Thanks to CREDO members, the Zinn Education Project continues teaching our accurate history

Our grantee partners at the Zinn Education Project introduce students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula and help equip students with analytical tools to make sense of and improve the world today.

In December 2022, CREDO members voted to donate $27,433 to help the Zinn Education Project double the number of Teaching for Black Lives teacher-led study groups; expand its Climate Justice and Reconstruction education campaigns; and defend the right to teach honestly in the face of anti-history education laws. In total, members like you have helped us donate $138,270 since 2015.

Powered in part by the generosity of CREDO and our members, Zinn Ed Project had some recent victories and launched some great new initiatives. Here’s a quick report on how your donations are making an impact from our friends at Zinn:

Teach Truth Day of Action

We hosted the third annual Teach Truth Day of Action in more than 65 cities across the United States with more than 50 co-sponsors including Color of Change; National Women’s Law Center; Learning for Justice; GLSEN; Red, Wine, & Blue; Human Rights Campaign; the National Education Association; and many more organizations of note.

Teach Banned Books at SXSW

We were invited to co-host a Teach Banned Books installation at SXSW in Austin in March of 2023 — allowing us to reach beyond our typical audience of educators. We traveled with the same installation to Orlando for the NEA Conference on Racial and Social Justice later in June.

New Lesson on Water and Environmental Racism

We released a new lesson for grades 7+ on water and environmental racism. Inspired by the 2016 Democracy Now! documentary Thirsty for Democracy, the lesson introduces students to the struggle of residents to access safe water for drinking, cooking, and bathing in the majority-Black cities of Flint, Michigan; Jackson, Mississippi; and Newark, New Jersey. Thanks to the support of CREDO and other donors, this lesson — and all the lessons at the Zinn Education Project — are free for teachers to download. Read more and access the lesson.

If you’d like to learn more and get involved with ZEP, please visit their website, or follow them on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.