Steve Sheinkin's "The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights" recounts the explosion at a U.S. Navy base in the summer of 1944 that claimed 320 lives. It is also a story of African American resistance against prejudice, segregation, and injustice in the armed forces during World War II. The book was a 2015…

The marketised and securitised shaping of formal education sites in terms of risk prevention strategies have transformed what it means to be a learner and a citizen. In this book, Karl Kitching explores racialised dimensions to suggest how individuals and collectives are increasingly made responsible for their own welfare as "good" or…

Eminent African American historian Carter G. Woodson in his book "The Miseducation of the Negro," published a generation before the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision, concerned himself not with the racial composition of classrooms and schools, but with the curricula taught both in the schools and the larger culture. Certainly Woodson…

Discusses how the British colonial government in Kenya used the education system to strengthen political and economic power over the African majority. Describes the unequal allocation of education revenue, selective and punitive public examinations and a racially biased school curriculum. Concludes that Europeans' need to dominate Africans…

Reviews the Henry Louis Gates Jr. memoir, "Colored People," and Julius Lester's novel of the civil rights movement, "And All Our Wounds Forgiven." Discovers a number of salient points concerning the black experience of integration in both books. Considers some of the interesting questions raised and their possible use in class…

Discusses the character and contributions of Thomas Jesse Jones, an early 20th-century educator and a pioneer in social studies and black education. Jones's inconsistent philosophy (he supported limited black education but believed in white supremacy) grew out of an unlikely combination of progressive Christianity and deep conservatism. (MJP)

Designed to be used with the sound-color filmstrip "Reconstruction: The Promise and Betrayal of Democracy," these learning activities are intended to help students in grades 5-9 develop critical thinking about how their textbook presents the Reconstruction Era. The activities focus on many ideas. Some of the focusing ideas presented are…