Posted inEducation

5 free resources for teaching Black history

The Zinn Education Project offers free resources to help educators teach Black history with honesty and depth, connecting past struggles to present-day civil rights issues. From virtual workshops and study groups to lesson plans on systemic racism, the Constitution, and the fight for Black education, the project equips teachers to give students a fuller understanding of African American history and resistance.

Posted inOpinion

Claudette Colvin, MLK, and the erasure of Black women from civil rights canon

Claudette Colvin, a civil rights activist who challenged segregation as a teenager, is pictured years after her historic arrest that preceded the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Julienne Louis Anderson, a lifelong educator, womanist and a fellow of The OpEd Project in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute, argues that Colvin’s story, long excluded from textbooks and curricula, reflects the broader erasure of Black women from the Civil Rights Movement.

Posted inBlack History

Claudette Colvin, who refused to move before the nation was ready, dies at 86

Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus at age 15—months before Rosa Parks—has died at 86. Though her arrest did not immediately spark a boycott, her courage helped lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement, including her pivotal role as a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the Supreme Court case that ended bus segregation in Alabama.

Posted inNational News

Statue of Barbara Rose Johns, Virginia civil rights activist, replaces Robert E. Lee statue in the U.S. Capitol

Virginia officially replaced its statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the U.S. Capitol with a statue honoring Barbara Rose Johns, the teenage civil rights activist whose 1951 student-led protest against segregated schools helped spark the legal fight that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education. The dedication marked a historic moment, recognizing Johns as one of only four Black women represented by statues in the Capitol and symbolizing a broader shift away from honoring Confederate figures toward celebrating champions of justice and equality.

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