Free people's history lessons, books, and classes.
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Coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.
Black History Month 100
In our Teach the Black Freedom Struggle class on Black History Month, historian Jarvis Givens challenged the common refrain that “we got the shortest month.” He explained,
No, we didn’t get anything. We created this for ourselves. That narrative participates in the erasure of the labor of ordinary Black people and Black scholars who were intentional in organizing and crafting this tradition.
Givens described how the censorship we see today of Black historyin schools and public places has been constant. For example, a Klan-affiliated white school board in Oklahoma banned the use of Carter G. Woodson’s Black history textbook in 1925 because it described how African Americans fought back during Red Summer. Learn about this story and more in the full recording of the class.
With colleagues, listen to this short audiogram from Jesse Hagopian and Cierra Kaler-Jones’s interview with Jarvis Givens. Reflect on what Givens means when he says, “Black history is descriptive, corrective, and prescriptive.”
Radio Diaries has produced a new series on Isaac Woodard Jr., a Black army sergeant who was beaten by a white police officer in 1946 in South Carolina. Woodard was blinded in both eyes.
The NAACP shared his case in their national campaign against the racist treatment of returning WWII soldiers.
Radio Diaries invited the Zinn Education Project to share this story with teachers and students.
Please share stories about the impact of anti-history education laws, executive orders, the chilling effect in your school or school district, and whether or how educators and communities are resisting this repression. This will help the wider public understand how education is being censored and how some school districts are responding by defending the freedom to learn. We’ll send you a book in appreciation for your time.
Add these events, hosted by the Zinn Education Project and our colleagues, to your calendar. Online unless noted otherwise.
On Monday, February 23, at 7pm ET, Jesse Hagopian will facilitate a curriculum workshop on “Legalize Black Education,” a Zinn Education Project lesson that explores examples of laws that suppress Black education in the wake of major victories for the Black Freedom Struggle, highlighting the historical context and motivations behind these legislative efforts. There will be time to meet other social justice educators in small groups to brainstorm ways to adapt the lesson for your classroom.
Join Rethinking Schools on March 12 at 7pm ET for a discussion and celebration of I Didn’t Come Here to Lie: My Life and Education, the memoir of Karen Lewis, the brilliant former president of the Chicago Teachers Union. The webinar will feature Rethinking Schools’ executive director Cierra Kaler-Jones and editor Jesse Hagopian in conversation with historian Elizabeth Todd-Breland. The conversation will also explore the power of teacher unions in fighting fascism.
The annualNative Knowledge 360° Teach-In, hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in collaboration with Teaching for Change on March 14, is an online opportunity for educators to access classroom resources from NMAI’s Native Knowledge 360° education portal, the Zinn Education Project, and more.
The curriculum fair is a day-long popular education and organizing space with teachers’ social justice curriculum exhibits, workshops, resources and books, and a keynote.
Lunch and childcare are provided.
The New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) is hosting a convening in downtown Brooklyn on March 28 with the theme Pa'lante: Weaving Past, Present & Future.
There will be workshops and a keynote address, with breakfast and lunch provided.
This is one of the best professional developments I have ever been to, hands-down. I am so grateful. This series gives me hope in this difficult time.
Join us this summer for a virtual Teaching for Black Lives study group. Each participant will receive a Teaching for Black Lives book and a one-year subscription to Rethinking Schools magazine.
Pre-K–12 educators will explore how to teach about racism, resistance, and joy. We will meet at 4 pm PT/ 7 pm ET on Tuesdays: June 23, June 30, July 14, and July 21.
Teachers are under attack for teaching truthfully about U.S. history. Please donate so we can continue to offer free people’s history lessons and resources, and defend teachers’ right to use them.
