states are currently teaching The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks,  young readers edition, an adaptation of Jeanne Theoharis’s award-winning 2013 deconstruction of the “national fable” that reduces Parks to a tired, middle-aged woman who simply took a seat on a bus and inadvertently started a movement.

In the Chinatown-International District (CID), where the Teach the Truth rally was held June 12, 2022, students, educators, and activists gathered for a walking tour of a neighborhood with frequent stops at sites of historical significance. June’s CID rally followed a March historical tour of the Central District, both involving a guide with a mic followed by a speaker wheeled through the streets. Organizers put together an information-packed 2-mile route, taking just over two hours to walk, that weaved through the CID, Pioneer Square, and down to the Marion Street Bridge before turning back towards the CID.