Book — Non-fiction. By Bill Fletcher Jr. 2012. 224 pages.
Scholar and labor organizer Bill Fletcher Jr. unpacks the 21 myths most often cited by anti-labor propagandists.
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 8 pages.
Lesson engages students in a lively simulation that helps them experience some of the pressures that lead workers to organize.
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 4 pages.
Students make paper airplanes to learn about the origins and effects of “scientific management,” owners’ attempts to capture workers’ skills and knowledge and then to exploit that knowledge to reorganize work and cut costs by deskilling workers.
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond.
This lesson uses Charlie Chaplin’s hilarious classic film, Modern Times, to help students think about the impact of “scientific management” on the workplace.
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 8 pages.
In this lesson, students re-examine and restructure a burger joint so that it is more democratically and imaginatively operated.
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 14 pages.
In this role play activity, students assume the roles of union members and attempt to figure out how to respond to a threatened plant closure.
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Film. Directed Steven John Ross and written by Candace O'Connor. 1999. 56 minutes.
Archival footage, photographs, and first-hand accounts of sharecroppers — Black and white — organizing in Missouri.
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Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools. 14 pages.
A role play investigating the economic consequences of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
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Teaching Activity. By Adam Renner, Bridget Brew, and Crystal Proctor. Rethinking Schools. 5 pages.
An article describing how math teachers in a San Francisco high school shed light on the ways economics and racism affect education, housing, and job opportunities.
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Teaching Activity. By Katharine Johnson. Rethinking Schools. 10 pages.
An elementary school teacher introduces the history of redlining through a role play designed for 1st and 2nd graders.
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Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 9 pages.
Teaching about patterns of displacement and wealth inequality through the history of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop communities and the building of Dodger Stadium.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Naomi Klein. 2015. 576 pages.
Naomi Klein tackles the war our economic model is waging against life on earth.
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Film. By Avi Lewis. 2015. 90 minutes.
Seven portraits of communities on the front lines of the climate crisis.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Richard Rothstein. 2017. 368 pages.
A history of the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments that promoted racial segregation.
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The end of fighting at the Battle of Blair Mountain, which was the largest example of class war in U.S. history.
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Due to the results of the strength of organized labor and other mass movements of the 1930s, the Social Security Act was passed.
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IWW labor organizer Frank Little was lynched from a railroad trestle.
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White civilians and police killed 46 African Americans and injured many more while burning houses, schools, and churches in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech in opposition to the Vietnam War, calling for a “revolution of values.”
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The Catcher “Race Riot” began in Arkansas, leading to the creation of another sundown town.
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Over 1,100 sanitation workers strike and march for better wages, conditions, and safety with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee.
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White supremacists destroyed the Black town of Rosewood, Florida, and murdered many of its residents. Descendants have fought for reparations and recognition of the history.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Community on the Move for Equality called for a march in Memphis, Tennessee in solidarity with sanitation workers.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Barbara Miner. 2013. 305 pages.
The history of public education in Milwaukee in the context of the broader story of racism in the rust belt.
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Teaching Activity. By Alma Anderson McDonald.
A teacher looks back on her childhood to discover the meaning of environmental racism. Linda Christensen offers ways to teach about this story with students.
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