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In the face of relentless attacks on antiracist education, an urgent call to defend students’ freedom to learn the truth about our history and the struggle for a better world.

In recent years, numerous states and school districts have enacted policies or laws mandating teachers lie to students about systemic racism and oppression—policies that impact nearly half of all students in the US. Thousands of books have been banned from schools. Teachers face termination, attacks, and disciplinary action. In Florida, where the official state curriculum declares slavery was of “personal benefit” to Black people, possessing a banned book can result in up to five years in jail.

Jesse Hagopian, a long-time organizer, writer, and K-12 teacher, shows how the playbook being used by the right today has roots in McCarthyism’s Red Scare and Lavender Scare. At stake is our ability to access systems of knowledge that challenge injustice. Yet the fight for liberatory education has a rich legacy, from resistance to anti-literacy laws for enslaved people, to the Black Lives Matter at School movement today.

Teach Truth is a call to defend honest education for our students, showing how we can reclaim suppressed history by creating beloved classroom communities and healthy social movements.