March 13, 2020: Breonna Taylor Killed by Louisville Police
Louisville police officers opened fire in the home of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, shooting and killing her.
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Theme: African American
African American
Feb. 12, 1938: Ellen Harris Refuses to Move for White Passenger
Ellen Harris told the bus driver she would accept a refund and get off the bus, but the driver refused to accept her terms and had her arrested for breaking segregation law.
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April 3, 1969: Judge George Crockett Jr. Defends Equal Justice
In the face of white supremacists’ threats, a Black Detroit judge upheld the law and acted for equal justice for Black churchgoers detained unlawfully after a deadly police shoot-out.
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To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War
Book — Non-fiction. By Tera W. Hunter. 1998.
An examination of post-Civil War lives of African American women, focusing on their labor organizing, leisure, hope, and struggle.
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An examination of post-Civil War lives of African American women, focusing on their labor organizing, leisure, hope, and struggle.
April 12, 1787: Free African Society Founded
The Free African Society was a benevolent organization grounded in Christian religious faith and operating outside denominational differences to serve the social needs of Black Philadelphians.
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April 20, 1871: Klan Enforcement Act Signed Into Law
President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law the third of the Enforcement Acts, a Reconstruction-era bill that empowered the federal government to intervene when the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are violated.
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March 30, 1952: Charlotta Bass Accepts U.S. VP Nomination
California newspaper owner and anti-Klan activist Charlotta Spears Bass became the first African American nominated to be a U.S. political party's vice-presidential candidate.
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May 19, 1972: First Malcolm X Day Celebration in D.C.
In a personal essay about the longest-running, largest annual event to celebrate the legacy of Malcolm X, Charles Stephenson describes the celebration’s founding and impact of that day in history.
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May 13, 1985: Philadelphia Police Bomb MOVE
The Philadelphia Police Department dropped a C-4 bomb on the home of the MOVE organization, killing eleven people (including five children) and wiping out half a city block.
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Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts
Book — Non-fiction. By Rebecca Hall. Illustrated by Hugo Martinez. 2021.
Rebecca Hall documents the process of her own research — and what she learned — about women who organized to challenge slavery. In graphic novel format.
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Rebecca Hall documents the process of her own research — and what she learned — about women who organized to challenge slavery. In graphic novel format.
Dec. 13, 1872: Reconstruction Era Convening to Demand End to Slavery in Cuba
A meeting was held in New York of abolitionists to address the injustice of continued slavery in Cuba.
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America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s
Book — Non-Fiction. By Elizabeth Hinton. 2021. 224 pages.
The rebellion and movement for Black lives of 2020 had clear precursors, this book explains, and any attempt to understand that crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past.
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The rebellion and movement for Black lives of 2020 had clear precursors, this book explains, and any attempt to understand that crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past.
Echoes of Enslavement
Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
Students discover “echoes of enslavement” in their own state — discrete sites of remembering, forgetting, honoring, lying, or distorting — in this lesson based on the book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith.
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Students discover “echoes of enslavement” in their own state — discrete sites of remembering, forgetting, honoring, lying, or distorting — in this lesson based on the book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith.
Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People
Book — Non-Fiction. By Kekla Magoon. 2021.
An account of militant revolutionaries and human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community.
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An account of militant revolutionaries and human rights advocates working to defend and protect their community.
Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage
Book — Non-fiction. By William Loren Katz. 2012. 272 pages.
History book for ages 10 to adult that traces relations between Blacks and American Indians since the time of the conquest.
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History book for ages 10 to adult that traces relations between Blacks and American Indians since the time of the conquest.
The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights
Book — Non-fiction. By Steve Sheinkin. 2014. 208 pages.
The story of 50 African American sailors charged with mutiny during World War II for challenging working conditions after a deadly munitions explosion.
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The story of 50 African American sailors charged with mutiny during World War II for challenging working conditions after a deadly munitions explosion.
Black Reconstruction in America
Book — Non-fiction. By W. E. B. Du Bois. Edited by Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates. 2021. 1097 pages.
Originally published in 1935, Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction was the first book to challenge the prevailing racist historical narrative of the era and in sharp, incisive prose, tell the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the perspective of African Americans.
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Originally published in 1935, Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction was the first book to challenge the prevailing racist historical narrative of the era and in sharp, incisive prose, tell the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction from the perspective of African Americans.
