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Respect Her Crank! - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden | Smithsonian

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Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden | Smithsonian

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Black music has the ability to lullaby listeners with melodic whispers, unearth pain with crying keys, and bring bodies to their feet in celebration with breakbeats. The range in sound and emotion within Black music is driven, in part, by the ingenuity of Black women. ARTLAB's latest series, Respect Her Crank!: Sounds of Blackness , explores the roles of Black women in American music history through weekly virtual workshops in music production, songwriting, graphic design, and surprise workshops from community partners.

Respect Her Crank!: Sounds of Blackness workshops are tailored for educators (but open to all) on Tuesdays and exclusively for teens on Thursdays. Do not miss out on this groundbreaking opportunity to learn about Black women's contribution to music. Select the links below to learn more about each set of workshops, operating from February-June 2021.

ASL interpretation is provided at all Thursday workshops. If you require ASL for a Tuesday workshop, please contact hirshhornexperience@si.edu.
This project received support from the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative .

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Respect Her Crank! - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden | Smithsonian

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ARTLAB's latest series, Respect Her Crank!: Sounds of Blackness, explores the roles of Black women in American music history through weekly virtual workshops for teens and educators in music production, songwriting, graphic design, and surprise workshops from community partners from February-June 2021.

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Grassroots Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement: Focus on Women | NEH-Edsitement

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Grassroots Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement: Focus on Women

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It is hard to imagine any movement more important for understanding the meaning of freedom and equal rights in the U.S. than the civil rights struggle in the post-World War II era.

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How Black Suffragists Fought for the Right to Vote and a Modicum of Respect | The National Endowment for the Humanities

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The National Endowment for the Humanities

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Read her remarks from 1889 and you might believe she saw the future or at least had the capacity to call it into being: "I believe there are as great possibilities in women as there are in men. . . . We are marching onward grandly. . . . We love to think of the great women of our race-the mothers who have struggled through poverty to educate their children. . . . There are many wives who are now helping to educate their husbands at school, by taking in sewing and washin. . . I believe in equalizing the matter. Instead of going to school a whole year, he ought to stay at home one half, and send his wife the other six months. . . . I repeat, we want a grand and noble womanhood, scattered all over the land. There is a great vanguard of scholars and teachers of our sex who are at the head of institutions of learning all over the country. We need teachers, lecturers of force and character to help to teach this great nation of women."

These remarks, delivered before a conference of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, marked a debut for Brown as an advocate of women's rights, including the right to vote. If finding the start of a suffragist's career in a church sanctuary surprises, it is only because the route to women's suffrage taken by black women is still too often relegated to the margins or obscured by misunderstanding. Consider how black women did not take part in the mythical 1848 women's meeting in Seneca Falls, New York. When we look for them in that year, we find that, instead, some of them were already at work demanding women's rights, but they were doing so in black churches rather than in women's conventions. And what about 1920 and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment? Study of that hallmark moment reveals that, while some black women in the North and West had reason to celebrate, it was but a brief pause in their ongoing struggle for voting rights. Especially for black women in southern states, the struggle for the vote extended for decades more, to 1965, when the Voting Rights Act would finally topple barriers constructed by Jim Crow.

Hallie Quinn Brown's call for a vanguard that would empower a "great nation" of black women expressed a vision that would guide her to yet another pivotal moment in the history of black women and the vote. In 1923, in the wake of the Nineteenth Amendment's ratification, Brown took pen to paper and denounced a proposal by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to dedicate a monument to the mythical black mammy of the South-a figure in servant's garb cradling a white infant. Her words cut: Rather than loyal supplicants, "slave women were brutalized, the victims of white man's caprice and lust. Often the babe torn from her arms was the child of her oppressor." As president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), Brown spoke the thoughts of many thousands, descendants of enslaved women who derided the hypocrisy of white southerners who in "one generation held the black mammy in abject slavery [and in] the next would erect a monument to her fidelity." She doubted the "deep reverence and gratitude" professed to undergird the monument. White southern women would better "make restitution," Brown advised, by interceding with their husbands and fathers to "with one hand upraised . . . stop mob rule and lynching."

The "mammy" figure, rather than new, was part of a long-standing Lost Cause myth that relied on the fiction that enslaved people had been docile, content, and loyal to slaveholders. But by 1922, the notion of a "Monument to the Faithful Colored Mammies of the South" won the interest of Congress, where a bill had proposed to authorize the Washington, D.C., chapter of the UDC to install such a figure on public grounds "as a gift to the people of the United States." Black Americans saw through to the irony of such a framing and cried foul. The monument was mere propaganda aimed to distract the nation from real, twentieth century needs: adequate homes, schools, and heath care. Brown joined others in opposition-from grassroots activists to leaders like W.E.B. DuBois-and the bill died of inaction.

The "mammy" monument controversy erupted at a historic crossroads. It was one part a story about how the UDC promoted the Lost Cause. It was also a story about the emerging power of the NAACP. Hallie Quinn Brown's role points to yet one more story about how black women organized to win political power, including the vote, and then used it. As leader of the era's largest organization of black women, the NACW, Brown condemned the monument for its degrading caricature of an African-American woman. Her insight derived from the spirit expressed in Anna Julia Cooper's 1892 black feminist manifesto: "Only the black woman can say when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enter[s] with me."

I recently revisited the life of Hallie Quinn Brown after having long known her as part of a generation of black women activists who battled Jim Crow in its early decades. Students of African-American women's history know Brown best by way of her 1926 edited collection of biographical essays, Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction, which remains a useful reference. But finding Brown leading a challenge to the "mammy" monument made me rethink what I knew. I am at work on a history of black women and the vote, and one thing has already become clear: I must always look for early twentieth-century black suffragists in unexpected places. The racism they encountered in better remembered suffrage organizations, such as the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA) or the National Women's Party (NWP) meant that too few women like Brown worked through those organizations. To tell their stories, I must follow their lead.

Brown and women like her came to the cause of women's suffrage by paths that ran through African-American-led institutions: Antislavery societies, churches, and women's clubs. Committed to winning political rights in the early twentieth century, most black women remained just where they had begun, in black-led institutions, testing ideas and building political savvy. Those that could-mostly women in northern and western states, where Jim Crow did not exclude them from politics-signed on as supporters of the Republican party. Their purpose was often distinct. Black women sought the vote to further what they termed human rights, meaning the rights of women and men alike. They were rarely single-issue in their concerns; they battled for political rights while also advocating for temperance, education, prison reform, and the rights of working people. They especially attended to troubles that arose at the crossroads of race and gender. When Brown railed against the prospect of a "mammy" monument in the nation's capital, she did so knowing that the promotion of such a false and degrading image undercut black women's political aspirations. She was part of a "great vanguard" prepared to fight back and further empower a "great nation of women."

For Brown, women's education was foundational. Though she was free born in 1849 in Pittsburgh, Brown's parents had been enslaved. To better educate their children, the household migrated to Chatham in Canada during Brown's teen years, where the family lived alongside fugitive slaves and dissident black emigrants who had abandoned the United States. By 1870, in the wake of the Civil War and during early Reconstruction, Brown returned to the U.S., where she enrolled at Wilberforce University in Ohio. After graduation, Brown's career as an educator took her to public schools, north and south, and to Allen University in South Carolina and Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. Along the way, she studied elocution, and in 1893 Brown settled in as a professor at her alma mater, Wilberforce. It would be her institutional home for the next decade.

"Give her your votes," insisted Gertrude Bustill Mossell, referring to Brown in 1892. Mossell admonished those men who saw Brown's womanhood as a bar to her holding the office of the secretary of education in the AME Church: "Let the sex have its representation for we all know they willingly accept more than their share of the taxation." With that-a run for office-Brown was baptized into women's politics, part of a maelstrom in which, alongside her, other churchwomen were claiming the right to hold office by way of ordination into the ministry. The resulting debates consumed and nearly tore apart the AME Church community. Brown learned valuable lessons: In her aim to assume power she had allies, women like Mossell, and, at the same time, she could expect opposition.

Brown's early political education was earned in battles over the public representation of black women. At stake was whether black women would exercise rights as full citizens. As with many of her generation, Brown was drawn out from familiar settings such as the classroom and church, as their benevolent work took a sharply political turn and their leadership consolidated at a national level. First, there was a controversy during the planning of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, when the sponsors failed to include African-American planners or themed exhibits. Brown managed to be appointed a clerk in the fair's department of publicity and promotion and then used her position to expose the degree to which those in charge intended to leave black Americans invisible and unaccounted for. In the same years, Brown led the women of the Colored League of Washington, D.C., to the first meeting of what would become the National Association of Colored Women. The women had been galvanized when James Jacks, then president of the Missouri Press Association, publicly ridiculed Ida B. Wells and her antilynching campaign and then impugned all black women, branding them prostitutes, thieves, and liars. Jacks's letter ignited a "pressing . . . need of our banding together if only for our protection."

In the decades leading to passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Brown grew to be a sophisticated activist who moved along intertwined paths, the sort of journey shared by many black suffragists. She appears to have avoided any sustained association with NAWSA or the NWP. The antiblack racism that ran through such organizations likely kept her at a distance. Brown did not, however, operate in deference to a divide between black and white women, nor did she avoid suffrage politics. Temperance brought her to London, where she spoke at the 1895 convention of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, one of only three black American women to do so. In the summer of 1900, Brown was in London to attend the International Congress of Women, where she heard women's suffrage debated and reported favorably on an exchange in which antiwomen's suffrage ideas were "torn to shreds."

Black women's clubs became the heart of Brown's public work. There, by 1899, leaders were heralding the movement for women's suffrage as "the pioneer force for woman's emancipation and progress." By 1901, NACW president Mary Church Terrell won an "ovation" for her remarks on "The Justice of Women Suffrage": "Woman's rights were not protected as they should be. Not until woman . . . had the ballot to be used for her protection and self-defence [sic] can she hope to secure the rights and privileges to which she is entitled." Brown, in 1904, helped write a resolution which provided "that the women of our Association prepare themselves by the study of civic government and kindred subjects for the problems of city, State, and National life that they may be able to perform, intelligently, the duties that have come to some and will come to others in the natural progress of the Woman Suffrage movement." In 1911 and 1912, she headed the NACW's "Suffrage" department and, in 1920, Brown assumed the association's presidency.

Looking ahead from 1920, Brown charged the women of the NACW with picking up where the movement for the Nineteenth Amendment had left off. The enfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of black women, the majority in the American South, was not yet complete. Brown led thousands of clubwomen with the same vision that had initially drawn her to the podium in 1889. Historian Nikki Brown explains that Brown's aim was to harness black women's votes and thus win them influence in the Republican party and in Washington, D.C. Brown urged black women to regard the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment as an opening for an acquisition of power: "Let us remember that we are making our own history. That we are character builders; building for all eternity. Woman's horizon has widened. Her sphere of usefulness is greatly enlarged. Her capabilities are acknowledged. . . . Let us not ask: what shall we do with our newly acquired power? Rather, what manner of women are we going to be?" She framed women's votes as a next chapter in the long struggle for black political rights: "We stand at the open door of a new era. For the first time in the history of this country, women have exercised the right of franchise. The right for which the pioneers of our race fought, but died without the sight."

