Black history centennial channels angst over anti-DEI climate into education, free resources
For scholars, historians, and activists, the past year has been a tumultuous one in promoting the teaching of black history in the United States.
Although last year proclaimed February as National Black History Month, President Donald Trump began his second term by claiming that certain African American history lessons were intended to indoctrinate people to hate the country. The administration has dismantled black history in national parks, most recently removing an exhibit on slavery in Philadelphia last month. Black history advocates view these acts and their chilling effect as frightening and unprecedented.
“States and cities are nervous about retaliation from the White House,” said DeRay Mckesson, a longtime activist and executive director of Campaign Zero, an organization focused on police reform. “So even good people are quieter now.”
During the 100th anniversary of the nation’s first Black History Month celebrations – which began when scholar Carter G. Woodson launched the first Black History Week – celebrations will continue. The current political climate has prompted civil rights organizations, artists, and scholars to engage young people in a comprehensive retelling of America’s history. There are hundreds of lectures, courses and even new books – from non-fiction to graphic novels – to mark this milestone.
“That’s why we’re working with over 150 teachers across the country on a Black History Month curriculum to simply ensure that young people continue to learn about Black history in an intentional and thoughtful way,” Mckesson said of a campaign his organization launched with Afro Charities and leading black scholars to expand access to educational materials.
About three years ago, Angélique Roché, a journalist and assistant professor at Xavier University of Louisiana, accepted a “once in a lifetime” invitation to become the writer of a graphic novel telling the story of Opal Lee, “Grandmother of Juneteenth.”
Lee, who also turns 100 this year, is widely credited with winning federal recognition of the Juneteenth holiday commemorating the day Texas slaves learned they were emancipated. Under Trump, however, Juneteenth is no longer a free entry day to national parks.
Juneteenth helped usher in the first generation of black Americans who, like Woodson, were born free. “First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth,” the graphic novel, comes out Tuesday. It is the culmination of Roché’s diligent archival research, telephone conversations, and visits to Texas to see Lee and his granddaughter, Dione Sims.
“There is nothing ‘indoctrinating’ about facts based on highly documented primary sources,” said Roché, who hopes the book will make it into libraries and classrooms. “Ultimately, what the story should really tell people is that we are much more similar than we are different.”
While Lee is the main character, Roché used the novel as an opportunity to draw attention to lesser-known historical figures like William “Gooseneck Bill” McDonald, Texas’ first black millionaire, and Opal Lee’s mother, Mattie Broadous Flake.
She hopes this format will inspire young people to follow Lee and his mantra: “form together as one.”
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work with other people,” Roché said. “Don’t wait for other people to make the changes you want to see.”
When Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders were issued last year, Jarvis Givens, a professor of African and African American studies at Harvard, was thousands of miles away teaching in London, where Black History Month is celebrated in October. He was already planning to write a book for the centenary.
Watching Trump’s “attack” cemented the idea, Givens said.
“I wanted to kind of dedicate my time on my leave to writing a book that would honor the legacy that Black History Month gave us,” Givens said.
The result is “I Will Make a World of Me: 100 Years of Black History Month,” a book containing four in-depth essays that comes out Tuesday. The title is a line from the 1920s poem “The Creation” by James Weldon Johnson, whose most famous poem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” is known as the “Black National Anthem.”
Givens examines important themes in black history and clarifies the misconceptions surrounding them.
The book and the research Givens conducted will be linked to a “living history campaign” with Campaign Zero and Afro Charities, Mckesson said. The goal is to teach what Woodson thought: younger generations can become historians who can separate fact from fiction.
“When I grew up, preserving history was the job of a historian,” Mckesson said, adding that his group’s campaign would teach young students how to record history.
Born in 1875 to formerly enslaved parents, Woodson was among the first generation of black Americans not subject to servitude at birth. He grew up believing that education was a way to empower himself, said Robert Trent Vinson, director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The second black man to earn a doctorate at Harvard University – WEB Du Bois was the first – Woodson was disappointed by the way black history was dismissed. He found that the memories and culture of less educated blacks were no less valuable, Vinson said.
When Woodson created Negro History Week in 1926, he was at a time when popular stereotypes like blackface and minstrels were replacing actual knowledge of the black experience, according to Vinson. This sparked the creation of black history clubs, and Woodson began inserting history lessons “on the sly” into publications like the “Journal of Negro History” and the “Negro History Bulletin.”
“Outside of the formal school structure, they have a separate school, like in churches or in study groups,” Vinson said. “Or they share it with parents and say, ‘You’re teaching this story to your kids.’ Thus, Woodson creates an entire educational space outside of the formal university.
In 1976, on the week’s 50th anniversary, President Gerald Ford issued a message recognizing it as an entire month. There was resistance then to the progress made by the civil rights movement, Givens said.
As for today’s backlash regarding Black and African American studies, Vinson thinks Woodson wouldn’t be surprised. But he would see it as a sign “you are on the right track”.
“There’s a certain level of what he calls ‘fugitivity,’ sharing that knowledge and strategizing about that,” Vinson said. “There are other times, like right now, Black History Month, where you can be more assertive and assertive, but be strategic in how you deliver information.”
Resistance to teaching black history seems to happen in every generation, Mckesson said.
“We will get back to normal. We have seen these negative reactions before,” Mckesson said. “And when I think about the informal networks of black people that have always resisted, I think that’s what’s happening today. »
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Tang reported from Phoenix.
