Learn From and Honor Black History
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Diversity is integral to our country’s strength and democratic values. And Black history and experiences are central to our nation’s story. With the current politically motivated attempts to restrict learning about and celebrating Black history and other aspects of our diversity — and our strengths — it is important for all of us to understand the foundational role of racism and white supremacy in our nation’s origin, which continue to shape politics today.

Everyone deserves to learn this history in all its complexity and in ways that are accurate, comprehensive and age-appropriate. Black history in the United States includes understanding Black people’s resilience and contributions to our nation, along with strategies for coalition-building and justice movements that are essential today.

Uplift Black stories during Black History Month, but more importantly, incorporate Black history all year long. Learning for Justice offers the following resources to help discuss, teach and learn from Black history.


Resources

learning, reflection and action

Photo collage of civil rights activists and moments in history

Learning from the Civil Rights Movement (series)

The Civil Rights Movement is a story of people who believed they could bring about change. Learning from the movement gives us models and strategies for action in our communities and our nation to create a more just society. The learning journeys and resources in this series examine key concepts and events of the Civil Rights Movement to contextualize the history and grow our understanding of the dynamic of people, power and change.

Collage of various important Civil Rights Movement figures.

Teaching the Civil Rights Movement

Our Civil Rights Movement framework for grades 9 to 12 supports facilitating a solid understanding of the struggle for Black equality, beginning in 1877 with Reconstruction and continuing the narrative of the movement for equality to the present. 

History and the Power of Place

Our rights and freedoms — the ability to exercise the right to vote — were achieved through the struggles, risks and sacrifices of those who participated in the Civil Rights Movement. In 2023 and 2024, Learning for Justice interviewed four individuals, activists and witnesses to history. These video conversations emphasize the importance of learning the honest history of the movement, remind us that the torch is being passed, and encourage us to embrace our various roles in the ongoing movement for equality and justice.

Photo of Jo Ann Bland by Sydney A. Foster

•  The Strength of Ordinary People: A Conversation With Jo Ann Bland

As a child, Jo Ann Bland participated in the Selma, Alabama, march that became known as Bloody Sunday. In this video and Q&A excerpt, Bland inspires us to civic action.

Photo of Charles Person by Sydney A. Foster

•  There’s Good People Out There: A Conversation With Charles Person

Charles Person, the youngest of the original Freedom Riders of 1961, reminds us that collective civic action is essential and so is being one of the good people out there.

Photograph of Valda Harris Montgomery by Sydney A. Foster

•  Listening and Learning: A Conversation With Valda Harris Montgomery

Valda Harris Montgomery, who witnessed pivotal moments of the Civil Rights Movement in Montgomery, Alabama, emphasizes the importance of learning the honest history of the movement.

Photograph of Helen Sims by Sydney A. Foster

•  The Torch Is in Your Hands: A Conversation With Helen Sims

Helen Sims — aka the Old Storyteller of Belzoni, Mississippi — encourages us to accept the torch that is being passed to us.

 

Collage of Black children and parents

From Growing Together Series for Children and Families

Talking to Children About the History of Slavery in the United States

Recommendations and age-appropriate information to emphasize in conversations about slavery and racism in the U.S.

Celebrating African and Indigenous Cultures

Conversations about African and Indigenous cultures are essential for learning about the history of our country and making connections with a broader world.

Story Corner Collection

Stories are a deeply meaningful way that we learn about the world, and they can build empathy and understanding of ourselves and others. This collection offers short stories for growing readers that include Black history and experiences.

 

Magazine Cover illustration by Matt Williams-image of group of people with hands on one another's shoulders

Selected Articles from Learning for Justice Magazine

History Moves With Us

Movement veteran Charles E. Cobb Jr. reflects on teaching civil rights history.

Reflections on a Dream Deferred

In 2008, Rep. John Lewis shared his thoughts on Dr. King's dream and the current struggle for equality. This inspiring essay honors both of these leaders.

American Patriotic Songs: Context and Perspective

Exploring the historical complexity of this music lets us confront the various voices, functions and stories that a single patriotic song can embody.

Only Young Once: The Case for Dismantling the South’s School-to-Prison Pipeline

We must end the long-standing maltreatment and criminalization of Black children in the education system throughout the South.

Decarceration Begins With School Discipline Reform

Educators have a role in ending discipline that criminalizes youth. Reforms, including trauma-informed and restorative practices, can disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.

A Call for Anti-Bias Education

To develop the next generation of civic leaders, educate children early and in age-appropriate ways about their identities and key concepts about race.