Brown's opposition to the UDC's "mammy" monument fit precisely at the confluence of a victory for women's suffrage and the ongoing work of civil rights. And a new moment demanded a new strategy. Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction, published in 1926, leveled one of Brown's most robust and enduring shots at those who doubted black women's suitability as voters. The book was styled as what historian Brittney Cooper has termed a "listing." It was a disruptive volley that countered limited visions of the body politic as one consisting of white women and also of men, black and white. Brown collaborated with more than 25 other women to produce-across 250 pages and more than 60 biographical sketches, essays, and poems-an argument about the past, present, and future of black women. The book demolished myths and brought to light the lives of real women-their ideas and their activism. As Brown put it in her introduction, Homespun Heroines aimed to inspire young people to "cleave more tenaciously to the truth and to battle more heroically for the right." On the horizon, Brown suggested, was a time when universal womanhood suffrage would be realized.

Mammy-as a subservient, content and enduringly loyal slave-was exposed as pure fiction. The biographies in Homespun Heroines introduced enslaved women who recognized their exploitation, resisted at great personal risk, and were committed to their own families rather than to those of slaveholders, even when subjected to forced, prolonged separation. Dinah Cox battled in court for over 14 years when her late owner's family refused to free her as his will provided. Upon her manumission, Charlotta Gordon MacHenry Pyles and her family risked a treacherous journey from Kentucky, through Missouri, finally arriving in the free state of Iowa. Once settled, Pyles set out to purchase family members who remained enslaved and reunited loved ones separated by sale. Harriet Tubman freed herself, returned at great risk to liberate her family and neighbors on Maryland's Eastern Shore, and then aided Union army officials, working as a "scout," and "outwitting the Confederates." Lucretia Harper Simpson had been separated from her entire family while enslaved in Kentucky and, when the war came, she and three other young women took their chance and crossed the river into Ohio. These women were neither docile nor content. Nor were they loyal, at least not to those who had held them in bondage.

Citizenship was a birthright for which black women were prepared. The women of Homespun Heroines were paradigmatic voters, women of independence and integrity. For many, formal education had bestowed the insight, reason and discernment that suited them for citizenship. Others, especially those born enslaved, still managed to make manifest qualities-piousness, fidelity, benevolence, selflessness, and compassion-that evidenced their suitability as citizens and voters. Elizabeth Smith had won her education despite violent opposition to the presence of young black women at Prudence Crandall's school in Canterbury, Connecticut. Caroline Sherman Andrews-Hill, though enslaved, stole learning as the household's white children were being taught, only to be banned from working nearby during lesson time. Anne E. Baltimore, Mary Burnett Talbert, and Mary J. Patterson attended Oberlin College. So did Fannie Jackson Coppin, who took the "gentleman's course," despite advice that she do otherwise.

Black women had earned the vote, Homespun Heroines argued. They had as suffragists aided all American women to secure a constitutional amendment. Sojourner Truth had been a "zealous advocate for the enfranchisement of women" who "saved the day and won the victory for women," at an 1851 suffrage convention. Harriet Tubman had taken up the cause of women's suffrage, allied with the Empire State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs to whom she sent a last message before her death: "Tell the women to stick together. God is fighting for them and all will be well!" Journalist Mary Ann Shadd Cary toured with white antislavery lecturers who also spoke on women's rights, including Abby Kelley, Lucretia Mott, and Lucy Stone. Cary's commitment sustained itself through the 1880s, when she joined the National Woman's Suffrage Association. Sarah J. S. Garnet was the woman behind Brooklyn's Equal Suffrage Club and Superintendent of the NACW's suffrage department. Eliza Ann Gardner helped found Boston's Woman's Era Club and championed women's rights in the AME Zion Church. Amanda Berry Smith preached in pulpits across the globe and "wherever she went there always sprang up an eager discussion on the subject of women's right to preach." Laura A. Brown was, during the administration of President Warren Harding, appointed a member of the executive board of the Republican Women's Committee of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, and in 1922 she ran for the state legislature, perhaps, Brown suggested, the first black woman in the United States to do so.

Hallie Quinn Brown was a suffragist. She was simultaneously an educator, church worker, temperance advocate, and club movement leader. She was a Republican party activist and she was a writer. Homespun Heroines may not have rivaled in page count the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage, begun by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage in the 1880s. But it was no less an effort to chronicle the history of women's activism and then mobilize that history for political ends. As the celebration in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment faded, Brown and the women of the NACW were left with serious work in front of them. Jim Crow still kept too many of their sisters away from the polls, and untruths wrought of racism and sexism sustained their disenfranchisement. The way forward was fraught-with competition in black politics from an increasingly influential NAACP, and with indifference on the part of women's suffrage organizations like the National Women's Party. The NACW would be hampered internally by an elite politics of respectability that kept it distant from black women of the working class. Other black women activists would take an internationalist view of politics, rejecting the vote and parties as too tainted by racism to take them forward. Still, Brown's book endured, aiding those activists who followed her, and historians like me, to better understand and build upon that "great nation of women" of which she was a part.

* This article was updated on July 19, 2019, to say that it was not Frances Dana Gage but rather Matilda Joslyn Gage who began work, with coauthors Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, on History of Woman Suffrage.

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How Black Suffragists Fought for the Right to Vote and a Modicum of Respect

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Read her remarks from 1889 and you might believe she saw the future or at least had the capacity to call it into being: "I believe there are as great possibilities in women as there are in men. . . . We are marching onward grandly. . . .

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BackStory: Hidden Figures - The People Behind the Story You Know | NEH-Edsitement

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This episode of NEH-funded BackStory-" Hidden Figures: The People Behind the Story You Know"-features an interview with Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of the book on which the movie Hidden Figures is based. Shetterly's book, and the movie, recount the lives and work of the African American women who worked for NASA and played critical roles in the U.S. space program despite facing constant racism.

A full transcript of this episode can be found at the BackStory website.
Comprehension Questions

What is the familiar story of the space program? Who are the familiar characters?

What did the work of human computers look like? Why was it so important for the space program?

Who was A. Phillip Randolph?

What kinds of segregation and discrimination existed at Langley? How did the African American women fight segregation in the workplace?

How did growing up in Hampton, Virginia, and living as neighbors with these exceptional women affect Shetterley's own life?

About BackStory
Founded in 2008, BackStory is a weekly podcast that explores the historical roots of current events. Hosted by a team of historians of the United States, the show features interviews with other scholars and public historians, seeking to bring U.S. history to life. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the show do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more at the BackStory website.

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BackStory: Hidden Figures - The People Behind the Story You Know

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This episode of NEH-funded BackStory-" Hidden Figures: The People Behind the Story You Know"-features an interview with Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of the book on which the movie Hidden Figures is based. Shetterly's book, and the movie, recount the lives and work of the African American women who worked for NASA and played critical roles in the U.S.

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'I needed community': Yoga group offers support for young Black men

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In 2020, Tristan Lewis and Andrew Smith were grappling with the tumultuous year. In January, Kobe Bryant died. In March, COVID-19 shuttered the country and transformed daily life. In May, George Floyd's murder sparked Black Lives Matter protests nationwide. As the two men faced life, they realized they needed something to help boost their well-being.

"We were going through a lot of different traumas," Smith, 32, a financial advisor in Chicago told TODAY's Al Roker. "We needed to do something that was going to be good for our mind, our body and our soul."

They approached a yoga teacher and asked if they'd teach a class one Sunday. That session made a huge impact on the 20 or so Black men attending.

"Multiple guys came up and told Andrew and I, 'This is something I didn't realize I needed,'" Lewis, 36, an information technology employee in Chicago, told TODAY. "We realized that we tapped into something in that moment."

Soon that one-off class became a regular class and Smith and Lewis created The Healing, "a space dedicated to Black men to achieve their best selves, holistically."

"Generationally, there's been a lot of stigmas and stereotypes when it pertains to Black men being vulnerable or even just what a Black man is supposed to be," Lewis said. "There is something encouraging when a guy can show up and lower his shame and be open and honest about exactly where he is in his life. And I think normalizing that behavior has definitely had an impact on guys in our community."

As the yoga classes grew, Smith and Lewis invited therapists to offer more support to participants, mostly Black men aged 25 to 38.

"It opened up the door for us to talk about the issues that we're going through. It opened up the door for us to be transparent and to be vulnerable," Smith said. "The practice as a whole brought more brothers into the fold."

But just being around one another helped many people, including Smith and Lewis.

"I was incredibly surprised ... One of the things that I needed was community," Smith said. "I needed to be around my brothers."

Since starting classes, they're both studying to become yoga instructors.

"There's a lack of Black men teaching yoga," Smith said. "When you enter into a room as a Black man, you're scanning the room real quickly and seeing who is there who looks like you."

In an odd way, the pandemic helped Smith and Lewis get where they are now. They hope to expand their reach by partnering with Black businesses and other organizations and even donating to the city, like they did with their holiday toy drive.

"I think what the pandemic offered was a sense of stillness that I don't think we would have had ... if the pandemic didn't shut things down," Lewis said.
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'I needed community': Yoga group offers support for young Black men

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In 2020, Tristan Lewis and Andrew Smith were grappling with the tumultuous year. In January, Kobe Bryant died. In March, COVID-19 shuttered the country and transformed daily life. In May, George Floyd's murder sparked Black Lives Matter protests nationwide. As the two men faced life, they realized they needed something to help boost their well-being.

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15 school-friendly movies about Black history

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A wonderful way to celebrate Black culture is to watch movies that feature Black talent and/or highlight their stories. Sitting down and watching movies with the family is a great way to spend some quality time, but this could be a great opportunity to educate your kids and family members about the importance of Black representation in cinema.

As part of Together We Rise, a 31-day package highlighting amazing Black people, experiences, allies, and communities that shape America and make it what it is today, we've highlighted some of the best family-friendly movies that you can watch with your family this month.

Princess and the Frog - This Disney movie is a modern twist on the classic tale of the Princess and the Frog. Tiana, a waitress who lives in New Orleans, wants to own her own restaurant but eventually turns into, you guessed it!, a frog - and chaos ensues. She is the first representation of a Black princess in a Disney film.

Soul - This movie, another Disney film, highlights Joe Gardner, a music teacher and jazz performer, who is on a quest to connect his soul and his body after they get unexpectedly separated. This movie depicts some heavier themes in a family-friendly way.

Hair Love - This Oscar-winning animated short film features a Black father who has to do his daughter's hair for the first time - and, in essence, teaches the daughter to love her hair and herself. It's narrated by Blue Ivy Carter (Beyoncé's daughter) and features Issa Rae as the voice of the mother.

