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Defy the Oligarchs

Teach Truth

How are we going to build a society to meet human needs and not just enrich the few? By teaching the truth about history. Wipe away the lies. Equip students with the tools to recognize and challenge oppression.


Jesse Hagopian shared these timely thoughts in a conversation with Rethinking Schools executive director Cierra Kaler-Jones about his new book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education.


In the audiogram below, Hagopian explains how book bans and attacks on educators are divide-and-conquer tactics used by the right during the McCarthy era to silence movements for justice and suppress the crucial lessons of history.

Event Recording

Dr. Gloria Ladson Billings is one of hundreds of individuals who signed a call on the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) to correct the record and issue a public apology to Dr. Suzanne Barakat and Prof. Ruha Benjamin, unfairly smeared for their invited remarks at NAIS’s People of Color Conference. The two Zinn Education Project coordinating organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change, have also signed on along with dozens more organizations. Join us. As noted in the letter:


NAIS President Debra Wilson jeopardized the safety of the speakers and undermined the conference’s commitment to equity and justice by irresponsibly framing their remarks as “divisive” and mischaracterizing their credibly cited critiques as antisemitic. These failures have emboldened those who weaponize intimidation and hate to silence differing views, and reduced the public reporting on the PoCC to a reflection of the very injustices it was created to confront.

Sign Letter

13th Amendment

In teaching about the wildfires in Los Angeles, include the role of incarcerated labor. The cartoon by Benjamin Slyngstad can serve as a discussion prompt.


As reported on Democracy Now!,


Nearly a thousand of the firefighters deployed to help contain the devastating fires [in and around Los Angeles] are incarcerated. They have been working around the clock while earning as little as between $5.80 to $10.24 a day.

Read More

Share Your Teaching Story

Receive a Book

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Thanks to donations from publishers and authors, we can offer free books in appreciation for your teaching stories. The books include Will’s Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes and The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography by John Swanson Jacobs and edited by Jonathan D. S. Schroeder.

Free Books

Vote for ZEP on CREDO

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The Zinn Education Project is one of CREDO’s grant recipients for January. Your vote determines our share of the donation.


This funding allows us to continue to offer free people’s history lessons to teachers and students — lessons on Reconstruction, policing, climate change, Palestine, voter suppression, reparations, and more. CREDO funding also allows ZEP to defend the right to teach honestly in the face of anti-history education laws.

Vote for ZEP

Events

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Check out events hosted by the Zinn Education Project and our colleagues, including Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action (Feb. 3–7), SNCC & Grassroots Organizing (Feb. 7–8), Reconstruction Robbery: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank (Feb. 10), Solidarity 2025: Public School Strong Training Series (Feb. 12 and more dates), Voices of a People’s History: I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like (Feb. 20), 2025 Yale and Slavery Teachers Institute (application deadline Feb. 21), NCSS 2025 call for proposals (Feb. 28 deadline), and more.

More Events

Social Media

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Follow our new Bluesky account. We are also on Instagram and Facebook.

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Donate Today

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Teachers are under attack for teaching truthfully about U.S. history. Please donate so that we can continue to offer free people’s history lessons and resources, and defend teachers’ right to use them.

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PO BOX 73038, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20056 

202-588-7205 | zinnedproject.org


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