People's Historians Podcast: Recent Episodes
Zinn Education Project
Welcome to the People’s Historians Podcast from the Zinn Education Project. In light of the popularity of our online mini-classes centered around teaching the Black Freedom Struggle, we’ve converted our online sessions to a podcast with the hope of increasing the teaching of Black lives in the classroom and beyond.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our hosts, Jesse Hagopian and Cierra Kaler-Jones speak to Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò about his book Reconsidering Reparations. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Jessica Rucker speaks to Julius B. Fleming Jr. about the role of Black theater in the Black Freedom Struggle and the concept of “Black patience.” Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host Rethinking Schools executive director Cierra Kaler-Jones and Rethinking Schools co-editor Jesse Hagopian speak to Heather McGhee about The Sum of Us: How Racism Hurts Everyone, the young readers’ edition of her bestselling book. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our hosts educators Jesse Hagopian and T. J. Whitaker spoke to historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad about his book The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America, which examines the idea of Black criminality in the making of modern urban America. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our hosts Rethinking Schools executive director Cierra Kaler-Jones and Rethinking Schools co-editor Jesse Hagopian speak to historian Michael Hines about his book, A Worthy Piece of Work: The Untold Story of Madeline Morgan and the Fight for Black History in Schools. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Jesse Hagopian speaks to historian Blair L. M. Kelley about her book, Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class. Read about the event and find related resources
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, educator Jessica Rucker speaks with Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) veterans Courtland Cox, Jennifer Lawson, and Judy Richardson. They discussed the SNCC Legacy Project and lessons that can be learned from SNCC today. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian and Rethinking Schools executive director Cierra Kaler-Jones speak to Kimberlé Crenshaw, a brilliant scholar and writer on civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, intersectionality, race and racism, and the law. The two discuss the importance of teaching truthfully about U.S. history and why teaching this history is being criminalized today. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian speaks with career foreign correspondent and global affairs writer Howard W. French about his 2021 book, Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian speaks with Pulitzer Prize finalist Linda Villarosa about her 2022 book, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation, where she exposes the persistent racism in the U.S health-care system. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Prentiss Charney Fellow Jessica Rucker speaks with historian Kidada E. Williams about her 2023 book, I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction. The book offers a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting readers into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people and the white supremacist terror they faced after emancipation. Drawing on a deep reading of the archives, Williams offers a revelatory and, in some cases, minute-by-minute record of nighttime raids and Ku Klux Klan strikes. And she deploys cutting-edge scholarship on trauma to consider how the effects of these attacks would linger for decades — indeed, generations — to come. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian speaks with historian Jeanne Theoharis about Rosa Parks’ activism prior to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, her trip to the Highlander Folk School, and the decades she dedicated to challenging racism in the North. This session includes clips from the new documentary The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, based on the book of the same name by Theoharis. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian speaks with historian Dayo Gore about Black women radicals active in the revolutionary struggle during the Red Scare.
They also discuss Gore’s book Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, historian Jeanne Theoharis speaks with historian Matt Delmont about his book, Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad, which tells the stories of how Black people fought racism at home and abroad during World War II.
Thanks to Delmont’s generosity, every teacher who attended the Teach the Black Freedom Struggle class received a copy of the book. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Zinn Education Project leadership team member Cierra Kaler-Jones speaks with author Ashley Farmer about the life of Queen Mother Audley Moore, an important proponent of Black Nationalist thought, reparations, and activism.
In addition to discussing Farmer’s book on the life of Queen Mother Moore, Farmer shared stories from her book Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Zinn Education Project leadership team member Cierra Kaler-Jones speaks with historian Alaina Roberts about the Reconstruction-era connections between Black freedom and Native American citizenship in the context of westward expansion on Native land.
They discuss Roberts’ book, I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land, which draws on archival research and family history to upend the traditional story of Reconstruction. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our hosts, sports historian Dave Zirin and Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian spoke with several guest speakers about the life and legacy of Howard Zinn, whose 100th birthday was commemorated in August 2022.
