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Sep 30, 2020 • 8 tweets • 7 min read
#tdih 1919 #RedSummer Black sharecroppers met in Elaine, Arkansas to organize for fair pay for cotton. More than 100 of them were massacred by white supremacists. 12 Black men were sentenced to death for the "riots." #terrorism #teachoutsidetextbook zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/elai…
Elaine Massacre 1919. Textbooks barely mention Red Summer, and when they do, they "downplay both racism and Black resistance, while distorting facts in a dangerous 'both sides' framing." Read "If We Knew Our History" essay below by @LadyOfSardines

zinnedproject.org/if-we-knew-our…
"The terrible 'crime' these men had committed was to organize their members into a union for the purpose of getting the market price for their cotton." -- Ida B. Wells in a booklet she wrote called "The Elaine Riot." Read primary doc in full online here: archive.org/details/TheArk… Image
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas provides detailed description with photos and primary docs of 1919 Elaine Massacre and subsequent trial of "Elaine 12" (Black men convicted for massacre by whites). Photo: Elaine 12 attorney Scipio Africanus Jones #tdih Read: encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/e… Attorney Scipio Africanus J...
Read about role of the @NAACP, Ida B Wells, and the Black press (including Chicago Defender) and white press during 1919 Elaine Massacre and trial of Elaine 12 at @BlackPastOnline here blackpast.org/african-americ… Ida B. Wells
Black WWI vets' "achievement and success actually provoked more rage and more vitriol than if they had utterly failed.” -- Adriane Lentz-Smith, author of "Freedom Struggles: African Americans and WWI" via
@SmithsonianMag #ElaineMassacre #tdih 1919 smithsonianmag.com/history/death-…
Teach about impact of 1919 #ElaineMassacre (and so many more) on economic rights and the legacy today of Black dispossession (of land, right to organize, businesses, schools). #Reparations See article & lesson ⬇️ by Linda Christensen of @RethinkSchools zinnedproject.org/if-we-knew-our…
The Elaine Massacre is one of countless massacres in U.S. history designed to suppress voting rights, land ownership, labor rights, education, and more of African Americans. Time to teach about the demand for reparations. See lesson for grades 7+ below.

zinnedproject.org/materials/stud…

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More from @ZinnEdProject

Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
Jan 25
"Our will can create a new America in 1972, one where there’s freedom from violence & war at home & abroad. Where there’s freedom from poverty and discrimination."

#tdih 1972 Shirley Chisholm opened campaign for U.S. President. #TeachOutsideTextbook 🧵
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/shir…
Teach story of Shirley Chisholm in context of long and ongoing history of fight for voting rights & democracy in U.S. by Black women.

Read "Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, & Insisted on Equality for All" by @marthasjones_
zinnedproject.org/materials/vang…
Free lesson ⬇️for gr. 7+, an interactive activity with excerpts from @marthasjones_' book for students to learn about leading role of Black women in fight for voting rights throughout U.S. history. Includes Mary McLeod Bethune in Florida #AllorNothingAP
zinnedproject.org/materials/teac…
Read 4 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
Jan 23
#tdih 1964, Amendment ratified to eradicate poll tax in federal elections. Read ⬇️

Two yrs later, Vernon Dahmer killed for offering to pay poll taxes in Miss. (See 🧵)

#tdih is also birthday of SNCC vet & voting rights organizer Bob Moses (1935 - 2021).
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/24th…
Jan. 1966: Vernon Dahmer said on radio he'd pay Miss. poll tax for anyone who couldn't afford to register to vote.

Next day, Klan firebombed his home, killing Dahmer. His sons, in U.S. military to "defend democracy" overseas, returned home for funeral.
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/vern…
In March 1966, SCOTUS banned poll taxes for state & local elections in 1963 lawsuit initiated by Joseph Jordan Jr., a Norfolk attorney on behalf of Evelyn T. Butts. (Virginia poll tax had been made law in 1902, to reverse Reconstruction era gains.) See ⬇️
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/harp…
Read 5 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
Jan 21
#tdih 1848 "Our nation seems resolved to rush on in her wicked career, though the road be ditched with human blood, and paved with human skulls. Well, be it so." -- Frederick Douglass on U.S. war with Mexico, in North Star editorial
1/4🧵
zinnedproject.org/materials/nort…
"The taste of human blood and the smell of powder seem to have extinguished the senses, seared the conscience, and subverted the reason of the people." -- Frederick Douglass on U.S. war with Mexico 2/4

Editorial read by Benjamin Bratt ⬇️for @vph
vimeo.com/1366819
"Let the press, the pulpit, the church, the people at large, unite at once; & let petitions flood the halls of Congress . . ., asking for the instant recall of our forces from Mexico. This may not save us, but it's our only hope." --Frederick Douglass 3/4
zinnedproject.org/materials/sold…
Read 4 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
Jan 20
#tdih 1870, Hiram R. Revels was elected to serve as senator from Mississippi, becoming first African American to serve in U.S. Senate.

Do you know how many African Americans have served in U.S. Senate to date? #TeachReconstruction
#TeachTruth Read ⬇️
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/hira…
In a white supremacist attempt to prevent Revels from assuming his elected position, his opponents said that despite having lived in U.S. all his life, he could not be seated because Senate required nine years of citizenship. The 14th Amendment had passed only two years earlier.
Attack on Revels, & rights of people of Miss. to representation: part of history of white supremacist voter suppression & attempts to delegitimize elected Black leaders: not seating Julian Bond, Trump's (media fueled) birther campaigns, & more. Lessons ⬇️
zinnedproject.org/materials/teac…
Read 4 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
Jan 11
"Thousands of largely female workers engaged in a successful walkout, standing firm against mill owners, militia, & police. Meetings were translated into nearly 30 languages." -- Robert Forrant on Lawrence, Mass. Bread and Roses Strike, began #tdih 1912 ⬇️
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/brea…
Contrary to standard narrative, Bread & Roses Strike was not a spontaneous walkout. The pay cut was flashpoint, but block-by-block neighborhood organizing had taken place for months in advance of the New Year. Workers were fed up & they were ready. @iww
zinnedproject.org/materials/brea…
"To suggest that 1912 strike started in a flash over a wage cut diminishes purposeful behavior of immigrant laborers who built unity out of diversity. It also diminishes the importance of organized labor and other org. efforts to challenge injustices today. . ." -- Robert Forrant
Read 4 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
Jan 10
#tdih 1966: Vernon Dahmer killed when home (family inside) was firebombed by KKK.

Day before he'd offered to pay poll tax for anyone who could not afford to register to vote. #Terrorism (Year AFTER '65 VRA, still poll tax in local Miss. elections.) 🧵
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/vern…
Four of Dahmer's sons served in U.S. military to "defend democracy," only to have their father murdered in fight for right to vote in US. They came home for funeral. Dahmer active in @NAACP & SNCC ally.

📷 in tweet ⬆️ by Chris McNair (Denise McNair's father) via @JMitchellNews.
"For Mr. Dahmer, voting was only way to move from second class to full citizenship. [As a teenager], I was spellbound as [he talked] about a subject that was so verboten that one could be killed for it." -- SNCC veteran Dr. Joyce Ladner

Read more ⬇️
civilrightsteaching.org/voting-rights/…
Read 9 tweets

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