Michael Honey created and taught courses in African American history, the South, and the Civil War at the University of Maryland, Wesleyan University, and the University of Puget Sound. He created and taught a dozen courses in the founding curriculum of the University of Washington Tacoma. He co-created the major of Ethnic, Gender and Labor Studies, linking fields that are often taught separately. He has lectured across the U.S.. A few of his signature, upper-level courses include:
- American Labor Since the Civil War
- Doing Community and Oral History
- Labor and Community Organizing, A Multi-Cultural Perspective
- Life and Thought: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Angela Y. Davis
- The Black Freedom Movement in Perspective
- Black Labor in America