This week's article summary is Black History is Not American History: Towards a Framework of Black Historical Consciousness.

As a former history teacher, I related to the author’s comments about how black history is typically covered within the larger context of an American History class: students usually learn about slavery, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Often these topics are presented in a sanitized, single-dimensional manner so as not to create controversy.

Similar superficial presentations often occur during Black History Month.

There are a number of reasons we continue to teach black history in this shallow manner: the vast majority (about 85%) of American teachers are white and often don’t know enough about the complexities of the black experience in America and the ways in which institutional racial prejudice continues to impact the present. We also envision the history of America as a progressive narrative where we overcome challenges and then live in a better life. We also avoid difficult conversations, especially around race.

The article below provides a framework (with six core concepts) on how we as teachers and schools can begin to more authentically include black history within the study of American history, within our classrooms, and during Black History month. Increased awareness and understanding begin with educators learning more about black history and being open about confronting the uglier aspects of racism in America’s past and present.

Our summer reading options this year will focus around the theme of racism. One book I highly recommend is Caste, an impactful historic tour-de-force of racism in America. They’ll be other provocative options as well, but, as the article below attests, the key is we all, myself included, have much more to learn.

Joe

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Black History is American History, but the integrated model has so far provided only the illusion of inclusion. African Americans might be present in the narrative, but the curriculum remains Eurocentric, with largely cosmetic diversity. 

Guided by textbooks, most history teachers’ narratives include three major segments:

• Enslavement, in which black people are seen as passive and powerless
• The post-Civil War and Reconstruction era, featuring a few heroic black leaders
• The 1960s civil rights movement, emphasizing MLK’s credo of nonviolence

These themes are largely predicated on how white people wish to see or imagine black people to be through history education. They represent an effort to sanitize the ugliness, diminish achievements and contributions, ignore the diversity of blackness, and pigeonhole black people as monolithic in an effort to not to offend white people about America’s legacy. 

We need to implement “black historical consciousness” in classrooms, stemming from a robust, well-rounded curriculum that conveys black histories (versus the singular black history) in a way that recognizes the humanity, perspectives, and voices of African Americans. 

Yes, the desired destination is for black history to be American history but right now the curriculum simply does not take black history or people seriously.

Accurate history instruction has six concepts at its core:

Power, Oppression, and Racism: These have to be understood as systemic and institutional, not individual or cosmetic. Without that perspective, we begin to believe that black people are naturally deficient compared to white people because we do not understand the systemic oppression that has limited and, in some cases, controlled black life histories. Here are some guiding questions:

• How did enslavement undermine democratic principles?
• How did racism divide the country?
• How did slave owners use the government to their advantage?
• Why did the United States abandon Reconstruction?

Key topics: Slavery in North and South America; the development and sustainability of chattel slavery; the emergence of Jim Crow segregation and political disenfranchisement; redlining; the impact of Reagonomics and the war on drugs; mass incarceration

Black Agency, Resistance, and Perseverance: Countering the paternalistic “black suffering” narrative, the key point is that although black people have been victimized, they were not helpless victims. They have the capacity to act independently, have made their own decisions based on their interests, and have fought back against oppressive structures. Some guiding questions:

•  How do African Americans make social change?
• What makes movements successful?
• Was the civil rights movement successful?
• Should black people be considered founders of the United States of America?
• What was great about the great migration?

Key topics: African resistance to slavery; the abolitionist movement; the narratives of free black people; black military experiences; black reconstruction; the development of black social institutions; two great migrations; the long civil rights movement; NAACP and the courts; the Black Power movement; and inventions by African Americans

Africa and the African Diaspora: This segment is important because it reminds us that black history did not begin with European contact and enslavement, putting it in the context of human origins and the rich history of the African continent. Some guiding questions:

• What are the legacies of Black Diaspora movements?
• Are we all Africans?
• How did trans-Saharan trade lead to West African wealth and success?
• How did the Haitian Revolution influence American enslavement?
• How have black people drawn on their African heritage in civil rights struggles?

Key topics: African origins of humans; African civilization, kingdoms, and dynasties; African explorers and pre-colonial presence; the anticolonial movement in Africa; African presence in New Spain, France, and English colonies; the impact of the Haitian Revolution; slavery in Africa versus race-based slavery.

Black Joy: This is an extension of agency, resistance, and perseverance. Black joy is a liberation and radical project that defied oppressive structures of the time. These histories focus on times of happiness, togetherness, and the perennial fight for freedom. Some guiding questions:

• Were the 1920s a time of cultural change?
• How does African-American cultural expression define society?
• How did sports provide a source of pride?
• What is the lasting legacy of African Americans in sports?
• Is black joy agency or resistance?

Key topics: African and African-American family dynamics; black music, dance, and other cultural expressions; the arts, literature, and popular culture; African-American cuisine; the Harlem renaissance; African Americans in sports; the making of African and African-American holidays and traditions; and the Black Arts movement of the 1960s

Black Identities: Black history should not only be about black men who are middle class, Christian, heterosexual, and able-bodied. We need to expand those narratives because black people are not monolithic. Some guiding questions:

• Who is black?
• Why do we ignore black women in black history?
• Who wins and loses through black liberation movements?
• How did the Stonewall riots influence the black LGBTQ+ community?

Key topics: Black and Tribal experiences; black conservationism; black identities and the Diaspora; black HERstories; black LGBTQ+ history; black class conflict; black political thought; black feminists; the anti-apartheid movement; the Caribbean Black Power movement; Black Lives Matter; Afro-Latin cultural movements in South America and the Caribbean; black nationalism; and the Combahee River Collective

Historical Contention: Black histories have been problematic and susceptible to the evils of sexism, capitalism, and black ethnic subjugation. The point here is not to proclaim a ‘See, you do it too’ attitude, but to recognize that black people have complex dimensions. Some guiding questions:

• Are Africans to blame for the transatlantic slave trade?
• How did African indigenous populations fight against 1800s colonization efforts?
• Do black ethnic groups in the U.S. deserve reparations?
• How does sexism diminish the way we remember women’s leadership roles during the civil rights movement?

Key topics: Colonizing Africa; black socio-political-cultural global movements, including Pan-Africanism, the Garvey Movement (UNIA), Black Marxism, black separatism, the reparations movement, Rastafarianism, and Black Consciousness