Organizing Archives

Suffragist and labor leader Agnes Nestor | Zinn Education Project

Birth of a Rank-and-File Organizer

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 7 pages.
Writing activity for students to complete the narrative of women workers striking at a glove-making factory, exploring possible outcomes.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 20 pages.
Students “become” several of the social groups who participated in the 1934 Longshore Workers Strike — some of whom had to answer the question, “Which side are you on?”

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

Union Maids

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 4 pages.
Activity for students to write from the point of view of one of the women featured in the film Union Maids.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

People taking part in the sit in at the Vestas plant in Newport, Isle of Wight.

Shutdown! — Confronting Plant Closures

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.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

Labor Songs

Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 7 pages.
Students explore the power of songs to build solidarity and increase understanding. This is the final activity from Bigelow and Diamond’s labor history book, The Power in Our Hands, and draws on the other lessons.

Teaching Activity by Norm Diamond

Oh Freedom After While: The Missouri Sharecropper Protest of 1939

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.

Fred Ross

Profile. By Gabriel Thompson. 2013.
Introduction to little-known but influential labor organizer Fred Ross (1910-1992), who trained many activists of note including Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez.

Women in Labor History

Profile. Zinn Education Project. Brief bios of two dozen women of note in the labor movement.

Come Hell or High Water: The Battle for Turkey Creek

Film. By Leah Mahan. 2013. 60 minutes.
Documentary about the impact of “development” on a historically African American community in Gulfport, Mississippi.

Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers

Book — Non-fiction. By Frank Bardacke. 2012. 848 pages.
A reappraisal of the political trajectory of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.

This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer

Book — Non-fiction. By Kay Mills. 2007. 390 pages.
First-hand accounts of Fannie Lou Hamer's emergence as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Risking Everything: A Freedom Summer Reader

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Michael Edmonds. 2014. 250 pages.
Anthology of first hand accounts and primary documents from the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project.

The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement

Book — Non-fiction. By Teri Kanefield. 2014. 56 pages.
Illustrated book of a teenager who led a student walk out to protest substandard conditions at a Virginia high school in 1951.

Victoria Gray and MFDP delegates demonstrating | Zinn Education Project

Sharecroppers Challenge U.S. Apartheid: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Teaching Activity. By Julian Hipkins III, Deborah Menkart, Sara Evers, and Jenice View.
Role play on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) that introduces students to a vital example of small “d” democracy in action. For grades 7+.

Teaching Activity by Deborah Menkart

Freedom Summer

Film. Written, produced, and directed by Stanley Nelson. 2014. 120 minutes.
Documentary about 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi.

Hartman Turnbow

Profile. Hartman Turnbow (March 20, 1905–August 15, 1988), was Mileston, Miss., farmer and fiery orator known for inspiring people during the Civil Rights Movement.

Thunder of Freedom: Black Leadership and the Transformation of 1960s Mississippi

Book — Non-fiction. By Sue [Lorenzi] Sojourner, with Cheryl Reitan. Foreword by John Dittmer. 2013.
Documents the role of unsung heroes in the voting rights struggle in Holmes County, Mississippi.

The Price of Freedom: How One Town Stood Up to Slavery

Picture book. By Dennis Brindell Fradin and Judith Bloom Fradin. Illustrated by Eric Velasquez. 2013.
Story of John Price's escape to freedom with the help of the Oberlin–Wellington Rescue.

Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt

Book — Non-fiction. By Hasan Kwame Jeffries. 2010. 372 pages.
History of the role that activists in Lowndes County played in spurring Black activists nationwide to fight for civil and human rights in new and more radical ways.

On the Road to Voting Rights: Freedom Day in Selma, 1963

Article. By Howard Zinn. Excerpt from Chapter 5 of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.
Howard Zinn’s first-hand account of Selma’s Freedom Day in 1963.

April 15, 1960: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Founding

Founding of the youth-led Civil Rights Movement organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Boycott

Film. By Clark Johnson. 2001. 120 minutes.
Dramatic account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot

Film. Produced by Bill Brummel. Learning for Justice. 2015. 40 minutes.
Documentary about the students and teachers of Selma, Alabama who fought for voting rights.

Stepping into Selma: Voting Rights History and Legacy Today

Teaching Activity. Teaching for Change. 2015. 20 pages.
Introductory lesson on key people and events in the long history of the Selma freedom movement.

SNCC Digital Gateway

Digital collection. Historical materials, profiles, timeline, map, and stories on SNCC’s voting rights organizing.

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