Hidden Figures - This movie based on a true story features Octavia Spencer, Taraji P. Henson, and Janelle Monáe, and highlights the vital role that three Black female mathemeticians played serving NASA during the Space Race.

Remember the Titans - Here's another movie based on a true story, starring Denzel Washington. In Alexandria, VA, high school football is a big deal in the community, beloved by all - but when the school board forces and all black and all white school to integrate, their football teams face challenges.

Hairspray - Calling all musical lovers! This movie-musical adaptation is beloved by crowds of all ages for its catchy music and hilarious characters - but also shines a bright spotlight on the movement to integrate television broadcasts in the 1960s.

Becoming - This documentary from Michelle Obama depicts her experience touring her best-selling book "Becoming," and gives an intimate look into her life and legacy.

A Ballerina's Tale - Audiences can get a glimpse into the story of Misty Copeland, the first Black principal dancer at the New York American Ballet Theater. It documents her rise to stardom and examines the lack of POC representation in the world of ballet - and this documentary includes some really beautiful dance sequences too.

Selma - This drama highlights the struggle of MLK's movement to fight for equal rights. Because of the themes and some violence, it might not be suitable for young ones, but definitely a movie to show for your older tweens and teens.

42 - This biopic tells the story of Jackie Robinson, the first Black MLB player in history. Jackie is played by the late Chadwick Boseman, also well-known for his role in Black Panther.

Harriet - The story of freedome fighter Harriet Tubman, played by Cynthia Erivo, explores the hardships and battles of slavery - and Harriet's quest to lead slaves through the Underground Railroad to liberation.

Drumline - Nick Cannon stars as street drummer Devon Miles, who packs his bags from Harlem and moves to the south to pursue his education. But, his inability to follow directions and march to anything but the beat of his own drum (literally) puts him in some sticky situations while there.

Black Panther - This iconic Marvel studios movie features Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa, who is returning home to his African nation, Wakanda, to take the throne as king and as Black Panther. But, of course, an enemy appears, wreaking havoc on Wakanda and putting T'Challa's strength to the test.

Just Mercy - This true story depicts Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson, a Harvard graduate who heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned and/or not properly represented in court. This film centers around themes of equity and resilience in the face of racism and injustice.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - The Watsons, a Black family, decides to take a road trip to Birmingham, Alabama. In the era of the civil-rights movement, the Watsons grow a sense of newfound courage and develop a stronger family bond while on their formative road trip.
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Watch these movies with the whole family to celebrate Black history

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A wonderful way to celebrate Black culture is to watch movies that feature Black talent and/or highlight their stories. Sitting down and watching movies with the family is a great way to spend some quality time, but this could be a great opportunity to educate your kids and family members about the importance of Black representation in cinema.

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These 16 Black women are essential to our history

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In August of 2008, Michelle Obama delivered a speech at the Democratic Convention saying, "The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them."

Shortly after, she would officially assume the role of first lady of the United States, making her the first African American woman to ever do so.

More than a decade later, Kamala Harris wrote her own chapter in the history books when she was inaugurated as the first Black - and female - vice president.

It's trailblazers like Obama and Harris, two awe-inspiring Black women in history, who prove that perseverance and determination can lead to profound change.

While there's still a long way to go, these iconic women along with Maya Angelou, Harriet Tubman and other famous females have forged a path toward progress and, in return, leave their legacies behind.

In honor of Black History Month, we've gathered a list of influential Black women, whose contributions, accomplishments and talent have not only helped shape the world, but made it a better place for all.

Elizabeth Freeman (unknown-1829)

Freeman, also known as Mum Bett, was a nurse and midwife who successfully sued Massachusetts for her freedom in 1781, becoming the first African American enslaved woman to win a freedom suit in the state. Her suit helped lead to the permanent abolition of slavery in the state of Massachusetts.

Ona Judge (1773-1848)

Ona Judge, known by the Washingtons as "Oney," was a mixed woman born into an enslaved family on Mt. Vernon and brought to Philadelphia to serve at the president's house. On May 21, 1796, a 22-year-old Ona successfully escaped her enslavement to President George Washington while he and wife, Mrs. Washington, ate dinner. She fled to New Hampshire.

Harriet Tubman (unknown-1913)

American abolitionist Harriet Tubman is best known for her efforts to move slaves to liberation in the Underground Railroad, a network of antislavery activists. Her legacy is indelible in the movement to abolish slavery, as she is documented to have made approximately 13 trips through the Underground Railroad, leading dozens of slaves to freedom and was never caught, despite a $40,000 reward for her capture.

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931)

Ida B. Wells was a prominent Black investigative journalist, educator and activist in the early civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and led a powerful anti-lynching crusade in the U.S. in the 1890s.

Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

Rosa Parks, a trailblazer known for her courageous participation in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, ignited the movement against racial segregation on public transit. Her defiance to give up her seat led to her arrest on Dec. 1, 1955, but led to revolutionary change. The United States Congress has since honored her as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement."

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

Maya Angelou has a distinct voice as a Black writer and activist. She left a legacy with her large body of work, including memoirs, poems, essays and plays. She rose to fame in 1969 after the publication of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," one of her autobiographies detailing her early years as a young Black woman.

Nina Simone (1933-2003)

Nina Simone possessed a unique raspy voice and had a massive impact on the jazz community, as well as the civil rights movement. In her early years, Simone changed her name from Eunice Kathleen Waymon, her birth name, to her new alias, Nina Simone, to disguise herself from her family while trying to forge her career in jazz as a pianist and singer. Between 1958 and 1974, Simone recorded more than 40 albums, leaving an indelible mark on music.

Audre Lorde (1934-1992)

Audre Lorde made incredible contributions to feminist literature. In her writings, she highlights her experience being a Black lesbian woman and confronts issues of racism, homophobia, classism and misogyny, giving voice to other Black female writers and activists.

Wangari Maathai (1940-2011)

Wangari Maathai was the first Black African woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in environmental conservation. In the 1970s, she founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on environmental conservation and women's rights. She was also an elected member of Parliament and served as assistant minister for Environment and Natural Resources between 2003 and 2005.

Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)

The "Queen of Soul" was ranked No.1 in Rolling Stone's " 200 Greatest Singers of All Time " and it's been said that no one understood soul music better than Aretha Franklin. Inspiring generations of singers after her, including Mary J. Blige and Whitney Houston, Franklin was also the very first female artist to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992)

Marsha P. Johnson, born Malcolm Michaels Jr., was the first self-identified, drag queen in the U.S. She was one of the first openly gay liberation activists and a key figure in the Stonewall riots in 1969. When asked what the "p" in her name stood for, she responded, "Pay it no mind," and continued to use that phrase when asked about her gender identity.

Ruby Bridges (1954-present)

Ruby Bridges is an American activist who helped the civil rights movement in Louisiana. She was the first child to desegregate William Frantz Elementary School, an all-white school in Louisiana, which she was selected to attend based on her displayed intelligence at just six years old. She also was later painted by Norman Rockwell and is now celebrated as a courageous Black woman who continued to fight for equal rights throughout her life.

Kamala Harris (1964-present)

Kamala Harris is the current and 49th vice president of the United States. She stands as the first female vice president in American history, the highest-ranking female official in US history - and is the first Black and Asian American to hold the position.

Michelle Obama (1964-present)

Not only was Michelle Obama the first African American woman to serve as the first lady of the United States, but she also continues to be a source of inspiration through her efforts to promote health and wellness for kids in America. Her story in her best-selling books "Becoming" and "The Light We Carry" encourage generations of women to dream big and never give up.

Tarana Burke (1973-present)

Tarana Burke is best known for organizing the #MeToo movement in 2006 as a means for victims of sexual violence to share their experiences with others, forming an alliance among survivors. Named Person of the Year by TIME magazine in 2017, Burke has spent her life empowering women to share their stories and fight against sexual assault with the slogan "empowerment through empathy."

Laverne Cox (1972-present)

The actress, activist and LGBT advocate is praised for her role on Netflix's "Orange Is the New Black" as Sophia Burset. She was the first transgender woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in any acting category, and in June 2014, Cox became the first transgender woman to appear on the cover of TIME magazine.

Ketanji Brown Jackson (1970-present)

In April 2022, Ketanji Brown Jackson made history as the first Black woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. As a young woman, she loved the law and set her sights on Harvard University. After being discouraged by a high school guidance counselor, Jackson not only graduated magna cum laude from the university, but went on to attend Harvard Law School and served as editor of the "Harvard Law Review."

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These 17 Black women are essential to our history

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Learn about these Black women who shaped history, including Kamala Harris, Maya Angelou, Aretha Franklin and Marsha P. Johnson.

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21 inspiring quotes celebrating Black history you can use as bell ringers or to spark discourse

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In celebration of Black history, we've rounded up quotes from inspirational icons like Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, and Claudette Colvin, a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement.

This collection of inspirational quotes to share with kids also includes powerful words from Alicia Garza, civil rights activist and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the late theologian Desmond Tutu.

Share these 21 empowering quotes with your kids, and take the time to tell your children about the impact each had on history.

- Coretta Scott King, civil rights leader and wife of Martin Luther King Jr.

- Shirley Chisholm, first black woman elected to Congress

- Kamala Harris, first female vice president of the United States

- Frederick Douglass, abolitionist

- Martin Luther King Jr., minister and civil rights activist

- Ella Fitzgerald, American jazz singer

- Muhammad Ali, professional boxer

- Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States

-Claudette Colvin, civil rights pioneer

-Booker T. Washington, educator and author

-Rosa Parks, civil rights activist

- Serena Williams, professional tennis player

- Michelle Obama, former first lady of the United States

- Phylicia Rashad, actress

-Robert F. Smith, investor

- Alicia Garza, civil rights activist and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement

-Susan L. Taylor, journalist

- Desmond Tutu, cleric and theologian

- Jesse Owens, Olympic track and field athlete

- Maya Angelou, writer, poet and activist

- Oprah Winfrey, talk show host, actress and producer
Watch TODAY All Day! Get the best news, information and inspiration from TODAY, all day long. Related:

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21 inspiring quotes celebrating Black history to share with your kids

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In celebration of Black history, we've rounded up quotes from inspirational icons like Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress, and Claudette Colvin, a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement.

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9 inspiring Black American heroes you might not know about, but should

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There are a number of hidden heroes that are rarely discussed in classrooms, or around the dinner table, and while their names might not sound immediately familiar, these famous figures have shaped history and deserve the spotlight.

"Often Black history is taught from a one-sided perspective, what happened to Black folks," author and antiracist educator Britt Hawthorne told TODAY.

"Instead, we need to teach Black history from what Black folks did to resist, experience joy, and continue to create in spite of white supremacy."

Black history lessons in the month of February likely include the teachings of famous Black Americans like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Park, and Jesse Owens. These pioneers have earned their pages in history textbooks, but why is so much Black history missing?

"The reason is simple," Gerald Horne, Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at University of Houston told TODAY Parents. "Just look at the legislative backlash to Critical Race Theory or the Virginia gubernatorial race. Black history well taught leaves discomfort, which many would prefer to avoid."

