Hi John,

Today, students around New York State and the country return to a new school year. We are concluding our series commemorating the legacy of Black August with a look at how teaching true history — both the good that has been historically sidelined, and the ugly that has been buried in hopes that it is forgotten — is an essential component of anti-racist, culturally responsive schools.

Much of what is taught in schools today is filtered to one narrow perspective — one that inflates the importance of white men throughout history, while minimizing the harm and atrocities they and their societies caused to those they encountered along the way. And just as important as what is being taught in school is what is not being taught: the contributions of people of color, women, LGBTQI people and differently abled people whose histories remain invisible in too many text books. 

Over the past year, public schools across the country have endured attacks from the right that aim to roll back the progress that parents, youth, and educators have made toward anti-racist schools that teach students the truth. But whitewashing history only dooms us to keep making the same mistakes of our past. Teaching true history, on the other hand, has the power to tear down harmful myths and stereotypes. It helps to ensure that all students feel seen in school, and have the opportunity to learn in a way that honors their cultures, backgrounds, and communities. And it teaches students to question inequality and highlights efforts to create a more just society. 

Explore the resources below to learn more and find ways to take action.

Listen or read through this six-part audio series, hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, on how slavery has transformed America, connecting past and present through the oldest form of storytelling.

Essay

School Is for Making Citizens (Sept 1, 2022, New York Times) Guest writers Heather C. McGhee and Victor Ray discuss the recent attacks on teaching truth in schools, and the long history of those who have resisted such attacks, including efforts by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during Freedom Summer in 1964. “Every student deserves the kind of myth-shattering and empowering education that the Freedom Schools provided,” they write. “If an educated citizenry makes democracy possible, attacking schools becomes a proxy war to limit democracy.”

Learning Series

The Zinn Education Project’s “If We Knew Our History” series features articles by teachers, journalists, and scholars that highlight inadequacies in the history textbooks published by giant corporations and that too often find their way into our classrooms. Articles in this series puncture myths and stereotypes. But they also discuss why it is so important that our students have access to a richer “people’s history” that questions inequality and highlights efforts to create a more just society. 

Training

The CRE Hub is a partnership between EJ-ROC, Race Forward’s H.E.A.L. Together Initiative (Honest Education, Action and Leadership) and the Schott Foundation for Public Education parents, youth and communities that are organizing for education justice in the face of attacks on critical race theory and education equity.

Poetry

1919 by Eve L. Ewing explores the story of the 1919 Chicago Race Riot —which lasted eight days and resulted in thirty-eight deaths and almost five hundred injuries— through poems recounting the stories of everyday people trying to survive and thrive in the city. Available at the New York Public Library in paperback, ebook and audiobook formats, or check your local library brand or bookstore for availability. 

Toolkit 

Race Forward’s H.E.A.L. Together Initiative aims to deepen a commitment for honest, accurate and fully-funded public education. It partners with on-the-ground organizers to build  power to counter the anti-CRT movement in our schools, better connect our communities, and advance a vision of a just, multiracial democracy that works for everyone.

Roundtable discussion

Three Parents on Why They Became School Activists journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro hears from three parents of public school students discuss the big questions underlying the new era of parental activism.

We are closing this series with a reminder, and an invitation: do not forget to laugh, sing, dance, and make time for whatever you do that helps you feel joy. In the words of Audre Lorde: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Amidst the struggle for freedom, we must find joy. We share the resources below with the hope that they provide the joy or inspiration you need.

Music

Resistance Revival Chorus, a collective of more than 60 women, and non-binary singers, who join together to breathe joy and song into the resistance, and to uplift and center women’s voices. You can find their music on your preferred music streaming service.

TV episode
Black People Freed Black People, Get It Right History host Amber Ruffin tells the history of Juneteenth and the end of slavery in America.

Cookbook

Black Food: Stories, Art and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora explores Black foodways within America and around the world, curated by NAACP Image Award winner and a James Beard Award-winning chef and educator Bryant Terry. Available at the New York Public Library in paperback or e-book formats, or check your local library brand or bookstore for availability.

Article

8 Tips To Help Black Families Prepare for School Emotionally by Heather Clarke, MSpEd, MSc, M.A., member of AQE’s third cohort of Education Warriors, sharing ways Black parents can help inoculate their kids against the impact and effects of anti-Black racism and prejudice. 

Thank you for joining us for this learning series. Until next time, yours in solidarity,