Resource Page for 2/6 Meeting:
Empowering education on resistance to white supremacist terror

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Resource page: Empowering Education on Resistance to White Supremacist Terror

This resource page is meant to support educators who are attending our workshop on February 6th, 2021.

Registration Required. You can register for this event at this link.

Please see this blog post for more information.

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First: Build Community in your classroom

We think it is essential to build community and strong relationships in your classroom before diving into tough topics like these with young people. Here are some guidelines for building community in your classroom:

IBWEP Intro to Establishing Community in the Classroom
by Martin Barrera, IBWEP Board Member

Building Community Practices
by Elana Goldbaum, IBWEP Instructional Support Committee Member

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  1. Reconstruction

  1. Background and Context: Understanding White Racial Terror as reaction against Black progress

    1. Southern Violence During Reconstruction via PBS American Experience

    2. The Long History of Southern Terror via Jacobin Magazine

    3. Wilmington Massacre of 1898 (post-Reconstruction but very relevant) via Zinn Education Project

  2. Empowering Resistance to White Supremacist Violence in Reconstruction - Primary Source Handouts: 

    1. Carrying Light and Knowledge: Excerpts from a Primary Source Letter by Edmonia Highgate

    2. The First Class Men of Our Town: Excerpts from Congressional Testimony by Abram Colby

 
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2. Ida B. Wells & The Black Press: “To Tell The Truth”.

  1. Who is Ida B. Wells?

    1. Ida Wells-barnett (1862-1931) via Blackpast.org

    2. Background Reading: “To Sell My Life as Dearly as Possible”: Ida B. Wells and the First Antilynching Campaign. When and Where I Enter by Paula Giddings. Chapter 1 (pdf here).  

  2. Ida B. Wells Primary Sources :

    1. Primary Source Excerpt from Lovecraft Country Lesson #1: Black Women Who Did Not Back Down - Document and Graphic Organizer

    2. Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases 

      1. Southern Horrors Excerpt: Self Help. Excerpt and Reading questions provided

      2. Southern Horrors Quotes & Graphic Organizer

  3. The Black Press:

    1. The Black Press and the Lynching of Mary Turner: 

      1. Background & teaching tool on the murder of Hayes & Mary Turner

      2. Primary Source: Walter White ‘I Investigate Lynchings’ 

        1. Excerpt about investigating Mary Turner’s murder

        2. Contrast: Mary Turner’s case in the Associated Press image via Miami Herald

    2. The Black Press: Recommended Reading: 

      1. Background: Standing Up for the Race via California Newsreel

      2. Primary Source: The Reason via Intimeandplace.org

      3. Primary Source: “Remember Me, Mister” via LOC

      4. Primary Source: Motherhood poem by Georgia Douglas Johnson

      5. Primary Source: NAACP Rubin Stacy Anti-Lynching Flyer

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3. Protest and Political Organizing Against Lynching: NAACP

  1. Primary Source: NAACP HISTORY: DYER ANTI-LYNCHING BILL via NAACP.org

    1. Primary Source: A Man was Lynched Yesterday via LOC

    2. Primary Source: The Shame of America flyer via History Matters at GMU

      3. Protests: 

      1. NAACP Silent Parade 1917 Harlem background and pics via NAACP

      2. NAACP Picket 1934 via LOC

 
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4. Protest and Political Organizing Against Lynching: Communist party USA

  1. Background: The Scottsboro Trial with Flyer via Amistad

  2. Background: The Strange Story Behind the Man Behind ‘Strange Fruit’ via NPR

  3. Recommended Background Reading: 

    1. Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression Chapters 4& 5 in particular. PDF here. 

    2. Communists in Harlem During the Depression by Mark Naison

    3. Black Bolsheviks and white lies by Peta Lindsay

  4. Primary source: “You Cannot Kill the Working Class” by Angelo Herndon excerpts. Full Text via historyisaweapon

  5. Primary source audio: Louise Thompson on the Scottsboro struggle via Liberation School

  6. Primary source: Flyer & background via Amistad Digital Resources 

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5. Artists Against racial violence