Horne said that a fuller understanding of Black history isn't just about looking back into the past, it's about improving the future for America.

"History of a nation helps said nation better comprehend what ails it, so as to prescribe effective remedies," he said.

Here are Black American heroes you (and your kids) might not know about; now is the perfect time to learn.

The 369th Black infantry regiment was an all-Black U.S. regiment nicknamed the "Harlem Hellfighters" which formed during World War I.

In the first World War, they became the first African-American infantry unit, and spent more time in combat than any other American unit. Initially deployed to help unload supply ships, they regiment was then loaned to the French Army and spent 191 days on the front lines.

Though the unit lost 1,500 men, and only received 900 replacements, the Hellfighters were the first unit of the French, British or American Armies to reach the Rhine River at the end of the war.

The Hellfighters received their formidable nickname from the Germans; "Hollenkampfer" in German translates to "Hellfighters." Because most of the unit hailed from Harlem, New York, the name stuck.

The Hellfighters were lauded in Europe for the bravery. But when the war ended and the Hellfighters returned home, they faced racism and segregation from the country they bravely defended.

The summer of 1919 was called the "Red Summer," and marked by violence against Black Americans at the hands of white Americans.

Ronald McNair was 9 when a South Carolina librarian told him he could not check out books from a segregated library in 1959. Refusing to leave, a determined McNair sat on the counter while the librarian called the police, as well McNair's mother. The police arrived, told the librarian to let the young boy have his books, and McNair walked out alongside his mother and brother.

McNair went on to earn his Ph.D. in physics at MIT and became one of the first African Americans selected as astronauts by NASA, alongside Guion S. Bluford, Jr. and Frederick Gregory.

McNair's first spaceflight was the STS-41B mission, aboard the "Challenger" shuttle. He successfully maneuvered the robotic arm, which allowed astronaut Bruce McCandless to perform the first space walk without being tethered to the spacecraft.

The second space flight for McNair would be his last. He, along with six other NASA astronauts, were aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger when it exploded 73 seconds after takeoff in 1986. Everyone on board the shuttle was killed.

Today, the library in South Carolina where McNair was refused books is named after the heroic boy determined to make a difference.

While Amelia Earhart is often celebrated for her piloting heroics, it is pioneer Bessie Coleman who broke down barriers for women in aviation.

Coleman took flight in 1921, becoming the first African American woman to earn a pilot's license. She was inspired to take to the skies at 27 after her brother, a World War I veteran, told her that women in France were superior because they could fly. Despite her drive, Coleman was denied flying privileges in the U.S. because she was Black and a woman.

Determined to become a pilot, Coleman began learning French, before leaving for Paris to pursue her dream. After successfully earning her pilot's license, Coleman returned home and on September 3, 1922, she made the first public flight by a Black woman in the U.S. in a plane she borrowed.

Coleman worked her way into barnstorming, a form of entertainment involving aerial stunt tricks. In April 1926, while performing in Florida, Coleman's plane began nosediving at 3,500 feet. Because she was performing tricks that did not allow her to wear her seatbelt, she was thrown from the aircraft and killed.

Born in Lansing, Michigan in 1950, Dr. Alexa Irene Canady broke both gender and color barriers when she became the first African American woman neurosurgeon in the United States in 1981.

While majoring in zoology at the University of Michigan, Canady became interested in medicine after attending a summer camp on genetics for minority students.

After receiving her B.S. in 1971, Canady graduated cum laude from the College of Medicine at the University of Michigan in 1975.

While she was initially interested in internal medicine, Canady later developed an interest in neurosurgery. She was accepted as a surgical intern at Yale-New Haven Hospital in 1975. She was the first Black woman to be enrolled in the hospital's program.

"I made it to Minnesota for residency, and before I knew it, I was a neurosurgeon. I had achieved my dream," Canady wrote in a personal essay for the University of Michigan. "And that's all it was to me, because being the 'first' anything was never my goal."

Canady said that it was not until she began talking to people in the community that she realized the importance of her milestone.

"One, it was important for the children, who would no longer see neurosurgery as yet another world that they couldn't belong to. That's the side everybody appreciates," she said. "And that was equally important in changing society's expectations. So while being first wasn't important to me, it was important for many others."

Dr. Canady served as the chief of neurosurgery at the Children's Hospital of Michigan from 1987 until her retirement in June 2001.

Robert Smalls was only in his early 20s when he risked his life as a Black, enslaved man in the U.S. South to sail his family to freedom.

Haunted by the idea that his family, which included his wife, Hannah, and two children, could be sold and separated, a common practice during slavery, Smalls devised a plan.

On a moonlit night in the spring of 1862 during the Civil War, Smalls, an enslaved Black man, and a crew of fellow enslaved people, stole one of the Confederacy's most crucial gunships from its wharf in the South Carolina port of Charleston.

Smalls, a maritime pilot, and his crew hijacked the U.S.S. Planter, a well-stocked ammunitions ship, after the three white officers left overnight.

Smalls and the crew sailed the vessel, carrying 16 passengers, into free waters, and handed it over to the Union Navy.

This intricately coordinated escape astonished the world. Smalls was hailed as a hero in the North, and helped lobby President Lincoln to allow Black men to enlist in the Union Army. After the war, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gordon Parks was a Black American photojournalist, musician, writer and film director who is known for breaking the "color line" in professional photography.

"I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs," said Parks, who was born in Kansas in 1912. "I knew at that point I had to have a camera."

A self-taught photographer, he was the first African American staff photographer for "Life" magazine, and took photos of many notable figures in history throughout the years. He was the first Black man to produce and direct a major motion picture, paving the way for Black directors after him. In 2000, he won The Congress of Racial Equality Lifetime Achievement Award.

Marian Anderson was an American contralto - meaning she possessed a very low range in her vocal register. She was famous for performing a wide range of music, including opera and spirituals.

For many years in Anderson's career, she wasn't allowed to perform in front of integrated audiences. But, with the aid of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anderson performed a critically acclaimed concert on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939, on the Lincoln Memorial steps.

Jane Bolin broke many boundaries in her life, but perhaps her most famous is being named the first Black woman judge in America in 1939. (This is after she was the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, and the first to gain admission to the New York City Bar.)

She fought against racial discrimination within the legal system; one of her many accomplishments as a Family Court (formerly the Domestic Relations Court) judge was changing the system so that publicly funded child care agencies had to accept children with discriminating on race or ethnicity.

She served as a judge for 40 years and only retired reluctantly when she hit the mandatory retirement age of 70. After retiring, she volunteered as a tutor at New York City public schools and went on to serve on the New York State Board of Regents.

Born to parents who had been enslaved in Georgia, Robert Sengstacke Abbott was an American journalist, attorney and editor.

After attending Kent Law School in Chicago, he was told repeatedly that he was "too dark" to practice law in America - which inspired him to go into journalism. In 1905, he founded the Chicago Defender, and he sold 300 copies of the four-page booklet by going door to door. He started seeing a profit on the Defender 15 years later, and it became one of the nation's largest and most influential Black newspapers.

The Defender both reported on and encouraged the "Great Migration," the massive movement of Black Americans from the U.S. south to cities in the North. He fought against Jim Crow laws and at one time, popularized the anti-lynching slogan, "If you must die, take at least one with you."
Madeline Merinuk contributed to this story.
Related:

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9 inspiring Black American heroes you might not know about, but should

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There are a number of hidden heroes that are rarely discussed in classrooms, or around the dinner table, and while their names might not sound immediately familiar, these famous figures have shaped history and deserve the spotlight. "Often Black history is taught from a one-sided perspective, what happened to Black folks," author and antiracist educator Britt Hawthorne told TODAY.

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What Can Food Teach Us About Black Identity and Culture? A collection of articles

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What Can Food Teach Us About Black Identity and Culture?

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“Food is always trying to teach us something about who we are. The question is, are we listening? This compilation of stories on Black identity is multifaceted, and finds new ways to explore our place in the world,” says Stephen Satterfield, host of the critically acclaimed Netflix docuseries, “High…

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Muhammad Ali's Activism and Moral Courage | PBS LearningMedia

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Muhammad Ali's Activism and Moral Courage | Muhammad Ali | PBS LearningMedia

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In this lesson, students will analyze the ways Muhammad Ali protested the Vietnam War draft and racial inequity in America, and also how the American public responded. Students will examine how public perception of Ali's war resistance changed over time as public opinion about America's presence in Vietnam shifted, and consider how Ali's identity as a Black male athlete was reflected in the public response to his activism.

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Rosa Parks Museum Virtual Tour + Fireside Chat with Attorney Fred Gray, Attorney to Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King

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Microsoft Store Virtual Workshops and Trainings

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As we come together in the celebration of Black History Month, join us for the Rosa Parks National Museum + Fireside Chat with Attorney Fred Gray (2 hours) Take a seat and take a stand at the Rosa Parks National Museum. Historic markers designate the site where Rosa Parks boarded the public bus and where she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger and move to the back. The Rosa Parks Museum, located at the site of Parks' famous arrest, is centered on Parks' story and its place in the Civil Rights Movement and features a restored bus and other artifacts. Upon completing the tour students will join us for a fireside Chat with Attorney Fred Gray, Attorney to Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King for the Montgomery Bus Boycott (3rd Grade & Up) Please register below!

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BHM 2022 | Rosa Parks Museum + Fireside Chat with Attorney Fred Gray, Attorney to Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King for the Montgomery Bus Boycott (2 hours) 3rd Grade & Up - Microsoft Store

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As we come together in the celebration of Black History Month, join us for the Rosa Parks National Museum + Fireside Chat with Attorney Fred Gray (2 hours) Take a seat and take a stand at the Rosa Parks National Museum.

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The 'Beautiful Struggle' of Culturally Responsive Teaching

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Lorena Germán remembers positive moments in her years as a student in U.S. public schools-joyful lunch breaks she spent with her peers, intense intellectual debates they had while reading The Odyssey -but when she reflects on her educational experience overall, the word "hostile" comes to mind.

"Some teachers did not really respect me or my peers-they didn't believe that we really could engage in legitimately critical and thoughtful conversations," says Germán, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who grew up in the U.S. and is now a middle school teacher.

Germán still remembers how one high school teacher ignored her for the rest of the school year after she spoke up in a board meeting about being mistreated in school. The hostility in education, she says, "shows up when teachers don't believe in us and then penalize us for who and how we are."

Yet those formative years fueled Germán's motivation to become a teacher in order to dispel the hostility she had faced and foster a more welcoming classroom for all students through open conversations about race, privilege, and societal conflicts. In her many roles-chair of the National Council of Teachers of English's Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English, cofounder of #DisruptTexts and Multicultural Classroom, pedagogy chair of EduColor-Germán is a vocal advocate for culturally sustaining pedagogy and is committed to helping other English language arts teachers grow more culturally conscious through inclusive materials and curricula.

