Economics Archives

Our House Divided: What U.S. Schools Don’t Teach About U.S.-Style Apartheid

By Richard Rothstein

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.

Burning Tulsa: The Legacy of Black Dispossession

By Linda Christensen

The author describes teaching about racist patterns of murder, land theft, displacement, and wealth inequality through the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.

The term “race riot” does not adequately describe the events of May 31 - June 1, 1921 in Greenwood, a Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In fact, the term itself implies that both Blacks and whites might be equally to blame for the lawlessness and violence. The historical record documents a sustained and murderous assault on Black lives and property. This assault was met by a brave but unsuccessful armed defense of their community by some Black World War I veterans and others.

Changing the Climate in School

By Bill McKibben and Bill Bigelow

Maybe you’ve heard. We are facing a climate crisis that threatens life on our planet. Climate scientists are unequivocal: we are changing the world in deep, measurable, dangerous ways — and the pace of this change will accelerate dramatically in the decades to come.

Then again, if you’ve been a middle school or high school student recently, you may not know this.

That’s because the gap between our climate emergency and the attention paid to climate change in the school curriculum is immense. Individual teachers around the country are doing outstanding work, but the educational establishment is not.

Fasanella - The Great Strike | Zinn Education Project

One Hundred Years After the Singing Strike

By Norm Diamond

Today’s Occupy movement is a reminder that throughout U.S. history a major engine of change has been grassroots organizing and solidarity. As an old Industrial Workers of the World song goes:

An injury to one, we say’s an injury to all, United we’re unbeatable, divided we must fall. —“Dublin Dan” Liston, The Portland Revolution

Major history textbooks, however, downplay the role of ordinary people in shaping events, especially those who formed labor unions and used the strike to assert their rights. One of the most significant strikes in U.S. history occurred exactly 100 years ago, in the Lawrence, Mass. textile mills, and yet it merits barely a mention in the most widely used U.S. history textbooks.

Oct. 12, 1898: Battle of Virden

A small band of striking coal miners in southern Illinois called out Chicago coal barons and stood their ground at Virden.

Nov. 7, 1837: Elijah Parish Lovejoy Murdered

Minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was murdered by a pro-slavery mob.

The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated the United States

By Richard Rothstein

Racial segregation characterizes every metropolitan area in the United States and bears responsibility for our most serious social and economic problems — it corrupts our criminal justice system, exacerbates economic inequality, and produces large academic gaps between white and African American schoolchildren. We’ve taken no serious steps to desegregate neighborhoods, however, because we are hobbled by a national myth that residential segregation is de facto — the result of private discrimination or personal choices that do not violate constitutional rights.

Nov. 29, 1781: Zong Massacre

During the Zong Massacre, a ship captain ordered that 54 enslaved Africans be thrown overboard and killed.

From the New Deal to the Green New Deal: Stories of Crisis and Possibility

Teaching Activity. By Suzanna Kassouf, Matt Reed, Tim Swinehart, Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, and Bill Bigelow.
The stories of twenty people whose lives were touched by the New Deal of the 1930s come to life in this classroom activity, intended to open students' minds to the possibilities of a Green New Deal.

How the Word Is Passed: Discussion Questions, Writing Prompts, and Teaching Ideas

Teaching ideas and discussion questions for How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith.

workers protesting against Ford Motor Co.

March 7, 1932: Hunger March Against Ford Motors

A hunger march by unemployed workers against Ford Motors.

Dec. 30, 1936: First Sit-Down Strike Begins in Flint

The Flint sit-down strike represented a shift in union organizing strategies from craft unionism (organizing white male skilled workers) to industrial unionism (organizing all the workers in an industry). The sit-down strike changed the balance of power between employers and workers.

We the Elites: Why the U.S. Constitution Serves the Few

Book — Non-fiction. By Robert Ovetz. 2022. 240 pages.
This collection of essays exposes the U.S. Constitution for what it really is — a rulebook to protect capitalism for the elites.

The Sum of Us: How Racism Hurts Everyone (Young Readers’ Edition)

Book — Non-fiction. By Heather McGhee. 2023. 240 pages.
This young readers’ edition analyzes racism in U.S. politics and policymaking, and provides a potential path forward through solidarity.

Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard W. French. 2021. 521 pages.
This sweeping history reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, elision in depictions of African history throughout the last five hundred years.

aerial view of city map, representing different ZIP codes

Cooked: Survival by ZIP Code

Film. Directed by Judith Helfand. 2020. 54 minutes.
This documentary focuses on Chicago’s heat wave to look at how a weeklong tragedy is really a story about the “slow-motion disaster” caused by race and class inequality.

A graphic showing a Black hand, medical equipment, and flowers, along with the words "The People's Hospital"

The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine

Book — Non-fiction. By Ricardo Nuila. 2023. 384 pages.
Tells the story of five uninsured Houstonians who are each struggling with life-threatening ailments and denied critical care until they arrive at Ben Taub Hospital, where they find a crucial model of innovative healthcare.

Jan. 10, 1860: Pemberton Mill Collapse

More than 100 textile workers died when a mill collapsed due to inadequate construction.

Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank

Book — Non-fiction. By Justene Hill Edwards. 2024. 336 pages.
Following the Civil War, tens of thousands of the formerly enslaved deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman’s Bank, but their trust was betrayed when the Freedman’s Bank collapsed within the decade.