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Hidden History of Prison Resistance

The Long Attica Revolt

Protesters march during a protest against the suppression of the Attica Prison uprising. From Truthout interview with Orisanmi Burton.

Although the United States incarcerates more people than any other country, the curriculum renders prisoners mostly invisible. Even less attention is given to prisoner resistance, with the occasional exception of the Attica uprising. In his new book, Tip of the Spear, scholar Orisanmi Burton places Attica in the context of a wider tradition of resistance.

As his publisher explains, Burton “transforms our understanding of prisons — not only as sites of race war and class war, of counterinsurgency and genocide, but also as sources of defiant Black life, revolutionary consciousness, and abolitionist possibility.”

Join us on Monday, December 2, for a conversation with Burton and Teaching for Black Lives co-editor Jesse Hagopian about Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt.

As with all Teach the Black Freedom Struggle classes, we provide ASL interpretation and professional development certificates. The classes are free and open to the public.

Counter the Disinformation

Bring People’s History to Classrooms

Double Your Donation

Learning people’s history helps students critique hurtful policies, media coverage, politicians’ rhetoric, and more. It helps them recognize what’s wrong with the hate speech used to victimize so many.

Please donate so that we can continue to offer free people’s history lessons and defend teachers’ right to use them.

Thanks to the generous support of Dave Colapinto, a former student of Howard Zinn’s and a lawyer for whistleblowers, all donations from now through #GivingTuesday (Dec. 3) will be DOUBLED up to $10,000.

Native American Heritage

The Thanksgiving holiday is filled with stereotypical representations of Native Americans in schools and the media.

To counter this misinformation, check out the young readers’ edition of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States and the new National Museum of the American Indian lesson for upper elementary, The “First Thanksgiving”: How Can We Tell a Better Story?

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