Germán and I chatted about the vision for social justice teaching articulated in Textured Teaching and the current state of anti-bias teaching in K-12 classrooms.
From Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices by Lorena Escoto Germán. Copyright © Lorena Germán. Published by Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH. Reprinted by permission of the Publisher. All rights reserved.
HOA NGUYEN: With social justice teaching at the core of Textured Teaching, you write early in the book that social justice tends to be a vague term. How would you define it?

LORENA GERMÁN: Social justice has become this buzzword all over the place and certainly in education. Anything now can be called social justice, and that's not accurate because it is just justice at the societal level. To me, social justice is working toward a redistribution of resources, opportunities, wealth, and power that promotes equity.

NGUYEN: Why is it important that teachers agree on a common understanding of social justice?

GERMÁN: We've seen the problems with having conversations about racism, for example, when people do not have a shared understanding of what it is. If somebody thinks racism is simply an interpersonal act of meanness, then we cannot have a conversation about racism at a structural level, right? We need to have a shared understanding of concepts so that we can talk about the same issue-not in the same way, but at least about the same thing.

NGUYEN: You write that Textured Teaching aims to teach students to spend time in the "gray space," where they can discuss social issues from various perspectives. Could you elaborate on what this gray space means for students?

GERMÁN: The gray space, I think, is reality. It's fair to say that we're very polarized, but in my opinion we're actually a little less polarized than it seems. I don't mean the simple binaries of the left or the right. There are people who might be closer to the center in some areas, whether it's voting, morality, or social expectations of themselves and others.

We are not one-dimensional beings, right? Human beings are multidimensional. And so I think we actually live a little bit more in the complication of gray than black-and-white. And I don't mean that simply about race, I mean issues in general.

And so I think that it's OK for us to question how classroom literature, math, and science can help us think critically about where we stand on these issues. What good is it for me to know addition, for example, if I can't use it to make my community's life better and not simply to get a good job to make money? We've seen that that's not the end-all-be-all. It does not lead to self-fulfillment and improvement in life.

NGUYEN: We've witnessed a lot of pushback this year from a number of states, teachers, and parents about whether anti-bias and anti-racist teaching has a place in K-12 classrooms. As someone who's active in the space, how do you respond to that?

GERMÁN: Silence has never helped us solve any problems. We saw that with the rise of the #MeToo movement, when everyone is saying, "Yeah, that's happened to me too." Then that unearths tensions and difficulties and pain that was unnecessary in the first place.

We've seen that happen with race, too-that's pretty cyclical in this country. Every five, 10, or 20 years or so, we have this "racial awakening," if you will, particularly of some White people who are like, "How did we get here? This is not the America I know." The current wave of banning of books and silencing difficult conversations in schools isn't new. You can look back at the civil rights movement and even before then, too. We've seen this historically happen throughout U.S schooling, and it never wins.

We should be able to say, "Hey students, slavery was a real thing. Race is this, bias is that, prejudice is this other thing, and sexual harassment looks like this. OK, now let's move forward together." This way, you have a more educated body of racially literate and culturally competent people who can engage with people who are different from them in a respectful, humane way.

We cannot pick and choose the conversations we want to have-either we have them all, or we have none.

NGUYEN: Sometimes people can get really caught up on questions like, "Why are you teaching my children critical race theory?," when I think most teachers from preschool through 12th grade would agree that this isn't what's happening in their classrooms.

GERMÁN: I'm sure there are people who have learned about critical race theory and use it in their own approach to instruction. But no one is coming into a prekindergarten classroom or a third-grade classroom and saying, "Let's talk about what doctors Bell and Crenshaw and Delgado designed in this particular book, positioning critical race theory...." Come on now.

If we cannot say that White people are the beneficiaries of White racial hierarchy-if we can't have honest conversations about the fundamental truths of our society like our own country's racial history-we can't really talk about anything. We cannot pick and choose the conversations we want to have-either we have them all, or we have none.

Before all these attacks were happening, this wasn't such a contentious subject, and it was more comfortable to teach about these issues. But now, with all this tension, is the time we need teachers to step up and do the work.

NGUYEN: In Textured Teaching, you talk about being a teacher of color in a predominantly White school. What has been your personal experience navigating the various scenarios you've taught in?

GERMÁN: In spaces where I was the only person of color in the classroom, there were power dynamics at play and this tug-of-war between the teacher and the parents for control and authority in that space. You've got to be careful about what you discuss in there, how you approach that conversation, what pace you move at.

When I was writing this book, I was teaching at a private, independent school in Austin, Texas, that's pretty progressive both politically and socially. There were times when people trusted my credentials, my education, my background, my expertise.

On the other hand, there were moments where my students said very hurtful things and I was just like, "Wow. I can't believe you really just said that or genuinely had that belief." But it's so important for us to remember that this is a young person and not an adult, and the classroom is the space where they can process and work against such beliefs.

There were days when I had to step away, go home, and just have some ice cream. When you're doing a lot of this work, you're unearthing biases every day with young people, and sometimes it really gets to you.

NGUYEN: I suppose being so involved in the space means that there would be a lot of discomfort in the classroom-a lot of tension and a lot of stress...

GERMÁN: ...but a lot of growth, like when my daughter gets knee pain and hip pain when she's having a growth spurt-I think about what that growing pain looks like in the classroom. People get hurt in the process. But if my classroom is a gray space, then we need to interrogate that pain a little because we're having conversations about important things that are impacting real people, you know? I want to make sure that people understand that, yes, there will be discomfort and struggle-but it's a beautiful struggle.

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The 'Beautiful Struggle' of Culturally Responsive Teaching

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Middle school teacher Lorena Germán discusses the need for open, honest classroom discussions about the country's history.

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Exploring the Vastness of Black History

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Students can learn a lot about the Black experience in America when teachers seek out a variety of resources to supplement their curriculum.

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Study and celebrate accomplishments of Black people beyond those that were directly fighting slavery and civil rights.

Lorraine Hansberry - first Black female playwright to have a show on Broadway

Madam C.J. Walker - created hair products for textured hair

Robert S. Duncanson - "the most brilliant landscape painter of the West"

Jeremiah Hamilton - New York's first Black millionaire

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Robert S. Duncanson was one of the few landscape painters of African American descent to achieve international recognition. His father was a Canadian of Scottish descent, and his mother was black. He spent his teenage years as a housepainter in Monroe, Michigan, but moved to Cincinnati in 1840 to become an artist ( The Taft Museum, Hudson Hill Press, 1995).

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When Jazz Arrived at Carnegie Hall

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On May 2, 1912, James Reese Europe and his Clef Club Orchestra presented the monumental Concert of Negro Music, marking a historic moment when early jazz began to emerge from ragtime in the Northeast and was first heard at Carnegie Hall.

Today, the familiar "hot jazz" and swing of the 1920s and '30s tends to overshadow the contributions of Europe and the Clef Club Orchestra (who performed a style later called "sweet dances," a combination of ragtime, blues, marches, minstrelsy, and other popular styles). However, Europe was one of the first musicians to translate "syncopated music" to a large ensemble. The 125-piece orchestra consisted of traditional orchestra instruments combined with mandolins, guitars, and banjos.

Europe and the Clef Club Orchestra helped popularize African American music among Black and white audiences. The Sun (New York) reported that the integrated audience at the Concert of Negro Music "was large and thoroughly well mixed, but united in its applause."

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On May 2, 1912, James Reese Europe and his Clef Club Orchestra presented the monumental Concert of Negro Music, marking a historic moment when early jazz began to emerge from ragtime in the Northeast and was first heard at Carnegie Hall.

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O. W. Gurley | The Founder of Black Wall Street

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Just around the start of the 20th century Ottawa W. Gurley, a wealthy African American land-owner from Arkansas, traversed the United States to participate in the Oklahoma Land run of 1889. The young entrepreneur had just resigned from a presidential appointment under president Grover Cleveland in order to strike out on his own.

In 1906, Gurley moved to Tulsa where he purchased 40 acres of land which was "only to be sold to colored". Black ownership was unheard of at that time.

"You had the wealthy, middle class, the poor Blacks all living on the same block, and so many of those individuals who started out in the working class, because they lived there, would eventually go on to own their own business in the Greenwood district," said Dr. Michael Carter, Sr., founder and national president of the Black Wall Street USA national movement. "That's a result of Gurley's contributions." Dr. Carter added.

Dr. Carter, a theologian, told INC. Magazine that, "Out of the 600 businesses in Tulsa, Gurley owned at least 100 as a result of demand and need," Dr. Carter says. "What Gurley did was for the long term--for the generations who never would have met him.

Calling Gurley's work "a blueprint for future generations: He laid the groundwork for our generation to pick it up and run with it."

An educator and entrepreneur who made his wealth as a landowner, Gurley purchased 40 acres in Tulsa to be sold to "coloreds only." Senate Bill Number 1, the state's first piece of legislation, prevented coloreds from residing, traveling and marrying outside their race. Gurley's property lines were Pine Street to the north, the Frisco rail tracks to the south, Lansing Avenue to the east and Cincinnati Avenue to the west.

Among Gurley's first businesses was a rooming house which was located on a dusty trail near the railroad tracks. This road was given the name Greenwood Avenue, named for the city in Mississippi. The area became very popular among African American migrants fleeing the oppression in Mississippi. They would find refuge in Gurley's building, as the racial persecution from the south was non-existent on Greenwood Avenue.

In addition to his rooming house, Gurley built three two-story buildings and five residences and bought an 80-acre (320,000 m2) farm in Rogers County. Gurley also founded what is today Vernon AME Church.

In the 1830s, many African Americans journeyed to what would later be called Oklahoma, experiencing undesirable hardships along the Trail of Tears with the Five Civilized Tribes. Under President Andrew Jackson's administration, the Indian Removal Act relocated the tribes and their slaves to the established Twin Territories.

Of the thirty-two black townships that were established in America after the civil war, twenty-eight of them were in Oklahoma before it became a state. Gurley, one of Tulsa's earliest pioneers, named the Greenwood district.

The still-unpaved streets would also serve as Tulsa's racial dividing lines. After Gurley purchased the land, Tulsa began to grow. Black ownership was unheard of at that time, but under the state's Jim Crow laws, Greenwood was born out of necessity.

The racial climate prevented Blacks from shopping anywhere but Greenwood. Among Gurley's first businesses was a boarding house located on a dirt road crossing the Frisco tracks, which would later be named Greenwood Avenue.

By 1913, more businesses followed, including law and doctors' offices of Buck Colbert Franklin and A.C. Jackson respectfully, Dunbar and Booker T. Washington schools, Vernon AME, and Mount Zion Baptist churches, Ricketts' Restaurant, The Williams' Dreamland Theater, Mann's Grocery Stores, Stradford Hotel, and a host of haberdasheries, drug stores, cafes, barbershops and beauty salons.

