Teach for Black Lives

Let’s make teaching for Black lives the norm, not the exception.

The Teaching for Black Lives Campaign helps educators reject racism and anti-Blackness through critical self-reflection in study groups, equips them with classes and curricula that enable the teaching of honest history, and creates a network of collaboration and support for social justice educators across the country. 

Explore the links below to build a toolkit to teach for Black lives.

Monthly Teach the Black Freedom Struggle Online Classes.

The Zinn Education Project offers a series of online classes with people’s historians on the history of the Black Freedom Struggle. Teachers learn directly from leading historians and also interact with peers from across the country. Professional development certificates and ASL interpretation are provided. Listen to excerpts from the classes below and register today!

Teaching Resources

Teaching for Black Lives Book

Emerging from the Black Lives Matter movement, this book highlights the ways educators can and should make their classrooms and schools sites of joy, justice, and liberation in the movement to dismantle anti-Blackness and white supremacy in education. 

Get the book >>
Find supplemental resources >>

Study Groups

The Zinn Education Project supports Teaching for Black Lives Study Groups across the United States. Each study group receives copies of Teaching for Black Lives, a Rethinking Schools, subscription for each participant, access to dozens of workshops and seminars over the course of the year.

Learn about the groups >>
Apply to form a study group >>

Lessons

The Zinn Education Project offers dozens of lessons on the history of the Black Freedom Struggle — from resistance to enslavement to redlining to the ongoing fight for voting rights and reparations.

Read more >>

Online Classes

Our “Teaching the Black Freedom Struggle” online classes offer the chance to learn directly from leading historians and to meet peers from across the country. In each session, a historian is interviewed by a teacher, and participants break into small groups to meet each other, discuss the content, and share teaching ideas. Sessions are designed for teachers and other school staff — but parents, students, and others report loving the classes too.

Learn about classes >>

Teaching for Black Lives Podcast

The forthcoming Teaching for Black Lives Podcast will provide both the historical context and pedagogical strategies for educators to teach about the ongoing Black Freedom Struggle. This podcast will feature educators who have designed and implemented dynamic lessons, as well as leading historians of African American history.

Rethinking Schools Magazine

In addition to the book, Teaching for Black Lives, Rethinking Schools publishes a quarterly magazine dedicated to promoting equity and racial justice in the classroom. Each issue offers new ideas for how educators and communities can make schools sites of joy and justice and dismantle white supremacy and other oppressive structures.

Learn More >>

Snapshots

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Events & Announcements

February 6, 2023 in Events

I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction

Monday, March 20, 2023: In her new book, I Saw Death Coming, author Kidada E. Williams offers a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting readers into the daily existence of formerly…
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February 5, 2023 in Events

Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation

Monday, April 24, 2023: Author Linda Villarosa will discuss her new book, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation. In her new…
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February 5, 2023 in Events

Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War

Monday, May 8, 2023: Author Howard W. French will discuss his most recent non-fiction book, titled Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to…
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