A judge in Norfolk, Virginia, sentenced a white woman, Margaret Douglass, to one month in jail for teaching free Black children to read.
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In 2021, two new Democratic lawmakers from Georgia were elected to the U.S. Senate, one of whom is only the 11th African American senator in U.S. history.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Candacy Taylor. 2022. 272 pages.
This book chronicles the history of the Green Book, which was published from 1936 to 1966 and was the “Black travel guide to America.”
Teaching Activity by Candacy Taylor
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Book — Non-fiction. By Selene Castrovilla. Illustrated by E. B. Lewis. 2022. 40 pages.
A Civil War story about a man who seizes his freedom from slavery and teams up with a Union general to save a Union fort from the Confederates.
Teaching Activity by Selene Castrovilla (Illustrated by E. B. Lewis)
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Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Peter Cole. 2021. 352 pages.
This biography details the life of Black IWW organizer Ben Fletcher and the working class struggles he took part in.
Teaching Activity by Peter Cole (editor)
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Book — Non-fiction. By the W. E. B. Du Bois Center at University of Massachusetts Amherst. 2018. 144 pages.
W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits is an informative and provocative history, data, and graphic design book first presented at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
Teaching Activity by by the W. E. B. Du Bois Center at University of Massachusetts Amherst and edited by Whitney Battle-Baptiste and Britt Rusert
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow, Adam Sanchez, and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Article by Adam Sanchez. 2022. Rethinking Schools
A role play about the demise of Reconstruction that helps students get beyond the question “Was Reconstruction a success or failure?”
Teaching Activity by By Adam Sanchez, Illustrator: Nate Kitch
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Entrepreneur Claude Albert Barnett launched the Associated Negro Press, or ANP, a nationwide and international news service that focused on current events, feature stories, opinions and other information important to African Americans but usually ignored by or unknown to white-owned mainstream media.
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A camp warden and guards shot dead seven prisoners being held at the Anguilla Prison in Georgia. The Anguilla Prison Massacre Quilt Project tells that story, drawing on records from the NAACP.
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Thousands of Black leaders gathered to create a cohesive political strategy at the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana.
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The West Point Cemetery in Norfolk, Virginia was established to provide a burial area for Black soldiers and sailors who fought to preserve the Union.
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Freedom’s Journal was the first African American owned and operated newspaper in the United States.
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The Carroll County Courthouse Massacre left 23 Black people dead when an armed white mob attacked an ongoing trial.
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Prompted by South Carolina’s all-white political primary system, civil rights advocate Modjeska Monteith Simkins wrote a letter to Governor Olin D. Johnston of South Carolina challenging him to a debate on white supremacy.
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Henry E. Hayne was the first Black student to be accepted to the University of South Carolina’s medical school, a bold act which encouraged other Black students to apply. By 1875, Black men comprised the majority of the student body.
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Profile.
Summer initiative to register African American voters in Mississippi.
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Approximately ninety-six Africans held captive on the British slave ship Little George revolted against the ship’s captain and crew, eventually taking control of the entire ship.
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Book — Non-fiction. By V. P. Franklin. 2021. 328 pages.
This books tells the story of the hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers who engaged in sit-ins, school strikes, boycotts, marches, and demonstrations in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other national civil rights leaders played little or no part.
Teaching Activity by V. P. Franklin
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Freedom fighter Takiyah Thompson looped a bright yellow strap around the neck of a Durham, North Carolina monument to Confederate soldiers, and a crowd of other activists pulled it down, inspiring other communities to take direct action in removing public symbols that glorify white supremacy, and to raise up new stories that celebrate all people.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Robert Whitaker. 2009. 386 pages.
The story of the 1919 Elaine massacre in Hoop Spur, Arkansas.
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Teaching Guide. Presented by Ra Vision Media & Know Your Rights Camp. 2022. 85 pages.
In conjunction with the Netflix series of the same name, this teaching guide provides students with resources and activities to understand and address systemic and institutional racism.
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, forbidding discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public spaces, was unconstitutional and not authorized by the 13th or 14th Amendments of the Constitution.
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To facilitate bringing the Seizing Freedom podcast to the classroom, we are sharing teaching ideas for selected episodes, beginning with "A Powerful Black Hand."
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Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 25 pages.
Students engage in an interactive activity with short excerpts from Martha Jones’ book to learn about the leading role of Black women in the fight for voting rights throughout U.S. history.
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Digital collection. Documents that help explain how Black people traversed the bloody ground from slavery to freedom between the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 and the beginning of Reconstruction in 1867.
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