We are teaching in dangerous times. The right is suppressing elections, health care, education, urgent climate policies, affirmative action, and human rights.

While book bans make the headlines, the chilling effect of the bans and anti-education laws have an even deeper impact. Our Teaching for Black Lives study groups provide support for teachers in the face of these dire conditions. However, we want to alert everyone to the nature of the repression. What are often reported as individual incidents actually reflect a concerted effort to suppress what students can learn and discuss.

Below are comments from educators about the impact of these laws.

Our school library now looks like a ghost town 😔. — Florida

We are legally not supposed to discuss slavery at all and I teach the Civil War. It’s mind-boggling. — Texas

I'm not allowed to use any texts that are believed to have any LGBTQ or racial content. — Florida

I am an American History teacher. Every lesson I teach is a chance that I will enrage the wrong person and put a target on my back. — Virginia

The new history standards limit the truth being taught about slavery and Native Americans. Books are also being banned. — Virginia

I was scheduled to have a student teacher for the '23–'24 school year. But, due to the fear and backlash from the governor, nine of the student teachers, including the one attached to my class, opted to teach another field/topic. The laws have had a negative impact for our district. — Virginia

An elementary school reading program in my district was cancelled after a complaint was made that it integrated too many “out of the mainstream” social studies topics. — New Hampshire

The law itself is so vague that teachers are concerned about what they are allowed to speak on during class. Parents can bypass the school administration and go straight to the state with any complaints, which creates a sense of fear for many teachers. — New Hampshire

We’ve had to rearrange our library because we had books that were considered “inappropriate” for middle school. It’s scary. — Missouri

We have to send a disclaimer with our syllabus about “controversial topics.” The atmosphere absolutely has changed how I speak in the classroom. — Arizona

We have been informed that parents are always right, so if anyone complains about a book we have on display or use with students, it’s gone, no debate. — Idaho

They have banned the 1619 curriculum that I previously used. — Tennessee

I had to remove the pride flag from my classroom because a parent believed it to be “political” and “inappropriate” to display. — West Virginia

There are hundreds more responses like these ones. There are also teachers and librarians bravely teaching truthfully in the face of this repression. Our session with SNCC veterans (see below) will provide ideas and inspiration.

Lessons from SNCC

How to Defend the Freedom to Learn

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The banning of honest accounts of history and the repression of educators today harkens to the overwhelming challenges the young organizers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) faced in the 1960s. They went behind the “cotton curtain,” where other civil rights organizations said it was too dangerous to organize.

Using popular education and grassroots organizing, they and the local leaders they worked with took on the Klan, whose tentacles were everywhere. They confronted entrenched politicians, powerful newspapers, law enforcement, and businesses — and they effected lasting change.

On Monday, September 11, we invite you to learn first-hand from three SNCC veterans about key tenets of their work that we can draw on today.

Courtland Cox, Jennifer Lawson, and Judy Richardson will also introduce resources to bring that history to the classroom, including the SNCC Legacy Project’s new digital platform, SNCCDigital.org (a collaboration with Duke University), and the documentary that all three appear in, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power.

This class is part of the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online series with people’s historians. Participants learn from the scholar in conversation with a teacher and meet in small groups for discussion. One participant noted,

This is one of the best professional developments I have ever been to, hands-down. I am so grateful. This series gives me hope in this difficult time.

This Week in People’s History

Sept. 11: Attica Prison uprising manifesto, U.S. backed coup in Chile, murder of Myrna Mack in Guatemala, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and more.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup in Chile on September 11, 1973.

Led by General Augusto Pinochet, the coup ousted and led to the death of Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende.

What followed was a brutal, 17-year dictatorship by Pinochet.

Coup in Chile

More #TDIH

Other upcoming days in people’s history include, a 1941 rally against police brutality in Washington, D.C., the governor’s closing of Little Rock Public Schools in 1958, and the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in 1963.

Conferences and Classes

for Social Justice Educators

Check out the list of upcoming events hosted by the Zinn Education Project and our colleagues — including the Zinn Education Project Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online series and the 16th Annual Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference.

Events Calendar

We Need Your Help

Teachers are under attack for teaching truthfully about U.S. history. Please donate so that we can continue to offer free people’s history lessons and resources, and defend teachers’ right to use them.

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