The Counter Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of Americaby Gerald Horne
For European colonists, the major threat to security in North America was a foreign invasion combined with an insurrection of the enslaved. And as 1776 approached, London-imposed abolition throughout the colonies was a very real and threatening possibility—a possibility the founding fathers feared could bring the slave rebellions of Jamaica and Antigua to the thirteen colonies. In this book, the author shows how the so-called Revolutionary War was in large part a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their liberty to enslave others—and which today takes the form of a racialized conservatism and a persistent racism targeting the descendants of the enslaved.
Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past by Ray Raphael
This book revisits the original myths of the Founders and further explores their evolution over time, uncovering new stories and peeling back new layers of misinformation. This new edition also examines the highly politicized debates over America’s past, as well as how our approach to history in school reinforces rather than corrects historical mistakes. Raphael also wrote The First American Revolution and A People’s History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence.
Missing From President’s Day: The People They Enslaved by Clarence Lusane for the Zinn Education Project
For many Americans, it is subversive to criticize the nation’s founders, the founding documents, the presidency, the president’s house, and other institutions that have come to symbolize the official story of the United States. This article acknowledges that it may be uncomfortable to give up long-held and even meaningful beliefs that in many ways build both collective and personal identities, but shows how erasing enslaved African Americans from the White House and the presidency presents a false portrait of U.S. history.
More Than Slaves: Black Founders, Benjamin Banneker, and Critical Intellectual Agency by LaGarrett King for Social Studies Research and Practice
This article focuses one Black Founder, Benjamin Banneker, and his letter to Thomas Jefferson to illustrate how Black Founders philosophically responded and challenged White Founders' prejudicial beliefs about Blackness. It challenges social studies teachers’ curricular and pedagogical approaches to Black Americans during the colonial period by providing tools to explore the voices of Black Americans in U.S. history.
Mythbusting the Founding Mothers from the National Women’s History Museum
We all can picture the Founding Fathers, gathered in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, debating what to do about tyrannical Britain, and finally signing their names onto the Declaration of Independence. But what about the Founding Mothers? This explores some of the women in 18th-century America who are largely forgotten.
Visiting Chutchui: The Making of A Colonial Counterstory On An Elementary FIeld Trip by Harper Keenan
What might the content and design of an Indigenous colonial counterstory look like in teaching young children about colonial history? What might an
Indigenous counterstory offer to children’s historical learning in the U.S. context? Findings suggest that such a counterstory, presented
concretely as a different way of looking at a place, may provide generative possibilities for authentic engagement with conflicting sources of historical knowledge.
West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776 by Claudio Saunt
This book looks beyond the familiar story of the thirteen colonies to explore the many other revolutions roiling the turbulent American continent in 1776: the Spanish landing in San Francisco, the Russians pushing into Alaska, and the Sioux discovering the Black Hills.
