Josh Davidson 6/30/23 Josh Davidson 6/30/23

What We Want, What We Believe: Teaching with the Black Panthers’ Ten Point Program

Lesson by Wayne Au
Students read the Black Panther Party's 1972 Ten Point Program to understand the conditions the Panthers were attempting to identify and deal with, then analyze their world today and write their own Ten Point Program for social issues they would like to address.

Josh Davidson 6/29/23 Josh Davidson 6/29/23

COINTELPRO: Teaching the FBI’s War on the Black Freedom Movement

Lesson by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca
Through examining FBI documents, students learn the scope of the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign to spy on, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt all corners of the Black Freedom Movement.

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

What We Don’t Learn About the Black Panther Party — But Should

Lesson by Adam Sanchez and Jesse Hagopian
A mixer lesson introduces students to the pivotal history of the Black Panthers.

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

The Rebellious Lives of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Lesson by Bill Bigelow
In this mixer lesson, students learn about Rosa Parks' many decades of activism by taking on roles from various times in her life. In this way, students learn about her radicalism before, during, and long after the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

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 6/24/23 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 6/22/23 Josh Davidson 6/22/23

What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement After 1965? Don’t Ask Your Textbook

Reading by Adam Sanchez
Too often, students are taught that the Civil Rights Movement ended in 1965 with passage of the Voting Rights Act. It didn’t. Adam Sanchez argues that it is essential to teach the long, grassroots history of the Civil Rights Movement in order to help students think about today’s movements for racial justice.

Josh Davidson 6/17/23 Josh Davidson 6/17/23

What We Want

Primary Document By Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael)
Separatism−the determination of a particular group of people to resist assimilating to the majority culture−has a long history in the United States. This excerpt from the “What We Want” speech offers a rationale for the notion of an independent Black community.

Josh Davidson 6/16/23 Josh Davidson 6/16/23

A Documents-Based Lesson on the Voting Rights Act

Lesson by Emilye Crosby
This lesson uses a case study of Lowndes County, Alabama and three SNCC-related documents from the early 1960s—just before and after the Voting Rights Act—to explore the impact of the Voting Rights Act (and 1964 Civil Rights Act) on every day southern Black citizens: What did the legislation mean to them? Did they achieve their goals?

Josh Davidson 6/14/23 Josh Davidson 6/14/23

A Brief History of Black Cooperatives in the United States

Interview of Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard By Mira Luna
For as long as there have been Africans in America, there have been examples of Black social, cultural and economic solidarity. Often formed in response to systemic exclusion and economic stagnation, examples range from mutual aid networks, to freedom farms and grocery cooperatives.

Josh Davidson 6/14/23 Josh Davidson 6/14/23

American Exported Black Nationalism

Reading by Yohuru R. Williams
This essay explores how SNCC and the Black Panther Party contributed to the concept of a worldwide freedom struggle in the late 1960s and how their efforts were received abroad.