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Racial oppression plays a significant part in American history, and it’s critical our students learn about it. But this February, we're encouraging educators to reflect on their own practice and ensure that the Black history they’re teaching—this month and year-round—isn’t limited to narratives of trauma. To support that learning, this week we’ll be sharing some of our favorite resources for celebrating the diversity of Black history, identity and experience.

As we remember the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom of 1963, it’s critical not to whitewash this history. Contextualize the campaign and the struggle associated with it, including the impact of the march’s organizer, Bayard Rustin—an openly gay Black man. That also includes complicating the event’s most iconic figure, Dr. Martin Luther King, and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. These resources can help.

In the continuing fight for justice and the expansion of democracy, understanding intersecting movements to end oppression is imperative and inspiring. Those at the intersections of geography, gender, poverty and race, as LFJ Director Jalaya Lyles Dunn explains, “will determine the fate of our democracy,” and have often been the agents of change, as witnessed by the connections between the past and the present highlighted in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Civil Rights Memorial Center.