One Hundred Years of High School Student Organizing
Date: Monday, September 28, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Virtual Event (Zinn Education Project)
On Monday, September 28, Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian will be in conversation with historians Aaron G. Fountain Jr. and Jon N. Hale about student organizing and state repression. Fountain is the author of High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America and Hale is the author of A New Kind of Youth: Historically Black High Schools and Southern Student Activism, 1920–1975.
Click LINK for registration (free)
Previous Events
Book Passage
Date: Sunday, January 11, 2026
Location: Book Passage, San Francisco, CA (Ferry Building Store)
Join Aaron G. Fountain Jr. at Book Passage for a discussion of High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America, exploring how teenage activists reshaped U.S. schools and helped spark major reforms.
View Event & Details Book Talk (Hybrid)
Photo Credit: Diane Baker
Charis Books & More
Date: Saturday, January 31, 2026
Location: Charis Books & More (virtual event)
Aaron G. Fountain Jr. visits Charis Books & More to talk about High School Students Unite! and the role of high school students in the civil rights, Black freedom, and antiwar movements, with special attention to education reform and surveillance.
Policing Blackness, Resisting Repression: Police Violence and Surveillance
Date: Thursday, February 5
Location: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (NYPL), New York, NY
As part of the Conversations in Black Freedom Studies series, this panel explores the intertwined histories of policing, Black freedom struggles, and state surveillance. Aaron G. Fountain Jr. joins fellow scholars to discuss how police violence and intelligence gathering targeted Black communities and youth movements, and how activists resisted repression.
Morgenstern Books
Date: Tuesday, February 17
Location: Morgenstern Books & Café, Bloomington, IN
Join us for an evening with author, historian, and public scholar Aaron G. Fountain Jr. to celebrate his latest book, High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America. Aaron will be joined in conversation for this event by IU professor Ellen D. Wu.
Photo credit: Jason McGraw
Winthrop University
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Location: Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC
This event will feature Dr. Aaron G. Fountain, an independent scholar who is also a Winthrop University alum and McNair Scholar. It will focus on his new book; High School Students Unite! Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America.
The Writer’s Center
Date: Thursday, March 26
Location: Virtual
The Writer’s Center presents a FREE virtual chat about the craft of nonfiction! We’re joined by author Aaron Fountain for a discussion of his new publication, High School Students Unite! Aaron is in conversation with Amy Freeman, author and Development Director at The Writer’s Center.
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
Date: Saturday, April 18, 2026
Location: Hancock Foundation, Newman Recital Hall, University of Southern California
As we’ve seen time and time again, and especially in recent years, the strongest and most effective forms of protest are often grassroots, community-organized movements that gain momentum through inspiration, messages of hope, and peaceful but assertive resistance. These authors discuss the history–and present–of protest: from Black-owned bookstores to fearless high school students, the fight for weekends off and clean air and water, and even a consideration of the Declaration of Independence as the first major act of American protest.
Aaron G. Fountain, Jr., PhD 