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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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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Digital collection. Collections as data and machine learning project examining Jim Crow and racially-based legislation signed into law in North Carolina between Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement.
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This month we released a printed edition of our national report, Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction. Thanks to the generous support of a donor, we can mail copies of the report to teacher educators, state and school district policymakers, and staff at historical societies.
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Juneteenth — June 19th, also known as Emancipation Day — is one of the commemorations of people seizing their freedom from slavery in the United States. Yet, if the right wing has its way, it will be illegal to teach students about Juneteenth.
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The Slave Revolt of 1842 — when dozens of enslaved Black people in Webbers Falls, Oklahoma fought back and briefly escaped from their Cherokee overseers — was the largest rebellion of enslaved people in Indian Territory history.
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Teaching Activity. By Mimi Eisen and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 47 pages.
A follow-up lesson to “Reconstructing the South,” using primary source documents to reveal key outcomes of the Reconstruction era.
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A community of armed Black men and women in Christiana, Pennsylvania successfully defended four Black people from capture, serving as a catalyst for further armed self-defense within the abolitionist movement.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Gerald Horne. 2022. 632 pages.
A detailed history of counterrevolutionary forces in Texas state history.
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On Saturday, March 25th, the Zinn Education Project offered a full-day workshop in Brattleboro on teaching Reconstruction.
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Enslaved people on a Santo Domingo sugar plantation owned by the son of Christopher Columbus attempted to free themselves and take over the land in the earliest recorded slave uprising in the Americas.
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In his 1860 speech commemorating radical abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, Frederick Douglass argued that slavery would only end if the slave owner feared the violent retribution of the enslaved.
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This was the largest uprising of the enslaved against their British overseers in Guyana. The uprising was ended after a few days, though it served as a catalyst for the abolition of slavery in British colonies soon thereafter.
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Article. By Ana Rosado, Gideon Cohn-Postar, and Mimi Eisen. 2022. 44 pages.
The report includes assessments of education standards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, along with findings and recommendations for how to improve instruction on Reconstruction.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn, adapted by Rebecca Stefoff with additions by Ed Morales. Translated by Hugo García Manríquez. 2023. 608 pages.
A Spanish translation of the young adult version of the best-selling A People’s History of the United States.
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The first Maine Anti-Slavery Society Convention was held in Augusta.
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The first Colored Convention in Maine was an opportunity for northern Black abolitionists to organize and strategize for racial justice and the freedom of those still enslaved throughout the South.
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While the state of Rhode Island legally abolished slavery in 1652, it wasn’t until 1784 — after mounting public pressure to do away with the enslavement of other human beings once and for all — that the state passed the Gradual Emancipation Act.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Kellie Carter Jackson. 2024. 304 pages.
A reframing of the past and present of Black resistance — both nonviolent and violent — to white supremacy.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Michaël Roy. 2024. 264 pages.
Through a reexamination of archival materials including antislavery newspapers, correspondence, and autobiographies, this book centers children’s participation in the campaign to abolish slavery in the United States.
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Passed in response to the Stono Rebellion, this law made it illegal to teach enslaved people to read or write, aiming to prevent further insurrections.
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Enacted in response to David Walker’s Appeal, this law criminalized the distribution of materials that could incite rebellion to slavery, reflecting fears of literacy empowering resistance.
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Enacted following Nat Turner’s Rebellion, this Virginia law prohibited the education of enslaved and free Black people, seeking to suppress potential uprisings. Several other states enacted similar bans at this time as well.
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One of many anti-literacy laws at the time, this law prohibited the establishment of schools for Black students who were not residents of Connecticut.
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At a rally sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, angry and determined abolitionists burned copies of the Fugitive Slave Act and the U.S. Constitution.
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