Back to School 2026
Every child in the United States has a right to an equitable (fair and just) public education. This back-to-school season, we offer resources for educators, families and communities to teach and advocate for education that supports the learning and well-being of all students.
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Supporting Students from Immigrant Families
Millions of young people in the United States are children of immigrant families. All students in the U.S. have a right to public education, “regardless of a child’s or guardian’s citizenship, immigration status, or English language proficiency. These rights were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe.” In addition to…
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Tips for Advocating for Inclusive Education
Recommendations for parents, caregivers and community members to help you advocate for inclusive education that supports all our children.
The Other Legacy: A Counternarrative to Celebrating America 250
(Series Editors: Marty Blatt and Andreas Etges)
Creating a mythical and purely celebratory narrative of the past erases historical truths. This series is offered in the spirit of a counternarrative to the official America 250 celebrations.
The Learning Center
Learn with us to strengthen democracy and build a more just society. Explore More.
Teaching and Learning Hard History
Reconstruction: Democratic Promise — and Defeat
This video and discussion toolkit features a conversation between historian Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Ahmad Ward, executive director of Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park, in which they explore Reconstruction as a profound struggle over the meaning of freedom, citizenship and democracy. Jeffries and Ward center the experiences of Black people in Mitchelville, then widen the lens to South Carolina’s larger role in the Reconstruction period, and address the defeat of Reconstruction and lessons for today as we once more face a moment of democratic abandonment.
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South African Apartheid and U.S. Racial Discrimination
The legacies of Jim Crow in the U.S and apartheid in South Africa are evident today in entrenched disparities in wealth, housing, education and the overall systematic disadvantages that the Black populations in each country continue to face.
Australia and the United States — Racial Violence and Indigenous and Black Resistance
My country is on the midwest coast of Australia, Yamaji country, in Western Australia. It is known for its cream-colored sandhills that lead down to the blue ocean shores, and for the spectacular wildflowers that bloom every year in orange and red dirt, which are especially colorful and vibrant after a good winter with lots…
Nazi Germany: Jim Crow and the Nuremberg Laws
In the 1930s, ties between Germany and the United States existed based on a shared rejection of the universal principle of equality under human rights. We can trace the connections between the racial policies of the U.S. and Nazi Germany.
Many of the Founding Fathers Were Hypocrites. There, I Said It!
Despite the well-documented refusal of the country’s Founding Fathers to part ways with slavery, a dangerous myth exists today that acknowledging the history of slavery and the oppression and resistance of Black people is not only anti-American but also hostile to American progress.
250 Years — Democracy’s Future Demands Reckoning With History
The 250th anniversary of the United States offers a moment to reckon with our history — and its contradictions — to determine our democracy’s future.
An Indigenous Perspective of the 250th Anniversary of the United States
Many Americans have traditionally privileged the telling of events that address conquest and the conquered, and that America’s genesis derives from the East and moves westward. Diné stories like those of my family are overlooked, though they played a part in the greater picture of events that shaped the formation of the United States.
Introduction to Civics for Democracy
Building a democracy for the 21st century requires transformation built on three essential principles: inclusive participation, institutional accountability and equitable representation.
Education for Liberation
In this video conversation and discussion toolkit, Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Charles E. Cobb center liberation education as foundational to voting rights and civic participation.
Analyzing Liberation in Film
This community conversation toolkit builds on Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” as a lens for analyzing liberation.
Liberation Lit
These LFJ book reviews encourage us all to keep reading and learning together for liberation.
Out of the Ashes: Building a New American Democracy
The erosion of institutions to safeguard democracy is an invitation to imagine a new democracy resilient enough to resist authoritarianism and inclusive enough to serve all.
How We Got Here and How We Move Forward (With Our Heads Held High)
Bold action and transformative interventions are necessary to reimagine and create an education system that ends harm and advances justice and racial equity.
Permission To Learn: Cultivating Lifelong Learning in Students and Educators
Reimagining education to cultivate curiosity, questioning, dialogue and critical thinking can develop students’ lifelong learning disposition and capacity for meaningful participation in a democratic society.
Reimagining Presidents Day
Presidents Day offers an opportunity to consider how U.S. presidents have used power — for good or harm — and what that means for us.
Support Democracy and Education Justice
To build a multiracial inclusive democracy requires educating for liberation and civic and political participation across the South and the nation.