  1. Harlem Renaissance 

    1. Primary Source: If We Must Die by Claude McKay

      1. Audio by Claude Mckay here

    2. See: Motherhood poem by Georgia Douglas Johnson

    3. Meta Warrick Fuller

      1. Primary Source: “In Memory of Mary Turner: As a Silent Protest Against Mob Violence”

      2. Biography  

    4. Primary Source: Jacob Lawrence Migration Series: There were lynchings  

    5. Primary Source: Song for a Dark Girl by Langston Hughes

  2. Billie Holiday and ‘Strange Fruit’

    1. Strange Fruit: the first great protest song” via The Guardian

    2. Strange Fruit via Throughline NPR

  3. Present Day: The most powerful art from the #BlackLivesMatter movement, three years in

  4. Present Day: 33 Powerful Black Lives Matter Murals

  5. Present Day: Aja Monet

 
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6. Teaching about Race Riots Race MassacreS

  1. Tulsa Race Riot Massacre

    1. Background Video for Teaching: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 via Emory University on Youtube

    2. Primary Sources: Tulsahistory.org

    3. Primary Source: If We Must Die by Claude McKay

    4. Primary Source: African Blood Brotherhood advertisements 1 & 2 

  2. Rosewood Massacre via Zinn Education Project

  3. Remembering the Black Soldiers Executed After Houston’s 197 Race Riot via PRI

  4. Chicago

    1. Primary source: "Ghastly Deeds of Race Rioters Told": The Chicago Defender Reports the Chicago Race Riot, 1919 via History Matters GMU 

  5. Primary Source: WEB Dubois on Self-defense

  6. International Connections 

    1. Anti-Semitism

      1. Comparing the East Saint Lous Massacre to Pogroms via Teachinghistory.org

      2. Primary sources in: From Jewish Jesus to Black Christ: Racial Violence in Leftist Yiddish Poetry 

      3. Isabel Wilkerson's Caste

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7. Violence and the Civil Rights Revolution

  1. Non-violence v. Self Defense 

    1. Primary Source Video: Stokely Carmichael/ Kwame Ture “Your opponent must have a conscience.”

    2. Recommended Reading Background: This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed by Charles Cobb. 

    3. Recommended Reading Primary Source: Negroes with Guns by Robert F Williams. Background and readings here via Libcom

    4. Recommended Reading: “Recasting Civil Rights Leadership: Gloria Richardson and the Cambridge Movement.”

  2. Primary Sources describing Organizing in the face of Southern Terror in 1950s-60s

    1. Recommended book for Primary Source Stories: Hands on The Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC

    2. Primary source: Angela Davis describing violence in Birmingham in Lovecraft Country Lesson #1 ppt via the Black Power Mixtape. 

    3. Primary Source Excerpts from Lovecraft Country Lesson #1: Black Women Who Did Not Back Down (Fannie Lou Hamer and Gloria Richardson) - Document and Graphic Organizer

    4. Primary Source Treasure Trove: Eyes on the Prize Study Guide via Facing History 

    5. Freedom Riders Documentary via PBS

    6. The Battle of Hayes Pond: Routing the KKK via UNC

      1. Primary Source Video Interviews and Background

 
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8. Police Violence is White Supremacist Violence

“It’s important to understand that the United States was founded as a white supremacist nation, so our laws enforced white supremacy, so those who were sworn to enforce the law were enforcing white supremacy."

  1. Background Interview: An FBI Agent Went Undercover to Study White Supremacists. He’s Now Speaking Out About Racist Police.via Mother Jones

  2. Primary source: “Letter to My Son”, excerpt from Between the World and Me by Ta-nehisi Coates

  3. Primary source: James Baldwin & Nikki Giovanni “A cop is a cop” via youtube

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and Black Power

  1. Primary Source: 10 Point Program of the Black Panther Party

  2. Primary Source: Art of Emory Douglas

    1. Fifty Years Later, Black Panthers’ Art Still Resonates via NYT

  3. Primary source: Power Anywhere Where There’s People via Historyisaweapon

  4. COINTELPRO: Teaching the FBI’s War on the Black Freedom Movement via Rethinking Schools

  5. Assata Shakur

    1. Recommended reading:Assata: An Autobiography of Assata Shakur (pdf here).

Greensboro Massacre

  1. Background Reading: Greensboro Issues Historic Apology for Police Complicity in 1979 KKK and Nazi Massacre

  2. Primary Source photos via Greensboro.com

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This resource was created by classroom educators with the Ida B. Wells Education Project. If this resource was helpful or interesting to you, please consider making a donation to support our work, so that we can continue to bring resources which center empowering Black history to classrooms across the U.S.