Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Black educator, baseball player, and civil rights activist Octavius V. Catto was murdered by a white supremacist on election day.
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Teaching Guide. Edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian, Wayne Au. 2018. Rethinking Schools. 368 pages.
Essays, teaching activities, role plays, poems, and artwork, designed to illuminate the movement for Black students' lives, the school-to-prison-pipeline, Black history, gentrification, intersectional Black identities, and more.
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Black farmers were massacred in Elaine, Arkansas for their efforts to fight for better pay and higher cotton prices. A white mob shot at them, and the farmers returned fire in self-defense. Estimates range from 100-800 killed, and 67 survivors were indicted for inciting violence.
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Burglund students walked out in response to the expulsions of their classmates and the murder of Herbert Lee.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Katie McCabe and Jabari Asim. 2020. 208 pages.
A young readers' adaptation of Mighty Justice: My Life in Civil Rights, the memoir of activist lawyer Dovey Johnson Roundtree.
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Teaching Guide. By American Social History Project with foreword by Eric Foner. 1996.
Primary documents, essays, and questions to teach the untold story of Reconstruction.
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 24 pages.
The U.S. Constitution endorsed slavery and favored the interests of the owning classes. What kind of Constitution would have resulted from founders who were representative of the entire country? That is the question addressed in this role play activity.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Michelle Alexander. Introduction by Cornel West. 2010, updated 10th-anniversary edition released in 2020. 336 pages.
A critical analysis of the role the justice system plays in the oppression of African Americans in the United States.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Marc Mauer and Sabrina Jones. 2013. 128 pages.
Based on the popular book Race to Incarcerate, this graphic adaptation is a key resource to introduce a study of U.S. prison system to middle school readers and above.
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The Black Panther Party sought justice for African Americans and other oppressed communities through a combination of revolutionary theory, education, and community programs.
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The Southern Conference on Race Relations (SCRR) was held in Durham, North Carolina to address dichotomy between African American soldiers fighting overseas in the name of democracy while in the U.S. they were facing racial violence and being denied basic human rights.
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The St. Bernard Parish massacre of African Americans was carried out by white men to terrorize the recently emancipated voters in Louisiana.
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An uprising took place at a Washington, D.C. jail to protest conditions.
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As a sophomore, Paul Robeson was excluded from the Rutgers Football team because another team refused to play against a Black player.
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Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a symbolic protest while the U.S. national anthem was played in the Olympics.
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For the first time, African Americans were elected to the House of Representatives in 1870.
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Successful African American entrepreneur, landowner, and community leader Anthony P. Crawford was murdered by a lynch mob in South Carolina.
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The Chicago Public School Boycott, also known as Freedom Day, was a mass boycott and demonstration against the segregationist policies.
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The NAACP sent to the U.N. a document titled “An Appeal to the World,” to redress human rights violations the United States committed against its African-American citizens.
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The U.S. Justice Department announced that the prison population topped one million for the first time in U.S. history.
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The Supreme Court ruled that schools in the U.S. had to desegregate “immediately,” instead of the previous ruling of “with all deliberate speed.”
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Teaching Activity. By Doug Sherman. Rethinking Schools. 4 pages.
The author describes how he uses biographies and film to introduce students to the role of people involved in the Civil Rights Movement beyond the familiar heroes. He emphasizes the role and experiences of young people in the Movement.
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Teaching Activity. By Bob Peterson. Rethinking Schools. 7 pages.
How a 5th grade teacher and his students conducted research to answer the question: “Which presidents owned people?” Available in Spanish.
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Film. Directed by Alexandra Isles. 2000. 60 minutes.
Documentary about the impact of the McCarthy era on African Americans in the film industry.
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Book — Fiction. By Jewell Parker Rhodes. 2013. 288 pages.
Historical fiction about Reconstruction-era Louisiana through the eyes of a young girl who bridges the divide between the long-time plantation workers and the Chinese indentured servants.
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