Teaching Black History Beyond Bondage—All Year Long

As educators, we should affirm the value of teaching Black history all year long. After all, American historian Carter G. Woodson conceived and established Negro History Week (which would later become Black History Month) not only to celebrate Black achievement but also to encourage schools to include the study of Black history throughout the curriculum and provide students with a space to display their scholarship over the duration of the school year.

From primary to secondary education, all students in the United States are guaranteed exposure to the study of the enslavement of Africans by Europeans and the descendants of Europeans. Indeed, no student can make it out of middle school without learning some version of the history of slavery in America. Yet the chronicled past of Black people in this country is far more rich, complex, inspiring, and luminous than a mere legacy of captivity and oppression. As educators, we must be intentional not to take a reductionist approach to teaching this history. Here are three ways to teach Black history beyond bondage—all year long.

Black history does not begin with the enslavement of Africans

Teaching Black history from this perspective yields two important payoffs in the classroom. First, the overwhelming majority of enslaved Africans whose descendants would later become Americans were from West Africa and West Central Africa. In this regard, Black history as American history begins in West and West Central Africa.

Teachers of world history or world cultures can focus on the legacy and achievements of historical figures of precolonial West African empires like Mali, Ghana, and Songhai that existed long before the Middle Passage. Teachers should establish and affirm a connection between those cultures and the many Black people in America today. 

Additionally, teachers should compare the framing of West African empires as the origin of Black history with the way that pre-revolution American history is associated with the origins of the United States, beginning in Europe. When we teach pre-revolution American history, we focus on the European countries that colonized North America—England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands—rather than the Continent as a whole.

In the same way, teachers should foster a specific geographic focus on the individual empires of West Africa as the heritage of Black people in America. Often, students (and sometimes adults) conceptualize the African continent as if it were a country or monolith. A more diverse focus empowers children to think about Africa as a vast and diverse continent.

When teaching about oppression, center resistance

The quote “Where there is oppression, there will be resistance” has been attributed to a number of people. Regardless of its origins, the idea contained within provides us, as educators and lifelong learners, with a valuable, holistic perspective on histories typically written by the winners of wars and conquerors of nations. 

From the onset of the transatlantic slave trade, there was resistance. Africans in transport refused to eat, jumped overboard, and revolted. Even as slavery survived the American transition from colonies to country, there was resistance. Social studies textbooks tend to highlight a few of the most prominent rebellions and rebels like the Stono Rebellion, Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and John Brown.

However, American historians like Joseph Holloway have documented countless insurrections and planned uprisings from as early as 1526 up until 1864, just prior to the end of the Civil War. After the Civil War, Ida B. Wells led the resistance against lynching. There is no shortage of resistance-themed lessons and resistance stories to integrate into studies of U.S. history. 

Teachers can help students look for the resistance. As students encounter the topic of oppression, whether in social studies or English language arts, ask, “Where is the resistance?” For students, the relationship between oppression and resistance provides an invitation into inquiry and engagement. This can generate a number of essential questions: 

• Does might make right? 
• Should the majority always rule?
• Is violence in a society ever justified?
• What rights should all humans have?
• Is conflict necessary for change?
• What is the relationship between violence and freedom?
• What is the relationship between oppression and resistance?

Pedagogically speaking, questions like these hook the class, provoke discussion, and keep children engaged throughout the span of lessons.

Teach the diaspora

As a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade, many of the modern descendants of West Africans are now scattered across North, Central, and South America; the Caribbean; and Europe. There is no shortage of Black history content when teaching the diaspora. As students learn about the Haitian Revolution, teach them that this led to the first Black independent country in the Western Hemisphere. This independence resounded across Black communities throughout the Caribbean and Latin America as Haiti came to represent Black independence.

When you teach about the insurrection of enslaved Africans in America, compare these uprisings with the Maroon communities in Jamaica. Teaching the diaspora begins with an awareness of the existence of Black people and African culture outside of the United States, like the history of Black people in Mexico or in Panama.

Recognition of the African diaspora also allows for an inclusive pedagogy that draws attention to the commonalities of African descendants across the world. In fact, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, one of the foremost research centers and libraries in the U.S. dedicated to the African diaspora, bears the name of Puerto Rican historian Arturo A. Schomburg. (I was fortunate enough to be able to take my students on a field trip to this museum.)

Teaching the diaspora allows students with diverse backgrounds to find commonalities in culture, especially in schools with sizable Black and Brown populations, by connecting students who are part of the diaspora to a sense of majority. In the U.S., the term minority is commonly used to describe non-White people. Learning about the diaspora allows students of African descent across cultures and countries to understand their connection to a world population, as a majority. Teaching the history of the diaspora opens the door for students to be proud of being a part of this global community.