When Black Lives Mattered: Why Teach Reconstruction
By Adam Sanchez
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Every day seems to bring new horrors as the U.S. president’s racist rhetoric and policies have provided an increasingly encouraging environment for attacks on Black people and other communities of color. The acquittal of yet another police officer accused of murdering a Black man in St. Louis, the raging battle across the country over whether symbols of slavery should be removed from public spaces, and the formation of a “Commission on Election Integrity” to further suppress voting by people of color are just a few of the recent reminders that racism is as American as apple pie. In moments like these, it’s worth remembering a time in U.S. history when Black lives mattered.
What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party — but Should
By Adam Sanchez and Jesse Hagopian
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Black Panther Party history holds vital lessons for today’s movement to confront racism and police violence, yet textbooks either misrepresent or minimize the significance of the Black Panthers.
This local organizing that Panthers engaged in has been erased in the textbooks, yet it is precisely what won them such widespread support. Armed with a revolutionary socialist ideology, as the Panthers grew, so did what they organized around. They fought in Black communities across the nation for giving the poor access to decent housing, health care, education, and much more.
This local organizing that Panthers engaged in has been erased in the textbooks, yet it is precisely what won them such widespread support. Armed with a revolutionary socialist ideology, as the Panthers grew, so did what they organized around. They fought in Black communities across the nation for giving the poor access to decent housing, health care, education, and much more.
What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement After 1965? Don’t Ask Your Textbook
By Adam Sanchez
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Fifty years ago this week, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairperson Stokely Carmichael made the famous call for “Black Power.” Carmichael’s speech came in the midst of the “March Against Fear,” a walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to encourage African Americans to use their newly won right to vote. But while almost every middle and high school student learns about the Civil Rights Movement, they rarely learn about this march — or the related struggles that continued long after the Voting Rights Act.
Why We Should Teach About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement
By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
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On March 8, 1971 — while Muhammad Ali was fighting Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden, and as millions sat glued to their TVs watching the bout unfold — a group of peace activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole every document they could find.
Delivered to the press, these documents revealed an FBI conspiracy — known as COINTELPRO — to disrupt and destroy a wide range of protest groups, including the Black freedom movement. The break-in, and the government treachery it revealed, is a chapter of our not-so-distant past that all high school students — and all the rest of us — should learn, yet one that history textbooks continue to ignore.
Delivered to the press, these documents revealed an FBI conspiracy — known as COINTELPRO — to disrupt and destroy a wide range of protest groups, including the Black freedom movement. The break-in, and the government treachery it revealed, is a chapter of our not-so-distant past that all high school students — and all the rest of us — should learn, yet one that history textbooks continue to ignore.
‘Is This America?’: Sharecroppers Challenged Mississippi Apartheid, LBJ, and the Nation
By Julian Hipkins III and Deborah Menkart
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Fannie Lou Hamer gripped the nation with her televised testimony of being forced from her home and brutally beaten (suffering permanent kidney damage) for attempting to exercise her constitutional right to vote.
“Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings?” she asked the credentials committee at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
“Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings?” she asked the credentials committee at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Missing from Presidents’ Day: The People They Enslaved
By Clarence Lusane
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Schools across the country are adorned with posters of the U.S. presidents and the years they served in office. U.S. history textbooks describe the accomplishments and challenges of the major presidential administrations — George Washington had the Revolutionary War, Abraham Lincoln the Civil War, Teddy Roosevelt the Spanish-American War, and so on. Children’s books put students on a first-name basis with the presidents, engaging readers with stories of their dogs in the Rose Garden or childhood escapades. Washington, D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution welcomes visitors to an exhibit of the first ladies’ gowns and White House furnishings.
Nowhere in all this information is there any mention of the fact that more than one in four U.S. presidents were involved in human trafficking and slavery.
Nowhere in all this information is there any mention of the fact that more than one in four U.S. presidents were involved in human trafficking and slavery.
Our House Divided: What U.S. Schools Don’t Teach About U.S.-Style Apartheid
By Richard Rothstein
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In the current issue of the School Administrator, I write that we do a much worse job of facing up to our racial history in the United States, leading us to make less progress than necessary in remedying racial inequality.
Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington
By Bill Fletcher Jr.
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August 28 marks the anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Publicly associated with Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, this march brought more than 250,000 people to the nation’s capital. The day went down in history as a powerful show of force against Jim Crow segregation. Over time this great event has risen to levels of near mythology. The powerful speech by Dr. King, replayed, in part, for us every January on Martin Luther King Day, has eclipsed all else — so much so that too many people believe that the March on Washington was entirely the work of Dr. King. It is also barely remembered that the March on Washington was for freedom and jobs.