Laws & Citizen Rights Archives

Dec. 9, 1867: Georgia Constitutional Convention

The Georgia Constitutional Convention was held with 33 African Americans and 137 white attendees.

Dec. 9, 1872: P. B. S. Pinchback Becomes Governor

P. B. S. Pinchback of Louisiana became the second Black governor in the United States.

Montgomery Boycott Ends | Zinn Education Project

Dec. 20, 1956: Montgomery Bus Boycott Prevails

After a 381-day boycott, a federal ruling declared the Alabama laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional.

Dec. 15, 1791: Bill of Rights Ratified

The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known as the United States Bill of Rights, were ratified.

Jan. 4, 1965: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Challenges Congress

Hundreds of Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party supporters went to support the Challenge to the seating of the Mississippi delegation.

Julian Bond in Mississippi, 1963 | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Jan. 9, 1967: Julian Bond Sworn in Georgia House of Representatives

Julian Bond was finally sworn in as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives.

Jan. 7, 1868: Mississippi Constitutional Convention

The Mississippi Constitution was one of the first pieces of legislation that provided a uniform system of free public education for children regardless of race.

Feb. 5, 1866: Thaddeus Stevens Proposes Land Distribution Amendment

Congressman Thaddeus Stevens offered an amendment to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill to authorize the distribution of public land.

McCarthy State Dep't | Zinn Education Project

Feb. 9, 1950: Sen. Joseph McCarthy Announces “Enemies Within”

Senator Joseph McCarthy delivered a speech at the McLure Hotel during which he claimed to hold a list of known communists in the U.S. State Department.

Feb. 15, 1851: Shadrach Minkins Arrested by U.S. Marshals Under Fugitive Slave Act

U.S. Marshals arrested Shadrach Minkins, who had escaped from slavery in Norfolk, Virginia.

Feb. 18, 1946: Courts Ruled in Favor of the Mendez Family

The courts ruled in favor of the Mendez family and their co-plaintiffs in California, finding segregated schools to be unconstitutional.

Freedmen's Bureau | Zinn Education Project

March 3, 1865: Freedmen’s Bureau Established

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established within the War Department to undertake the relief effort and social reconstruction after the Civil War.

March 10, 1903: African American Leaders Protest Streetcar Segregation

African Americans in Little Rock organized a boycott and “we walk” league to protest the Streetcar Segregation Act.

Radical members of the first South Carolina legislature after the war.

Jan. 14, 1868: South Carolina Constitutional Convention

The South Carolina constitutional convention met with a majority of Black delegates, adopting a constitution that provided for all people regardless of race, economic class, or gender.

Special Field Order No. 15 | Zinn Education Project

Jan. 16, 1865: Special Field Order No. 15

Demands by Black ministers after the Ebenezer Creek Massacre led to the short-lived land distribution during Reconstruction known as Special Field Order No. 15.

Hiram Rhodes Revels (photo) | Zinn Education Project

Jan. 20, 1870: Hiram Rhodes Revels Elected to U.S. Senate During Reconstruction

Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American to be elected to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Aug. 30, 1919: The Knoxville Riot

A group of white people rioted after forming a mob to lynch Maurice Mays, a Black man in custody on for the alleged (with no evidence) murder of a white woman in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Bristol Bus Boycott | Zinn Education Project

April 30, 1963: Bristol Bus Boycott

The Bristol Bus Boycott began in England, inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Feb. 26, 1931: La Placita Raid

Immigration agents raided La Placita Park where they arrested and deported dozens of Mexican Americans.

Thomas Jefferson Advertisement Runaway Slave | Zinn Education Project

Freedom on the Move: Rediscovering the Stories of Self-Liberating People

Digital collection. Crowdsourcing project that provides access to information, through thousands of print advertisements, about freedom-seekers and their would-be enslavers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

People's Grocery Marker (Photo) | Zinn Education Project

March 9, 1892: The People’s Grocery Lynchings

A white mob seized three African American business men in Memphis, Tennessee and lynched them without trial.

Young person at climate justice protest (photo) | Zinn Education Project

Our House Is on Fire — Time to Teach Climate Justice

Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Spring 2019.
For too long, the fossil fuel industry has tried to buy teachers’ and students’ silence. But teaching climate justice has never been more urgent.

Climate Illustration - Schafer | Zinn Education Project

The Young People’s Climate Conference: Teaching Global Warming to 3rd Graders

Teaching Activity. By Rowan Shafer. Rethinking Schools.
A teacher adapts the “Climate Change Mixer” designed for older students as a springboard for a unit on global warming and climate justice. She asks, "How could I bring up an issue so big and abstract, so gloom and doom, with 3rd graders? How could I not?"

Classroom filling with water | Zinn Education Project

Teaching About Climate Change

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 2009. Rethinking Schools.
The environmental crisis requires a profound social and curricular rethinking.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (photo) | Zinn Education Project

March 29, 1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Convicted of Espionage

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of espionage.

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