Guest speakers included Martín Espada, Kidada E. Williams, Myla Kabat-Zinn, Imani Perry, Alice Walker, Lauren Cooper, Bill Bigelow, and Anthony Arnove. The event was co-sponsored by the Howard Zinn Trust, Tamiment Library at New York University, and Busboys and Poets. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, historian Nancy Raquel Mirabal, speaks with historian Kelly Lytle Hernández about the magonistas, insurgents who challenged Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz and U.S. imperialism in the early 20th century.
They discuss Hernández’s book, Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands, which tells the story of the magonistas and their leader, Ricardo Flores Magón. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian speaks with historian Kidada E. Williams about the imaginative, defiant ways that Black people sought and enacted freedom throughout U.S. history.
They discuss Williams’s podcast, Seizing Freedom, which brings to life voices that have been muted time and time again. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Rethinking Schools co-editor Jesse Hagopian speaks with historian Johanna Fernández about the history of the Young Lords, the Puerto Rican counterpart of the Black Panther Party.
They discuss Fernández’s book, The Young Lords: A Radical History, which highlights the multiracial dimensions, innovative urban strategies, and global solidarities of the Black Freedom Struggle. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Rethinking Schools co-editor Jesse Hagopian speaks with journalist Vikki Law about the root causes and outcomes of mass incarceration.
They discuss Law’s book, “Prisons Make Us Safer”: And 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration, an essential resource on master narratives about imprisonment. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Zinn Education Project leadership team member Cierra Kaler-Jones speaks with historian Martha S. Jones about the role of Black women in the long and ongoing fight for voting rights.
They discuss Jones’s book, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, which utilizes storytelling to illustrate African American women’s significance in both local and national politics. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Jesse Hagopian, a high school teacher, speaks to Brooklyn College Professor of Political Science and author, Dr. Jeanne Theoharis, about her recent article, Martin Luther King Knew That Fighting Racism Meant Fighting Police Brutality.
Theoharis speaks about the white-washing of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the intricate connections between his life’s work and the issue of police violence against Black people. Theoharis also talks about the white media’s approach to talking about racism, eliminating much of its context and significance, particularly outside the South. She also grounds the conversation in the difficulties of being an educator and the importance of community during these times. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our hosts, educators Jesse Hagopian and Cierra Kaler-Jones, speak to assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Jarvis Givens, about his book, Fugitive Pedagogy: CG Woodson & the Art of Black Teaching.
Givens discusses the central role of African American educators in the Black Freedom Struggle and their tradition of fugitive pedagogy to smuggle in the truth about Black history–including studies of the Haitian revolution, maroons in Suriname and Jamaica, Reconstruction, and more– into school systems dominated by white supremacy. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Jesse Hagopian, a high school teacher, speaks to The Nation sports editor and host of the Edge of Sports Podcast, Dave Zirin, about his book, The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World.
Zirin talks in-depth about the “Kaepernick Effect” and the similarities between the NFL quarterback’s protest and the legendary Olympic medal stand protest in 1968, and the countless actions they inspired. Zirin shares some of the stories he came across during the writing of the book, including high school students and specifically Black girls. Zirin also discusses the consciousness of younger people, their political awakening, and how the 2020 uprising influenced these dynamics. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Jessica Rucker, a high school teacher, speaks to Teach Reconstruction campaign advisor and Northwestern University history professor Kate Masur about her book, Until Justice be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, From the Revolution to Reconstruction.
Professor Masur goes into detail about the nation’s first push for civil rights in the 19th century, specifically in the Northern states from African Americans and their white allies. This activism in the 1850s dovetailed with the rise of the new Republican Party. The Northwestern professor also discusses the violence launched by white reactionaries, attempting to defeat Black advances. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, from our series on Teach the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Jesse Hagopian, a high school teacher and Rethinking Schools editor, facilitates a conversation between authors Jeff Chang and Dave “Davey D” Cook on their new young adult version of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Hip-Hop History.