This implementation of "colored" segregation set the Greenwood boundaries of separateness that exist here in 2014: Pine Street to the North, Archer Street and the Frisco tracks to the South, Cincinnati Street on the West, and Lansing Street on the East. The segregation is pronounced in subtle landmarks. South of Archer, Greenwood Avenue does not exist in white neighborhoods. Another African American entrepreneur, John the Baptist (J.B.) Stradford, arrived in Tulsa in 1899.

He believed that black people had a better chance of economic progress if they pooled their resources, worked together and supported each other's businesses. He bought large tracts of real estate in the northeastern part of Tulsa, which he had subdivided and sold exclusively to other African Americans. A number of other blacks soon followed suit. Stradford later built the Stradford Hotel on Greenwood, where blacks could enjoy the amenities of the downtown hotels who served only whites. It was the largest black-owned hotel in the United States.

Gurley's prominence, influence and wealth were short lived. In a matter of moments, he lost everything. During the race war, The Gurley Hotel at 112 N. Greenwood, the street's first commercial enterprise, valued at $55,000, was lost, and with it Brunswick Billiard Parlor and Dock Eastmand & Hughes Cafe. Gurley also owned a two-story building at 119 N. Greenwood. It housed Carter's Barbershop, Hardy Rooms, a pool hall, and cigar store. All were reduced to ruins. By his account and court records, he lost nearly $200,000 in the 1921 race war.

Because of his leadership role in creating this self-sustaining exclusive black "enclave", it had been falsely rumored that Gurley was lynched by a white mob and buried in an unmarked grave. However, according to the memoirs of Greenwood pioneer, B.C. Franklin, Gurley exiled himself to California. The founder of the most successful African American community of his time vanished from the history books and drifted into obscurity. He was honored in a 2008 documentary film called, Before They Die! The Road to Reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Survivors.

A century ago, O.W. Gurley built an empire of African American businesses in Tulsa. Though it all came burning down in the massacre of 1921, new generations of entrepreneurs rose from the ashes.

Ottowa W. Gurley knew he would never be a success in the Jim Crow South. Born on Christmas Day 1868 to freed slaves in Huntsville, Alabama, he grew up in Pine Bluff, Arkansas where he was largely self-educated. Gurley married his childhood sweetheart, Emma, became a teacher, and then took a relatively cushy job with the U.S. Postal Service but he dreamed of a better life in America. Along with his new bride, Gurley risked everything to join a stampede of homesteaders seeking freedom, opportunity and wealth in the Great Oklahoma Land Rush.

On September 16, 1893, the 25-year-old entrepreneur joined the Cherokee Outlet Opening, running fifty miles before finally stopping at a plot of prairie grass. Standing on a plot of land with Emma, he staked a claim in what would soon become Perry, Oklahoma, one of many towns advertised to Blacks in the new territory.

Gurley envisioned Oklahoma as the start of a new life for Black Americans decades after emancipation and he was ambitious. He ran for county treasurer, was made principal at the town's school, and ultimately opened a successful general store, which he ran for a decade. By the turn of the century, Gurley and his fellow homesteaders heard tales of giant oil fields in the nearby boomtown of Tulsa.

A gusher well called the Ida Glenn Number 1, the first find in the massive Mid-Continent Oil Field, was making local Tulsans rich and eventually turned no-name wildcatters Harry Ford Sinclair and J. Paul Getty into oil barons. Gurley wanted in.

He sold his store and land in Perry and moved about 80 miles to Tulsa in 1905, taking the second major risk of his young life. He bought a large tract of land on the north side of the Frisco train tracks.

On a barren plot, he started to map out a city for upwardly mobile Blacks, who, much like himself, were looking for opportunity. After emancipation, Blacks who had followed the Native American "Trail of Tears" as slaves, could now claim lans. They migrated westward, through Kansas in the 1870s and 1880s, and then blazed Gurley's path through the Oklahoma territory in the 1890s.

"The significant thing about Greenwood is it was not just a Black thing" says James O. Goodwin. "It was quintessential America."

Gurley knew freemen and sharecroppers would make their way to Tulsa, so he built a grocery store on an avenue he and others named Greenwood, after a town in Mississippi. Then he subdivided his land into residential and commercial lots.

As Gurley expected, Greenwood soon became a beacon of wealth, education and advancement rivaling areas of New York, Chicago and Atlanta, Doctors, lawyers and realtors flourished, luxury hotels were built, and millionaires were minted. And because all of those businesses were Black-owned, Booker T. Washington himself dubbed Greenwood Negro Wall Street."

"Greenwood was perceived as a place to escape oppression-economic, social, political oppression-in the Deep South," says Hannibal B. Johnson, a Tulsa-based historian who has written numerous books about Greenwood, including Black Wall Street. "It was an economy born of necessity. It wouldn't have existed had it not been for Jim Crow segregation and the inability of Black folks to participate to a substantial degree in the larger white-dominated economy."

In the first two decades of the 20th century, Tulsa transformed from a dusty frontier into a thriving metropolis. Gusher after gusher was discovered and the city soon became the oil capital of the world and Gurley's Greenwood began to boom with it.

Between 1910 and 1920, Tulsa's population nearly quadrupled to more than 72,000 and the Black population rose from below 2,000 to almost 9,000.

By 1920, a walk through "Black Wall Street" meant traversing more than 35 bustling city blocks, with the locus being the intersection of Greenwood Avenue and Archer Street, adjacent to Tulsa's Frisco rail tracks.

The Acme Brick Company supplied building materials to the townhouses, apartments, theaters, and hotels that lined the streets. And by 1910, Black bricklayers had their own trade union called the Hod Carriers Local 199.

Entrepreneurs also began to emerge. John Williams and his wife, Loula, built a confectionary store and erected the opulent Dreamland Theater. Simon Berry built a private transportation network of Model T. Fords and buses, which transported residents through Greenwood and all the way to downtown Tulsa. Berry soon began chartering planes for Tulsa's increasingly wealthy oilmen. Though the population was relatively small, Greenwood also had two newspapers, including the Tulsa Star, founded by A.J. Smitherman.

Others built pool halls, auto repair shops, beauty parlors, grocers, barber shops, and funeral homes. There was a Y.M.C.A and a roller skating rink, a hospital, and a U.S. post office substation. With all this activity, Greenwood's economy was gushing like one of Getty's wells. It was calculated that every dollar spent in Greenwood circulated the Black economy nearly thirty times as business thrived.

Along with this massive prosperity, the community invested in houses of worship and schools. By 1920, Greenwood had a handful of churches, most notable by the impressive Mt. Zion Baptist Church built in 1909.

The district had its own elite high school, named after Booker T. Washington, which boasted a curriculum that would prepare students to eventually study at colleges like Columbia in New York, Oberlin in Ohio, and historically Black colleges such as Hampton, Tuskegee, and Spelman.

Freshman studied algebra, Latin and ancient history, as well as core subjects like English, science, art and music.

Sophomores took economics and geometry, while juniors advanced to chemistry and trade-oriented subjects such as civics and business-spelling. Seniors studied physics and trigonometry, as well as vocal music, art and bookkeeping. So important was education in upwardly mobile Greenwood that teachers were among the highest paid workers. Many had their own Steinway pianos in their apartments, while the school's principal, E.W. Woods, lived in a six-room townhouse.

Amid this bustling landscape, O.W. Gurley continued to expand his empire. At Greenwood's peak, he owned and rented out three brick apartment buildings and five townhouses near another one of his businesses, a grocery store. He then built the Gurley Hotel, started a Masonic lodge, and opened an employment agency for migrant workers.

As Greenwood's premier entrepreneur, Gurley built ties with residents in white Tulsa, just across the Frisco tracks, and was eventually made sheriff's deputy, charged with policing the Black population. All told, Gurley's portfolio was estimated to be worth more than $150,000 at the time, or nearly $5 million today.

And he was not the only entrepreneur to tower over Greenwood. J.B. Stradford was born in 1861, to a freed slave named J.C. Stradford, who had been emancipated in Stratford, Ontario. After settling in the South, J.C. (for Julius Caesar) named his son J.B. (for John the Baptist).

The younger Stradford immediately began fulfilling his father's dream. He graduated from Oberlin and Indiana Law School, then moved to St. Louis and Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, where he opened pool halls, shoeshine parlors, bathhouses and boarding houses. After one of his hotels went bust, Stradford moved to Tulsa in 1899 and began planning the creation of a Black community on the outskirts of town.

When Gurley arrived in 1906, the two worked in tandem building up Greenwood. Like Gurley, Stradford focused on real estate, building rentals units. The crown jewel of his portfolio was the Stradford Hotel on 301 N. Greenwood, at the time, the largest Black owned hotel in America with 54 suites, a gambling hall, dining room, saloon and a pool hall.

Stradford had built his hotel to be equal in luxury to the finest lodgings in the white Tulsa, and it stood as the big monument to Greenwood's rising success, valued at $75,000 (or about $2.5 million today).

The significant thing about Greenwood is it was not just a Black thing. It was quintessential America," says James O. Goodwin, owner of weekly newspaper The Oklahoma Eagle, which traces its roots to Greenwood's Tulsa Star, where his grandfather worked.

Goodwin was born in Tulsa in 1939, the son of a Black Wall Street resident. "It was like any other developing neighborhood, whether that's Irish, or Greek, or Jewish," he explains. "These people embraced faith, they believed in education and hard work. They believed in capitalism and freedom."

"People should look at Greenwood as a part of Americana, and not some aberration or a freak of nature, "he adds.

Even the first World War couldn't derail Greenwood's prosperity, but the disparity and tension between White and Black America was prevalent. After hundreds of thousands of Black veterans returned to Jim Crow and segregation, there was "Red Summer" in 1919, a period of white supremacist terror that dovetailed with vestigial communist fears from the 1917 Russian Revolution, Lynchings and race riots occurred across the country and the dormant Ku Klux Klan reemerged.

Tulsa did not escape the racial tensions. When Oklahoma was granted statehood in 1907, the first acts of the legislature were to institute segregation. Smitherman, the publisher of the Tulsa Star, began to document lynchings across Oklahoma, in towns such as Dewey, Muskogee and Bristow.

"Greenwood shows that when we are left to our own devices and don't have a knee to our neck, we can achieve extraordinary things," says John W. Rogers Jr.

The violence finally exploded in Tulsa on May 30, 1921, when a Black shoeshine man named Dick Rowland was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman, Sarah Page, in the elevator of a downtown office building. The next day, the story was prominently featured in the white Tulsa Tribune, inflaming locals.

A large mob formed around the jail in Tulsa where Rowland was being held and as rumors of a potential lynching circulated through Greenwood, a group of armed men marched to the jail to protect him.

Tensions flared and local power brokers, including O.W. Gurley, tried but failed to make peace. According to witnesses, there was a scuffle between a white man and a Black man, a shot was fired, and a little after 10 p.m. a riot had broken out.

By the early morning of June 1, an armed white mob had already started burning Greenwood to the ground.

