Impact
Teaching the Civil Rights Movement Conference at Howard University
In 1995, Teaching for Change partnered with Poverty & Race Research Action Council and the Howard University History Department to host a full-day conference on teaching about the Civil Rights Movement for 300 D.C. area teachers. The conference featured keynote speakers Bob Moses, Howard Zinn, Suzan Shown Harjo, Sonia Sanchez, and multiple workshops. Read more.
Civil Rights Movement Teaching Guide Published
The first edition of Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching was published in 2004, in partnership with Poverty & Race Research Action Council and with a stellar list of advisors. The book was launched in D.C. at the National Council of Negro Women with Dorothy Height, Jesse Jackson Jr., Eloise Greenfield, and other esteemed speakers.
The second edition was published in 2024 and launched at Busboys and Poets Brookland on October 30, 2024.
Teaching for Change staffer Jenice View and Elementary School Principal Dayo Akinsheye listen to Dorothy Height speak at the Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching book launch, which took place March 31, 2004 at the National Council for Negro Women Headquarters. More book launch photos.
The book received the Philip C. Chinn Multicultural Book Award in 2004 and widespread acclaim, including from John Carlos and Kelly Starling Lyons.
Professional and Curriculum Development
The book led to an invitation by the superintendent of the McComb Public Schools (where SNCC got its start in Mississippi, also known as the church-burning capital of the state during the Civil Rights Movement) to work with his staff beginning in 2006. This led to six years of work in McComb and a statewide effort to teach about the Civil Rights Movement and labor history.
The book has been the catalyst for other presentations, workshops, and institutes, including:
Briefing on the Hill in 2017 at the invitation of Congressman John Lewis
Summer Institute on the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi at Tougaloo College
NEH Summer Institutes on the Grassroots History of the Civil Rights Movement 2018 and 2021
Lessons and Other Resources
Teaching for Change maintains the CivilRightsTeaching.org website and continues to develop new lessons, such as on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and Selma. There are also new popular online resources such as Transportation Protests and a Race and Education Timeline.
Teaching for Change has partnered with the SNCC Legacy Project to bring veterans on virtual visits to classrooms, to add an education section to the SNCC Legacy Project website, and other strategies to get the history of SNCC to classrooms.