- Zinn Education Project

Niagara Movement Founders, 1905. Top row (left to right): H. A. Thompson, Alonzo F. Herndon, John Hope, James R. L. Diggs (?). Second row (left to right): Frederick McGhee, Norris B. Herndon (boy), J. Max Barber, W. E. B. Du Bois, Robert Bonner. Bottom row (left to right): Henry L. Bailey, Clement G. Morgan, W. H. H. Hart, B. S. Smith. Reproduction. Detail.

July 11, 1905: The Niagara Movement

The Niagara Movement — starting as a conference of Black leaders in upstate New York — was formed, paving the way for the creation of the NAACP.

Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal

Book — Fiction. By Margarita Engle. 2016. 272 pages.
Historical fiction in free verse about the building of the Panama Canal.

Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South

Book — Non-fiction. By Robert Rodgers Korstad. 2003. 576 pages.
Chronicles the rise and fall of the union that represented thousands of African American tobacco factory workers in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Dec. 13, 1903: Civil Rights and Human Rights Activist Ella Baker Born

Born on this day, Ella Baker was a civil rights and human rights activist beginning in the 1930s whose career spanned more than five decades.

Fannie Never Flinched (Book) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Fannie Never Flinched: One Woman’s Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union Rights

Book — Non-fiction. By Mary Cronk Farrell. 2016. 56 pages.
Biography of labor union activist Fannie Sellins.

July 10, 1902: Nicolás Guillén Born

Cuban poet of social protest and a leader of the Afro-Cuban movement, Nicolás Guillén was born.

Oct. 13, 1902: Ben Katz Born

Labor and cultural activist Ben Katz was born.

Feb. 12, 1900: “Lift Every Voice and Sing” Was First Publicly Performed

“Lift Every Voice and Sing” was first publicly performed by 500 school children in Jacksonville, Florida. Later, the NAACP adopted the song as the Black National Anthem. The lyrics spoke out against racism and Jim Crow laws.

Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library

Picture book. By Carole Boston Weatherford and Eric Velasquez. 2017. 48 pages.
This picture book is a tribute to Arturo Schomburg, the Afro Puerto Rican historian collector and activist who chronicled the Black history of the Diaspora.

Nov. 13, 1909: Cherry Mine Disaster

A disaster in the Cherry Mine in Cherry, Illinois, killed 259 boys and men.

July 7, 1903: March of the Mill Children

Mary Harris “Mother” Jones began the “March of the Mill Children.”

Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement

Teaching Guide. 2020. By Alan Stoskopf. Facing History and Ourselves. 374 pages.
Resources for teaching about the eugenics movement in the United States.

Before She Was Harriet

Picture book. By Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome. 2017. 32 pages.
An illustrated biography of Harriet Tubman written in verse.

March 10, 1903: African American Leaders Protest Streetcar Segregation

African Americans in Little Rock organized a boycott and “we walk” league to protest the Streetcar Segregation Act.

Dark Sky Rising (Book) | Zinn Education Project

Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow

Book — Non-fiction. By Henry Louis Gates Jr. with Tonya Bolden. 2019. 240 pages.
Readers trace the rise and fall of racial equity during Reconstruction as increasingly violent white supremacy and new forms of oppression take hold at the turn of the 20th century.

The Untold History of the United States: Young Readers Editions, Vols 1 (1898-1945) & 2 (1945-1962)

Book — Non-fiction. By Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick. Adapted by Susan Campbell Bartoletti and Eric S. Singer. Vol 1. 2014. 400 pages. Vol 2. 2019. 320 pages.
These are two volumes of illustrated histories, adapted for students from a documentary book and film of the same name.

May 5, 1905: Chicago Defender Founded

Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded the highly influential newspaper, the Chicago Defender, with the tagline “American Race Prejudice Must Be Destroyed.”

Carter Reads the Newspaper

Picture book. By Deborah Hopkinson. Illustrated by Don Tate. 2019. 36 pages.
This picture book chronicles the young life of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, an Appalachian-born Harvard scholar and advocate for African American history. He founded Negro History Week in 1926 (which grew into Black History Month), the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), and the Journal of Negro History.

The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside of the South

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Brian Purnell and Jeanne Theoharis with Komozi Woodard. 2019. 352 pages.
This important work shows how the Jim Crow North maintained inequality in the nation’s most liberal places, and chronicles how activists worked to undo those inequities born of Northern Jim Crow.

Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson

Book — Non-fiction. Written and illustrated by Sharon Rudahl. Edited by Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware. 2020. 142 pages.
The first-ever graphic biography of Paul Robeson charts Robeson’s career as a singer, actor, scholar, athlete, and activist who achieved global fame.

They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I

Book — Non-fiction. By Kidada Williams. 2012. 281 pages.
This book documents African Americans' testimonies about racial violence during Jim Crow, and the crusades against that violence that became political training grounds for the Civil Rights Movement.

Dec. 26, 1907: New York City Rent Strike

Months of organizing work by 16-year-old Pauline Newman culminated in the start of the largest rent strike in New York City’s history.

Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America

Book — Non-fiction. By James Green. 2007. 400 pages.
History of the late 19th century labor movement.

Exploring Women’s Rights: The 1908 Textile Strike in a 1st-grade Class

Teaching Activity. By Dale Weiss. Rethinking Schools. 3 pages.
A teacher's reflections about a curriculum unit on women's rights contextualizes the history of the feminist movement within the broader struggle of people working for greater equality in the United States.

Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike (Teaching Activity) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Socialists and Wobblies

Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 17 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 13 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the labor movement at the turn of the century.

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