In Nov. of 1863, Sgt. William Walker organized his soldiers to put down their weapons to protest the Union policy of paying Black soldiers a fraction of what was paid to white soldiers. Walker, a formerly enslaved man, served as an officer in 3rd SC Volunteers. 🧵 1/4
Walker & his soldiers said they “would not do duty any longer for $7/month.” Pay was not only area of inequality. Black troops died at three times the rate of white troops b/c they were they assigned the hardest, harshest work duties and often denied access to medical care. 2/4
“For an account of the treatment that has been given to the men of the 3rd Regt S. C. Vols by a large majority of their officers,” Walker declared at his court-martial, “nine-tenths of those now in service there will be my witness that it has been tyrannical in the extreme.” 3/4
#tdih 1864: In a heartbreaking outcome, Walker was convicted of mutiny & killed, one of 19 Union soldiers executed by Union army for mutiny during Civil War, 14 of whom were Black.
Let's be sure to teach about Walker's organizing, words, & bravery. 4/4
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/sgt-…

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More from @ZinnEdProject

10 Jan
#tdih 1966: Vernon Dahmer killed when home (with 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. Came home for funeral. Dahmer active in @NAACP & ally of SNCC.

📷 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 @JoyceLadner9

Read more by Ladner: civilrightsteaching.org/voting-rights/… Head and shoulders of young...Man seated in suit, Vernon ...
Read 9 tweets
8 Jan
#tdih 1811 Over 500 Africans, from 50 nations & speaking dozens of languages, waged a strategic battle for their freedom & to end slavery & white supremacy.

Which side did U.S. troops & territorial militias take?

Read ⬇️ by Leon Waters. @HiddenHistoryLa zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/loui…
And yes, we all know answer to question ⬆️. But as Lerone Bennett Jr. explained in his books, there have been forks in road throughout history & choices made. Nothing inevitable. Helps young people recognize options that exist today and need to organize.
zinnedproject.org/materials/befo…
See the 2019 re-enactment of the German Coast Uprising of 1811, which took place in the river parishes just outside of New Orleans.

Re-enactment envisioned and organized by artist @DreadScottArt, documented by filmmaker John Akomfrah, here: slave-revolt.com Slave Rebellion Reenactment, people walking and on horseback
Read 6 tweets
7 Jan
#Jan6th insurrection was one in long line of violent actions by white supremacists to undermine right to vote &/or election results. #TeachReconstruction
Most textbooks omit advances & history of voter suppression. Read⬇️& see short Reconstruction 🧵
zinnedproject.org/if-we-knew-our…
Important to start with number of Black elected officials and groundbreaking reforms they advanced.

For example, in 1868 Mississippi, interracial gov't provided, for first time, uniform system of free public schools for children regardless of race. ⬇️
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/miss…
Teach about 1868, when in state after state, African Americans, many of them formerly enslaved, gathered with whites, many of them poor & disempowered until Reconstruction, to rewrite constitutions of South.

Brutal backlash to these advances. See 🧵⬇️
zinnedproject.org/if-we-knew-our…
Read 11 tweets
6 Jan
The #Jan6th armed insurrection seeking to overturn the presidential election was not subtle. Neither were the white supremacist vigilantes, paramilitaries, & elected officials who rolled back gains for multiracial democracy during Reconstruction. 1/7 🧵⬇️
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/colf…
Connections between the history of Reconstruction’s roll-back & today — sustained attempts to undermine elections, voter suppression, growth of white supremacist organizations — are hard to miss if — IF — you’ve learned about the Reconstruction Era. 2/7 zinnedproject.org/campaigns/teac…
A report we are releasing next week, analyzing how Reconstruction shows up in state standards — in all 50 states plus D.C. — shows that most states do a dismal job of helping educators teach a robust history of the era. 3/7 zinnedproject.org/news/national-…
Read 7 tweets
6 Jan
"The progress of events has swept away that pseudo-government which rested on greed, pride, & tyranny; and the race whom he then ruthlessly spurned and trampled on are here to meet him in debate, & to demand that the rights which are enjoyed. . . " #tdih 1874 R. Elliott, 1/5 🧵
"by their former oppressors — who vainly sought to overthrow a Government which they could not prostitute to the base uses of slavery — shall be accorded to those who even in the darkness of slavery kept their allegiance true to freedom & the Union." #tdih 1874 Rep R. Elliott 2/5
"What you give to one class you must give to all. What you deny to one class, you deny to all." -- Congressperson Robert B. Elliott of SC (elected #tdih 1870) in 1874 speech to advocate Civil Rights Act. #TeachReconstruction

Read full speech ⬇️ #3 of 5
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/robe…
Read 5 tweets
1 Jan
Jan. 1 #tdih 🧵

#1 Haitian Independence #tdih 1804 "We owe much to Walker for his appeal; to John Brown. . . but we owe incomparably more to Haiti . . . I regard her as original pioneer emancipator of 19th cent. — Frederick Douglass ⬇️ Art: @rlmartstudio zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/hait…
#2 The Emancipation Proclamation took effect #tdih 1863.

Who did it “emancipate”? And who gets credited?

Read “Rethinkin’ Lincoln” by Bill Bigelow of @RethinkSchools ⬇️ #TeachTruth
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/eman…
#3 "History, I have often said, is a clock that people use to tell their political time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography." -- John Henrik Clarke (1/1/1915 – 7/12/1998) Born #tdih More ⬇️
zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/john…
Read 8 tweets

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