Mykella Palmer 6/28/23 Mykella Palmer 6/28/23

Advanced Ideas About Democracy

Reading by Vincent Harding
Excerpts from Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement, a well-annotated list of historic events for teaching the full story of the Civil Rights Movement.

Josh Davidson 6/28/23 Josh Davidson 6/28/23

Claiming and Teaching the 1963 March on Washington

Reading by Bill Fletcher Jr.
The March on Washington did not begin as a classic civil rights march. It is barely remembered that the March on Washington was for freedom AND jobs, or that the march was initiated by black labor leaders.

Josh Davidson 6/28/23 Josh Davidson 6/28/23

The Haitian Revolution: Central to U.S. History

Reading By Alana D. Murray
For Black people prior to the Civil War, the revolt of enslaved people in Haiti served as a beacon of freedom. These heroic actions of the Haitian revolutionaries resonated well into the 20th century. The events of the Haitian revolution shaped a Pan African identity that influenced the thinking of leaders in the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement.

Josh Davidson 6/28/23 Josh Davidson 6/28/23

Teaching Eyes on the Prize, Teaching Democracy

Reading by Judy Richardson
Richardson shares key insights and considerations for teachers when using the Eyes on the Prize film.

Josh Davidson 6/27/23 Josh Davidson 6/27/23

And the Youth Shall Lead Us

Reading By Allison Acosta, Allyson Criner Brown, and Deborah Menkart
These stories demonstrate that young people have played a lead role ― standing on the shoulders of those who came before them ― throughout U.S. history. It helps dispel the “exceptional” narratives perpetrated by the corporate media when they highlight selected groups and individuals (generally white students) such as the Parkland students and Greta Thunberg. Their important and brave work needs to be presented in a fuller context.

Josh Davidson 6/27/23 Josh Davidson 6/27/23

Literacy and Liberation

Reading by Septima P. Clark
The role of freedom schools and the Highlander Center in breaking down barriers and building leadership in the African American community.

Josh Davidson 6/27/23 Josh Davidson 6/27/23

Elegy for Peter Norman

Reading by Josh Healey
Poem about Peter Norman, the white Australian athlete in the historic protest and iconic photo at the 1968 Olympics.

Josh Davidson 6/27/23 Josh Davidson 6/27/23

Desegregation

Reading by Eloise Greenfield
Poem about desegregation.

Josh Davidson 6/27/23 Josh Davidson 6/27/23

At the River I Stand: The 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Reading by California Newsreel
The documentary film At the River I Stand skillfully reconstructs the two eventful months that transformed a strike by Memphis sanitation workers into a national conflagration, and disentangles the complex historical forces that came together with the inevitability of tragedy at the death of Martin Luther King Jr.

Mykella Palmer 6/27/23 Mykella Palmer 6/27/23

The Politics of Children’s Literature: What’s Wrong with the Rosa Parks Myth

Reading by Herbert Kohl
A critical analysis that challenges the myths in children’s books about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Allison Acosta 3/8/24 Allison Acosta 3/8/24

Murder of Reverend George W. Lee

Reading by Zinn Education Project
Rev. George Washington Lee, one of the first African Americans registered to vote in Humphreys County, Mississippi since Reconstruction, used his pulpit and his printing press to urge others to vote. He was murdered on May 7, 1955.

Josh Davidson 6/26/23 Josh Davidson 6/26/23

SOS — Calling All Black People: Introduction to the Black Arts Movement

Reading by John H. Bracey Jr., Sonia Sanchez, And James Smethurst
The writer and political activist Larry Neal is credited with coining the term "Black Arts Movement" (BAM) to describe the explosion of politically engaged African American art from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s.

Josh Davidson 6/26/23 Josh Davidson 6/26/23

Soul Power and the People

Reading by Jenice L. View
Essay recalling memories of school desegregation in 1968 Washington, D.C.

Josh Davidson 6/26/23 Josh Davidson 6/26/23

Our House Divided: What U.S. Schools Don’t Teach About U.S.-Style Apartheid

Reading by Richard Rothstein
The widespread belief that our continued residential racial segregation, North and South, is “de facto,” not the result of explicit government policy but instead the consequence of private prejudice, economic inequality, and personal choice to self-segregate is false. In truth, our major metropolitan areas were segregated by government action.

Josh Davidson 6/26/23 Josh Davidson 6/26/23

The Limits of Master Narratives in History Textbooks: An Analysis of Representations of Martin Luther King

Reading by Derrick Alridge
A study of how U.S. history textbooks present prescribed, oversimplified, and uncontroversial narratives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that obscure important elements in King’s life and thought.

Josh Davidson 6/25/23 Josh Davidson 6/25/23

Why We Should Teach About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement

Reading by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
Though COINTELPRO offers teachers a trove of opportunities to illustrate key concepts, including the rule of law, civil liberties, social protest, and due process, it is completely absent from most mainstream textbooks.

Josh Davidson 6/25/23 Josh Davidson 6/25/23

SNCC: International Connections

Reading by SNCC Digital Gateway
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, SNCC members were also influenced by the rising tide of liberation movements that followed World War II. As their commitment to the movement increased, they linked their own struggle for civil and human rights at home with anti-colonial struggles in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Josh Davidson 6/25/23 Josh Davidson 6/25/23

The Case for Reparations

Interview of Ta-Nehisi Coates by Audi Cornish
Ta-Nehisi Coates describes how the legacy of slavery extends to geographical and governmental policies in the United States and calls for a "collective introspection" on reparations.

Josh Davidson 6/25/23 Josh Davidson 6/25/23

What Julian Bond Taught Me

Reading by Jeanne Theoharis
Freedom movements don’t just happen, they are made—and not by charismatic leaders, but by everyday people possessing great courage. Reflections on what Julian Bond taught us about how social movements are built and sustained.

Josh Davidson 6/24/23 Josh Davidson 6/24/23

How the Black Panther Party Was Organized

Primary Document by John Hulett
Excerpts from a speech about how the Lowndes County Freedom Organization was organized and why they chose a black panther as their symbol. The speech was given in Los Angeles on May 22, 1966 at a meeting sponsored by a group of anti-Vietnam War committees.

Josh Davidson 6/24/23 Josh Davidson 6/24/23

SNCC Memorandum of Solidarity with the Students of Mexico, October 1968

Primary Document by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee In 1968, students organized to protest the lack of true democracy in Mexico. The tension began in July, but the climax came on October 2, 1968 — 10 days before the Olympic games were to begin in Mexico City. On this date, the police and army fired on thousands of demonstrators. Hundreds were killed, thousands were beaten and jailed, and the government did its best to sweep the incident under the rug.

Julia Salcedo 6/30/23 Julia Salcedo 6/30/23

Radical Equations: The Algebra Project Drawing on the Past: The Roots of Our Movement

Reading by Charles E. Cobb and Bob Moses
The Algebra Project draws on the organizing tradition of the Civil Rights Movement to help young people find their voice and achieve math literacy.