Survival, Resistance and Resilience

Honoring the lives of enslaved people, the Whitney Plantation’s learning tour deepens our understanding of slavery in the United States, the people who survived it and their legacies.

What Is Our Collective Responsibility When We Uncover Honest History?

Local history advocates say preservation, education and healing should include community redevelopment and respecting the agency of descendants of enslaved people.

The Power of Place: Art as a Tool for Social Justice

Alabama artists are depicting honest history and challenging historical invisibility—reshaping public narratives of justice in their communities.

Read all articles and resources from Learning for Justice magazine in our magazine archives. All magazine issues are available to download.

 

Person of Color's hand placing a brick onto the United States flag, which is made of bricks.

Teaching Hard History podcast series (4 seasons)

From Learning for Justice and host Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Ph.D., this four-season podcast brings us the lessons we should have learned in school through the voices of leading scholars and educators. Seasons 1 and 2 address American slavery, Season 3 highlights the Jim Crow era, and Season 4 takes a deep dive into the Civil Rights Movement.

Teaching Hard History: American Slavery | Key Concepts Videos

In these short videos, historians and scholars explore the undertaught history of African and Indigenous enslavement in what is now the United States.

Illustration of notable people from the United States' past.

Teaching Hard History: American Slavery (K-12)

Our Teaching Hard History Framework addresses the history of American slavery, and the struggle to end it, from precolonial times to the earliest European settlements and through the Civil War and Reconstruction. We offer detailed frameworks for how to approach this topic in age-appropriate K-5 and 6-12 contexts.

Illustration of people looking over a book with historical figures and events represented.

Advocating for Teaching Honest History: What Educators Can Do

This resource publication offers concrete tools for educators seeking to ensure future generations receive an accurate accounting of our nation’s history.

An Outrage | Film | Teaching Tolerance

An Outrage (film kit)

This film takes viewers to the very communities where heinous acts of violence took place, offering a painful look back at lives lost to lynching and a critical look forward. (Grades 9-12)

Teaching The New Jim Crow

This teacher’s guide for The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness includes 10 lessons to help engage high school students in conversations about systemic racism past and present. The Teaching The New Jim Crow With Michelle Alexander webinar walks participants through the teaching guide.

The Color of Law (Grades 9-12): 

Lesson 1, Lesson 2, and Lesson 3

Based on Richard Rothstein’s book The Color of Law, these lessons delve into the legacy of discriminatory housing policies and explore their role in exacerbating the racial wealth gap. The Color of Law webinar explores the role of U.S. segregation in everything from housing to employment to wealth accumulation—and the policies that made it all happen.

Other Articles and Lessons

 

Advocating for Honest History Education: A Resource for Parents and Caregivers

What is honest history, why is it essential for our democracy, and how can parents, caregivers and community members advocate for honest history education? This article offers recommendations.

Black LGBTQ History: Teachers Must Do a Better Job

Our curricula should not present a narrow, monolithic narrative about Black history that omits certain voices and identity groups, such as LGBTQ+ individuals.

Connect Voting Rights History to Current Policies and Discourse

Uncovering the honest history of voting rights in the U.S. is crucial to creating an inclusive society and realizing the democratic ideals expressed in the Constitution.

 
 

James Baldwin: Art, Sexuality and Civil Rights

Baldwin’s life illuminates not just the intersections between gay rights and civil rights but also the connections among self-identification, artistic expression and political activism.

Hidden Figures of Women’s History: Cathay Williams (Text, Grades 6-8)

This text for middle grades highlights the story of Cathay Williams, the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Army.

Teaching About King’s Radical Approach to Social Justice

While Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s work is often sugarcoated, it’s important to teach that King championed economic justice and taught Black self-love while also pushing back against neutrality, imperialism and systemic racism.

Beyond Rosa Parks: Powerful Voices for Civil Rights and Social Justice

Most history textbooks include a section about Rosa Parks in the chapter on the modern civil rights movement. However, Parks is only one among many African American women who have worked for equal rights and social justice. This series introduces four of those activists who may be unfamiliar to students.

The Little Rock Battle for School Integration

In 1957, African Americans in Little Rock, Arkansas, made their city the most significant test case for the United States Supreme Court’s 1954 and 1955 Brown v. Board of Education rulings.

Uplift Black Voices With These One World Posters

Fannie Lou Hamer

“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”

Audre Lorde

“You do not have to be me in order for us to fight alongside each other.”