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8 Apr, 4 tweets, 2 min read
#tdih 1911, Alabama Banner Mine explosion killed 128 men, almost all African American prisoners of state. Many serving time for misdemeanors — often on trumped up charges to meet state quotas for convict labor. #teachoutsidetextbook
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/bann…
The use of convict labor in Alabama mines was in response by the owners to earlier efforts by miners to join labor unions and strike for higher wages & better working conditions.

Those safer working conditions might have prevented the Banner explosion and other mine disasters.
State colluded with mine owners to protect their profits instead of rights of workers for health & safety.

Men effectively sentenced to enslavement and death through convict leasing. See "Slavery by Another Name" by Sam Pollard, @douglasblackmon, et al. zinnedproject.org/materials/slav…
Criminal justice system continues to effectively sentence people to death w/racist sentencing, cost of bail, & more. COVID has amplified crisis.

Break silence about prisoners in curriculum & media.

One resource: YA version of "Just Mercy" via @eji_org zinnedproject.org/materials/just…

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More from @ZinnEdProject

Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
9 Apr
Paul Robeson, born #tdih 1898 was one of the most important figures of the 20th century.

He was a “renaissance man” — a lawyer, intellectual, cultural scholar, author, speaker, actor, singer, athlete, and internationally-renowned political activist. zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/paul…
In photo above: Paul Robeson and others in 1951, submit “We Charge Genocide: Historic Petition to U.N. for Relief from a Crime of U.S. Government Against the Negro People,” documenting lynchings & clear pattern of U.S. gov't. inaction or actual complicity. zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/we_c… We Charge Genocide petition
Take just two minutes to learn a LOT more about Paul Robeson in this short video by Howard University Professor Greg Carr. @AfricanaCarr (Learn even more from Carr every Saturday on @inclasswithcarr)

Read 5 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
8 Mar
50th anniversary. #tdih 1971 A cab driver, day care provider, and two professors broke into FBI office in Media, Penn. & stole docs that exposed COINTELPRO campaign to disrupt and destroy a wide range of activist groups, especially civil rights orgs. zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/coin…
Despite massive FBI campaign to find "burglars" of Media, Penn. office who exposed COINTELPRO, their identities remained secret until they came forward in 2014. See ⬇️ on @democracynow. For lessons on #CivilDisobedience

Watch @1971film by @JHamilton71. democracynow.org/2014/1/8/it_wa…
Textbooks ignore this role of FBI in U.S. history, but it’s essential background to understand what’s happening today.

HS teacher Ursula Wolfe-Rocca wrote a lesson drawing on COINTELPRO primary docs.

Free. See ⬇️ for grades 7+ to #TeachOutsideTextbook zinnedproject.org/materials/coin…
Read 6 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
7 Mar
#tdih 1965 People began march from Selma to Montgomery in protest of police murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson and violation of const'l rights to vote. Attacked by state troopers.

Read long history of organizing & repression, incl. with HS students ⬇️ #SNCC zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/bloo…
Jimmie Lee Jackson, civil rights activist & Baptist church deacon, was shot by state troopers in Marion, Ala. in Feb., during peaceful voting rights march. His murder was catalyst for Selma to Montgomery march, attacked by troopers on Bloody Sunday. #tdih zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jimm…
Textbooks focus on segregation with CRM -- but students should learn that demands were also for end to police violence. Incl. African Americans exercising right to vote often brutally attacked by police.

Below is a lesson for grades 7+. #BlackLivesMatter zinnedproject.org/materials/riot…
Read 6 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
6 Mar
#tdih 1857 The Supreme Court declared in the horrific Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling that "Any person descended from Africans, whether enslaved or free, is not a citizen of the United States." #teachoutsidetextbook zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/dred…
Often left out of the traditional narrative is Harriet Scott, who filed a petition for freedom at the same time (April 6, 1846) and with same lawyer as her husband Dred Scott. They were both deeply concerned for their two daughters (Eliza and Lizzie, below). #WomensHistoryMonth Eliza and Lizzie, the daugh...
Also, note that Harriet and Dred Scott met at Fort Snelling in what is now the state of Minnesota. This counters myth of slavery being limited to the South and plantation owners.

The Scotts were enslaved on a U.S. military base by U.S. Army officers. zinnedproject.org/materials/comp…
Read 5 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
2 Mar
#tdih 1955 "I could not move, because history had me glued to the seat. . . Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder & Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on another, & I could not move. — Claudette Colvin, #BlackHistoryMonth zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/clau…
At 15, Claudette Colvin had been politicized by false arrest & torture of her classmate, poet Jeremiah Reeves . . . she refused to move on bus. "'We’d been studying Constitution [in school #BHM] . . . I knew I had rights.'” -- Read: rosaparksbiography.org/bio/claudette-… via @JeanneTheoharis Jeremiah Reeves
Colvin’s case went to trial in May. The judge strategically dropped two charges (for disturbing peace and breaking the segregation law), found her guilty of assaulting officers. Therefore, appealing her case could not directly challenge the segregation law. -- @JeanneTheoharis
Read 5 tweets
Zinn Ed Project Profile picture
1 Mar
#tdih 1874 Describing themselves as defenders of a “hereditary civilization and Christianity,” a group of Confederate veterans in La. formed the White League.

Stated purpose was restoration of white supremacy. #terrorism 1/4 [📷 teacher murdered by WL]

zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/whit…
The paramilitary group operated openly to eliminate the Reconstruction government by targeting local Republican officeholders for assassination and terrorizing freed people to keep them from voting, political organizing, and getting an education. #TeachVotingRights history. 2/4
Julia Hayden, a 17-year-old schoolteacher, was shot to death by White League within three days of starting to work at school for freed people in Hartsville, Tenn. in fall of 1874. #TeachReconstruction (See her image and find link to news story in first tweet in this thread.) 3/4
Read 4 tweets

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