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Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Christopher Columbus introduced slavery and colonialism to the Americas, launched a genocide of Indigenous peoples, and waged war on nature. No wonder Donald Trump wrote this year that he wants Columbus to make a “major comeback” in the United States.
But Columbus Day has been toppled, along with statues celebrating his memory. Since the late 1980s, teachers have developed and shared curriculum that helps students learn the truth about the arrival of Europeans in the Americas and to understand the peoples who were here first.
The Zinn Education Project has collected and features some of this curriculum. We hope that teachers of conscience commemorate Indigenous Peoples’ Day by teaching critically about the so-called Discovery of America and about Indigenous struggles past and present.
The People vs. Columbus, et al.
The People vs.Columbus trial has been my most successful and popular lesson.
Not only do students learn the extent of the atrocities committed by Spanish colonizers, they also engage in higher order thinking on the factors that cause historical atrocities to occur.
I LOVE how “the system of empire” is one of the options for students to blame or defend. This has generated some of the most challenging discussions I’ve seen in my class.— Lena Amick, social studies teacher, Baltimore
We’d love to hear from you when you use the lesson. In appreciation for your feedback, we’ll send you a people’s history book.
"The Impact of the Gold Rush on Native Americans of California" provides primary sources, maps, images, and background history to offer teachers and students insight into a little–known but important aspect of one of the most iconic events in U.S. history — the California gold rush. The lesson is part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian Native Knowledge 360° initiative.
As young people study the climate crisis, they can draw ideas and inspiration from stories of Native American resistance on our Climate Crisis Timeline.
Columbus in America is the best and most comprehensive film on the history of Columbus — and the uses and abuses of the so-called discovery of America.
Ultimately, the film is hopeful, as it focuses on how the victims of Columbus and those who came after have themselves targeted “Columbus in America” to assert their humanity, their history, and their rights. The film is free online. Read more.
No Wonder the Right Suppresses Lessons on the Constitution
By Jesse Hagopian in Word in Black
Students are not shrinking from the struggle for democracy — they are rising to it. From the sit-ins and Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights Movement to the Dreamers and climate strikers today, young people have always been at the center of movements for justice.
When teachers invite students to confront contradictions in the Constitution — slavery alongside professed liberty, declarations of democracy alongside disenfranchisement, and amendments vital to freedom won through relentless struggle — they learn that injustice isn’t inevitable, that it has a history, and therefore that it can be undone. That’s exactly why the right tries to silence them. Teaching truth doesn’t make victims. It supports them to become changemakers.
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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