Chang and Davey D catalogue the role of urban policy, marginalization of Black and Brown youth in places like New York and Los Angeles, and how that influenced both the politics and the development of hip-hop. The struggle for Black Power played a direct role in shaping the music from its onset. Our guests also discussed how hip-hop shapes both the movement for Black lives and why young people should learn about the history, aesthetics, and politics of hip-hop. Read about the event and find related resources.
In this episode, our host, Tiffany Mitchell Patterson, an assistant professor of secondary social studies at West Virginia University, interviews historian Martha Jones of The John Hopkins University to deconstruct how we understand citizenship for Black Americans.
Jones moves from before the Civil War through Reconstruction to the present, tackling the evolution of voter suppression, and revealing the tenacity of white supremacy. She addresses Black women’s roles in organizing during the fight for women’s suffrage.
This episode addresses themes of our campaign to Teach Reconstruction and to teach about voting rights on this 150th anniversary of the 15th Amendment — coinciding with one of the most important elections in U.S. history.
People's Historians online mini-series - Black Freedom Struggle.
Music from Rose City Kings from Free Music Archive.
In this episode, our host, Adam Sanchez, a high school teacher and Rethinking Schools editor, interviews historian Manisha Sinha to address the interracial radical abolition movement of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Sinha emphasizes the impact of Black abolitionists, particularly those who escaped enslavement — like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Wells Brown, and James W.C. Pennington — who radicalized the movement by introducing more militant tactics. She connects the past to the present by discussing the significance of the word abolition in today’s movement for Black lives.
This episode addresses themes of our campaign to Teach Reconstruction.
People's Historians online mini-series - Black Freedom Struggle.
Music from Rose City Kings from Free Music Archive.
In this episode, initially recorded on May Day, our host, Jesse Hagopian, a high school teacher and Rethinking Schools editor, interviews historian Jeanne Theoharis to address Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s positions on oppression in the North, police brutality, the Memphis sanitation workers, reparations, the Poor People’s Campaign, and more.
Theoharis describes the sanitization of Dr. King and his legacy, challenging the narratives in textbooks. She also addresses the radical influence of Coretta Scott King.
People's Historians online mini-series - Black Freedom Struggle.
Music from Rose City Kings from Free Music Archive.
In this episode, from our series on the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Jesse Hagopian, a high school teacher and Rethinking Schools editor, introduces scholar-activist Mary Phillips and historian Robyn C. Spencer, who discuss how Black women transformed the Black Panther Party.
Spencer and Phillips describe the role of Black women in the Black Panther Party as an outgrowth from their long-standing family activism. Many Black women made sacrifices as they balanced motherhood and community organizing. Our guests also tackle how Black women played a central role in delivering the message of the party through art.
Link to images discussed: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1utU7UbzctFFzs2azaG6NBhDClvHHGxduI8CgwT41pM8/edit?usp=sharing
Music from Rose City Kings from Free Music Archive.
In this episode, from our series on the Black Freedom Struggle, our host, Jessica Rucker, a D.C. high school teacher, interviews historian Greg Carr to challenge viewers to reconsider how they understand Reconstruction in the United States. He describes the history of Juneteenth, and what it means to truly honor the history of the holiday during this current uprising.
Carr details the emergence of Juneteenth as an emancipatory ritual for people of African descent for centuries. He also tackles the question of citizenship in the modern nation-state and challenges the audience to reconceptualize citizenship.
Music from Rose City Kings from Free Music Archive.
In this episode, our host, Cierra Kaler-Jones, an Education Anew Fellow with Teaching for Change through Communities for Just Schools Fund, interviews historian Robin D.G. Kelley to demystify the taboos and stereotypes about communism in the decades leading up to the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Kelley proceeds to tell stories about Anne Braden, Lemon Johnson, Claudia Jones, Mildred McAdory, Estelle Milner, Cedric Robinson, the Scottsboro Nine, the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, and more.
Music from Rose City Kings from Free Music Archive.