At 5 a.m. the mob began a full-bore assault on Black Wall Street. Some eyewitnesses in accounts from the 2001 Commission to study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, reported that kerosene bombs were dropped from airplanes to demolish buildings, and when the assault was over, as many as 50 whites and 200 Blacks were dead, and more than 35 square blocks had been destroyed. Those who survived the riot were rounded up by the National Guard and put in internment centers for many weeks and months.

Greenwood's total property loss neared $2 million (over $50 million in 2020), according to some estimates, and Gurley and Stradford both lost the bulk of their fortunes as their hotels and townhouses were burned.

Most of the bodies were never recovered, presumed to have been buried in a mass grave that has still never been located. And no one was ever prosecuted or punished for the biggest racial massacre in American history.

"Greenwood shows that when we are left to our own devices and don't have a knee to our neck, we can achieve extraordinary things," says John W. Rogers Jr., the chairman of Ariel Investments and great-grandson of J.B. Stradford, Tulsa proves that African American can build great businesses and be extraordinary successful."

"On the other hand," Rogers adds, "It shows you that unfortunately so many times in our history, when Black folks get a few steps ahead, we get pulled back down... It's why the wealth gap in this country is so dramatically worse than it was 25 or 40 years ago."

For Black Wall Street's principal architects, O.W. Gurley and J.B. Stradford, the 1921 Tulsa riots yielded decidedly different fates. Gurley and his wife, Emma, were eventually released from the National Guard's internment camp, while Stradford fled Greenwood, along with other residents like the Tulsa Star publisher A.J. Smitherman. Eventually, Tulsa's police tried to blame both Stradford and Smitherman as agitators of the riot. Both had become known for challenging the uglier facets of white authority like segregation and lynchings and were indicted among dozens of Greenwood citizens.

Gurley became a witness in the prosecutor's grand jury case, testifying that Stradford and Smitherman had given orders to angry Blacks congregating and looking to defend Rowland from his lynching. A few whites Tulsans were indicted, but none were ever convicted.

With nothing left of Black Wall Street, Gurley left Greenwood for Los Angeles, where he died in 1935, with little indication of wealth. Stradford headed to Independence, Kansas, and then to Chicago. Though his hotel and wealth were lost in the destruction of Greenwood, his enterprising spirit passed down generations.

"My mom would often talk about how her grandfather had owned this extraordinarily successful hotel that was firebombed and destroyed during the Tulsa race riots," says John W. Rogers Jr. "It inspired her to become a lawyer because she saw her father use legal skills to stop her grandfather's extradition back to Tulsa. He would have been lynched if he came back. It had a profound impact on my mom."

Rogers' mother, Jewel, was the first Black woman to graduate the University of Chicago Law School. In 1955, President Eisenhower appointed her as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and in the 1960s. She became the first black woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court, and eventually became an influential figure in Corporate America and national politics.

Rogers graduated from Princeton University in 1980 and founded the first Black-owned mutual fund company in 1983. "J.B. Stradford was a leader among leaders in Tulsa...He wasn't one to kowtow," Rogers says of his great-grandfather. "Building a business and being willing to challenge authority... and fight for economic fairness, it's something that was passed down generation-to-generation." His $10 billion in assets Ariel Investments, known for its value-oriented style, is a trailblazer among a handful of thriving firms on the new Black Wall Street.

Billionaire Robert F. Smith's $57 billion Vista Equity Partners towers over the private equity industry for its stellar returns. The same industry leadership can be seen at Baltimore's $13 billion in assets Brown Capital Management, a Black-owned firm known for uncovering small, unheralded companies such as Tyler Technologies that eventually grow into S&P 500 Index titans.

Though Rogers and his family stand as an emblem for economic gains that connect directly to Greenwood and Black Wall Street, the 1921 riots exemplify America's deep and systemic economic inequities. The value plowed into Black Wall Street and lost about $50 million in present day dollars barely scratches the surface of the opportunities denied and dreams deferred.

As Rogers explains, that Greenwood money never got a chance compound. Families didn't take their accrued wealth and reinvest it, diversify, or expand. He points to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which shows that between 1992 and 2013, the net worth of Black people who graduated from four-year colleges dropped 55%, while white wealth rose 90%. The staggering statistic reveals decades of lost capital compounded.

"The effects of us not having multi-generational wealth and not having economic opportunity continues in our society today," says Rogers, who supports reparations for descendants of Black Wall Street. In 2003's Alexander v. The State of Oklahoma, hundreds of plaintiffs tracing their roots to Greenwood sued the state for $20 million in reparations, but the case was dismissed.

"All of this comes down to wealth. Wealth creates opportunity to have a better education and to live in a better neighborhood," says Rogers, who cites Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words,"Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice "King's words are just as valuable today "Rogers says. "It's why the story of Greenwood is so important. ."

Contributors: Larry Hill, BWSUSA; Antoine Gara Forbes; Janice Gerda, Case Western Reserve University; Karen Sapp, BWSUSA;

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Just around the start of the 20th century Ottawa W. Gurley, a wealthy African American land-owner from Arkansas, traversed the United States to participate in the Oklahoma Land run of 1889. The young entrepreneur had just resigned from a presidential appointment under president Grover Cleveland in order to strike out on his own.

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New South | From Rags to Riches: The Story of Alonzo Herndon

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Alonzo Herndon, a former slave born in 1858 in Social Circle, sought to better himself and ultimately became Atlanta's first African-American millionaire. An entrepreneur at heart, he learned barbering and eventually opened his own shop in Atlanta called the Crystal Palace and later founded the Atlanta Life Insurance Company. Historian Marcellus Barksdale describes the Crystal Palace as fitting its name. Carole Merritt, director of Herndon Home, takes students on a tour of the house where Alonzo Herndon lived with his wife Adrienne and their son Norris.

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New South | From Rags to Riches: The Story of Alonzo Herndon

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Alonzo Herndon, a former slave born in 1858 in Social Circle, sought to better himself and ultimately became Atlanta's first African-American millionaire. An entrepreneur at heart, he learned barbering and eventually opened his own shop in Atlanta called the Crystal Palace and later founded the Atlanta Life Insurance Company.

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Famous Black Inventors | A Rich Heritage Gives Way to Modern Integrity | Representation Matters
click HERE

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NASA Modern Figures Toolkit inspired by Katherine Johnson

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Here's the story behind Black History Month - and why it's celebrated in February

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Every February, the U.S. honors the contributions and sacrifices of African Americans who have helped shape the nation. Black History Month celebrates the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that are an indelible part of our country's history.

This year's theme, Black Health and Wellness, pays homage to medical scholars and health care providers. The theme is especially timely as we enter the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected minority communities and placed unique burdens on Black health care professionals.

"There is no American history without African American history," said Sara Clarke Kaplan, executive director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, D.C. The Black experience, she said, is embedded in "everything we think of as 'American history.' "

First, there was Negro History Week

Critics have long argued that Black history should be taught and celebrated year-round, not just during one month each year.

It was Carter G. Woodson, the "father of Black history," who first set out in 1926 to designate a time to promote and educate people about Black history and culture, according to W. Marvin Dulaney. He is a historian and the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History ( ASALH).

Woodson envisioned a weeklong celebration to encourage the coordinated teaching of Black history in public schools. He designated the second week of February as Negro History Week and galvanized fellow historians through the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which he founded in 1915. (ASNLH later became ASALH.)

The idea wasn't to place limitations but really to focus and broaden the nation's consciousness.

"Woodson's goal from the very beginning was to make the celebration of Black history in the field of history a 'serious area of study,' " said Albert Broussard, a professor of Afro-American history at Texas A&M University.

The idea eventually grew in acceptance, and by the late 1960s, Negro History Week had evolved into what is now known as Black History Month. Protests around racial injustice, inequality and anti-imperialism that were occurring in many parts of the U.S. were pivotal to the change.

Colleges and universities also began to hold commemorations, with Kent State University being one of the first, according to Kaplan.

Fifty years after the first celebrations, President Gerald R. Ford officially recognized Black History Month during the country's 1976 bicentennial. Ford called upon Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history," History.com reports.

Why February was chosen as Black History Month

February was chosen primarily because the second week of the month coincides with the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was influential in the emancipation of slaves, and Douglass, a former slave, was a prominent leader in the abolitionist movement, which fought to end slavery.

Lincoln and Douglass were each born in the second week of February, so it was traditionally a time when African Americans would hold celebrations in honor of emancipation, Kaplan said. (Douglass' exact date of birth wasn't recorded, but he came to celebrate it on Feb. 14.)

Thus, Woodson created Negro History Week around the two birthdays as a way of "commemorating the black past," according to ASALH.

Forty years after Ford formally recognized Black History Month, it was Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, who delivered a message of his own from the White House, a place built by slaves.

"Black History Month shouldn't be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes," Obama said.

"It's about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans, high and low, famous and obscure, and how those experiences have shaped and challenged and ultimately strengthened America," he continued.

(Canada also commemorates Black History Month in February, while the U.K. and Ireland celebrate it in October.)

There's a new theme every year

ASALH designates a new theme for Black History Month each year, in keeping with the practice Woodson established for Negro History Week.

This year's Black Health and Wellness theme is particularly appropriate, Dulaney said, as the U.S. continues to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

"As [Black people], we have terrible health outcomes, and even the coronavirus has been affecting us disproportionately in terms of those of us who are catching it," Dulaney said.

"There's never been a time where Black people and others should not celebrate Black history," Broussard said. "Given the current racial climate, the racial reckoning that began in wake of George Floyd's murder ... this is an opportunity to learn."

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Here's the story behind Black History Month - and why it's celebrated in February

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Every February, the U.S. honors the contributions and sacrifices of African Americans who have helped shape the nation. Black History Month celebrates the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that are an indelible part of our country's history. This year's theme, Black Health and Wellness, pays homage to medical scholars and health care providers.

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The Inclusion Imperative | Common Sense Media | Representation Matters

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The Inclusion Imperative | Common Sense Media

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The media we consume plays a critical role in shaping how we understand and make sense of ourselves, our identities, and the world around us. It can perpetuate stereotypes and bias, exacerbating injustice and inequities. But it also presents an opportunity to reduce bias, end division, and be a gateway to a more inclusive future.

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The HistoryMakers | The Digital Repository for The Black Experience

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MediaMakers are involved in publishing and broadcasting, and include, but are not limited to, reporters, news anchors, bloggers, television producers, radio station managers, and magazine publishing executives. These are HistoryMakers recognized for the innovative programming and important coverage they provide in print and both on the radio and on television.

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Adania Flemming, Fish Whisperer, on Becoming Visible | The Kid Should See This

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Graduate student, museum collections technician, and science educator Adania Flemming studies life in water-based ecosystems. As the only woman in her lab at the Florida Museum, she's making herself as visible as she can through social media and museum events so that other aspiring scientists of color can "see that scientists come in all genders and skin tones."

She also wants to bring hands-on training in marine biology, ichthyology, and island ecology to schools in Trinidad and Tobago from where she hales.

Learn more about Adania Flemming and her work in The Fish Whisperer from this Becoming Visible video series and site from The University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History. The 2017 video series celebrated "100 years of inspiring people to care about life on Earth."

To mark the closing of an era and the beginning of a new century, UF News profiled three Florida Museum women who are shaping the research institution's future and breaking the cycle of stereotypes and misconceptions in the world of science. With modern tools like social media and podcasts, they continue the work of past and current museum women, who have fought for equality in their fields and for the visibility of women in science.

Follow Flemming on Twitter.

Also in this series: Becoming Visible: Fossil Hunter Michelle Barboza. Plus, find more Black and STEM videos on TKSST.

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Adania Flemming, Fish Whisperer, on Becoming Visible | The Kid Should See This

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Graduate student, museum collections technician, and science educator Adania Flemming studies life in water-based ecosystems. As the only woman in her lab at the Florida Museum, she's making herself as visible as she can through social media and museum events so that other aspiring scientists of color can "see that scientists come in all genders and skin tones."

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Free Learning Resources for Black History Month (And Beyond) | Common Sense Education

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Help learners celebrate Black history with these videos, lessons, podcasts, and more.

The inclusion of Black history and culture is essential for an accurate and true representation of American (and world) history overall. Black History Month is a time to highlight the people who have not only created foundational innovations, art, and achievements, but also organized and protested for equal rights and freedoms.

Of course, the civil rights movement and figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks are integral pieces of this history. But there are lesser-known -- and incredibly impactful -- people and contributions that illustrate an even greater breadth and depth of Black history and culture.

Below you'll find resources -- including videos, texts, lessons, podcasts, and more -- about activists, art and culture, inventors, engineers, historical events, and beyond. And to extend your search even further, don't miss the list of broader collections found at the bottom of this article. Every resource we've curated here has a suggested grade band, but many are flexible and adaptable to just about any age group. Consider the possibilities for how you might integrate these resources into your instruction (or use them at home!) during Black History Month or any time of the year!

Consider a variety of ways to use these resources in your classroom:

Have kids peruse this list and find what interests them the most, then use a jigsaw or flipped-classroom approach to help them share their findings.

Choose several exhibits or resources about art or music that students can respond to, before and after getting some context.

Have students pick lesser-known Black/Afro-Latino figures to research further and share about.

Curate your own collection from these and other resources to always have available for kids to explore.

Challenge students to find and research even more Black inventors and engineers.

Highlight some of the most pivotal and essential contributions from Black figures that students might not have known about.

Compare and contrast different movements and activists in terms of their messages, methods, and momentum.

Ask students to choose a historical figure whom they look up to the most, or find most inspirational, then write about why.

A reminder for teachers: Navigate stories and images of oppression and violence with care. Black history is a complicated mix of both triumph and tribulations. While Black history doesn't begin or end with slavery or the injustices of racism, these harsh realities are part of it. Keep in mind your students' abilities when it comes to processing what they're reading, seeing, and listening to, and be aware that triggering topics can sometimes be more traumatic for Black and Brown kids.

Black History Resources: Places and Events

Find out what kids already know about events and places connected to Black history, and then go on a journey to discover even more with these articles and videos.

Let this mother-daughter team, the hosts of Kids Black History on YouTube, teach some facts about Africa in a video that's sure to make you smile. (Grades pre-K-1)

Read about the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech in this piece by Time for Kids. (Grades 3-5)

Travel back to the late 16th century with the Heroes of Color channel on YouTube to learn about Gaspar Yanga and one of the earliest rebellions of enslaved people in the Americas. Or learn about the heroic achievements of the 369th Infantry Regiment, an all-Black unit that fought for the U.S. during World Wars I and II. (Grades 3-12)

Via Crash Course on YouTube, delve into the extraordinary and inspiring history of the Haitian revolution, which saw enslaved people liberate themselves, overthrow colonial rule, and create their own country. (Grades 6-12)

View rare film footage of daily work, play, school celebrations, gatherings, and sporting events in the all-Black towns of 1920s Oklahoma, from National Geographic's YouTube channel. (Grades 6-12)

Read this Atlas Obscura article to learn the story of the mythical 16th-century Black queen Calafia, for whom California is named. (Grades 9-12)

Black History Resources: Activism

Working toward equal rights is a critical part of Black history. While it's important to acknowledge the most prominent and familiar figures, the resources below also elevate those who might be lesser-known, helping add depth and breadth to students' learning about the civil rights movement and beyond.

Learn about Wangari Maathai's environmental and political activism, which resulted in a Nobel Prize -- the first for an African woman -- with this article from Britannica Kids (Grades 3-5), in this article about her life story on the Wangari Maathai Foundation's website (Grades 6-8), or with this lesson plan from the My Hero website (Grades 6-12).

Use this video from the YouTube channel Black History in Two Minutes to teach students about Shirley Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman and a champion for civil rights. (Grades 5-12)

Learn about the life of activist Marsha P. Johnson, who helped spark the Pride movement and a fight for LGBTQ+ rights that continues today. Use this lesson from PBS LearningMedia as-is, or adapt it to fit your needs. (Grades 6-12)

Visit this online exhibition from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to read about Frederick Douglass and see images of some of his handwritten documents. (Grades 6-12)

Watch this video from NBC News Learn's YouTube channel to follow the extraordinary and complex life of Marcus Garvey, whose vision of a pan-African movement continues to influence Black thinkers and culture today. (Grades 6-12)

Dig deeper into some lesser-known history of the Black Panthers with this YouTube video from AJ+, and discover their history of community outreach and health care support, grounded in compassion and self-reliance. (Grades 6-12)

Use this collection of videos from NBC News to augment what kids might already know about MLK's legacy and movement. (Grades 9-12)

Teach this lesson from PBS LearningMedia about the accomplishments of civil rights activist, lawyer, author, and priest Pauli Murray, who stood against the many forms of injustice. (Grades 9-12)

Watch a short video from TEDEd about civil rights activist Rosa Parks that digs into some information kids might not already know. Then use some of the comprehension questions or additional resources to extend students' learning. (Grades 9-12)

Watch Flocabulary's introduction to John Lewis' life, activism, and influence on generations of others, featuring lyrics written by a ninth grader. Afterward, have students choose an event mentioned in the video and research it further. (Grades 9-12)

From 60 Minutes, watch this famous exchange between MLK and journalist Mike Wallace. Ask students: What does King mean by "riots are the language of the unheard"? (Grades 9-12)

Honor the bravery of Elizabeth Jennings by reading this Atlas Obscura narrative about her historic stand against segregation in 19th-century New York, long before the famous bus boycott in 1955. (Grades 9-12)

Watch this video about Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympics. Then use the discussion questions and worksheet to consider the role of protest in sports today. (Grades 9-12)

Using this Retro Report video and text, learn about how Black women have had to fight to win and maintain their voting rights (Grades 9-12)

Read Malcolm X's famous "The Ballot or the Bullet" speech and this Teen Vogue article reflecting on its legacy. (Grades 11-12)

Black History Resources: Arts and Culture

This curation features music, visual art, dance, and literature from throughout Black history, and the artists who bring it all to life.

Watch this YouTube video from Nickelodeon to find out how Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for writing dramatic plays. (Grades pre-K-2)

Follow along with this YouTube video and use your body to play the Hambone -- an African drumming technique with historical significance. (Grades pre-K-2)

Listen along as James Earl Jones reads "To Be a Drum," a story of rhythm, history, and freedom. (Grades 1-3)

Using this lesson (via Google Slides) from the New York Historical Society, delve into the extraordinary life, achievements, and art of sculptor and gallerist Augusta Savage, who was a key part of the Harlem Renaissance. (Grades 3-5)

Listen to this episode from The Past and the Curious podcast about blues and folk musician Elizabeth Cotten, whose catchy songs traveled all over the world and even influenced the Beatles. (Grades 3-5)

Journey into the world of Latin American music with this podcast episode (via YouTube) from Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls and learn about the life of Celia Cruz, the Cuban Afro-Latina singer known as the Queen of Salsa. (Grades 3-5)

Explore the influential history of African drumming using this video from the Kennedy Center, and try out some of the key techniques. Feel free to also click through and watch the other videos. (Grades 3-8)

Practice some simple and fun moves from traditional West African dance as you watch this YouTube video from the Lincoln Center. (Grades 3-8)

Through this Smithsonian video and article, get a feel for the sounds and movements, and a sense of the rich history, behind Afro-Peruvian music, a unique result of the African diaspora. (Grades 3-8)

Sit down with jazz musician Robert Glasper, featured in this YouTube video from Jazz Night in America, as he shows the jazz origins of famous hip-hop samples and tracks. (Grades 3-12)

Learn more about the extensive influence of the blues and its roots in Black history from this YouTube video by PBS's Sound Field. (Grades 6-12)

Learn more about the history behind trap music, a ubiquitous, influential music genre, in this lesson from PBS LearningMedia. (Grades 6-12)

Join two art historians in this YouTube video from Khan Academy as they discuss this important series of paintings about African Americans migrating north in search of work and new lives. (Grades 6-12)

Share this article from History.com, or this one from the Washington Post, to help students discover the amazing story of Bass Reeves, one of the first Black U.S. marshals west of the Mississippi, and probable inspiration for the American pop-culture icon the Lone Ranger. (Grades 6-12)

Read this article from Smithsonian Magazine on the history of African American Cowboys, then have students compare this with how cowboys are portrayed in Hollywood and other pop-culture entertainment. (Grades 6-12)

Watch this video from Flocabulary to examine Langston Hughes' most famous poem and his use of figurative language. Then have students write their own "Harlem"-inspired poem. (Grades 6-10)

Using this video from PBS, explore the origins, traditions, and influence of gospel music, created and celebrated weekly in Black churches across the country. (Grades 6-12)

See how Mexican people with African ancestry reconnect with their roots through dance and performance in this YouTube video from AJ+. (Grades 6-12)

Be moved by the 400-year-old history of bomba, a style of music and dance created by enslaved people who resisted colonial culture, in this YouTube video from PBS. (Grades 6-12)

Check out this video and article from Unladylike2020 to learn about the talented opera singer Sissieretta Jones, the first African American woman to headline at Carnegie Hall. Warning: Contains graphic content. While you're there, learn about Meta Warrick Fuller, the first African American woman recipient of a federal art commission, who was nicknamed "the sculptor of horrors" for her dark, expressive creations. Or discover the singular life and style of Gladys Bentley, a Harlem Renaissance artist whose bold performances challenged gender roles and norms. (Grades 9-12)

Use this animated video from TEDEd as an introduction to James Baldwin, the influential writer who was stalked by the FBI for championing civil rights and social justice. (Grades 9-12)

Use this PBS LearningMedia lesson to learn about the life of Alain Locke, a gay philosopher whose work set the stage for the Harlem Renaissance. (Grades 9-12)

Watch Chris Rock's documentary Good Hair (free on Kanopy), which explores the societal and cultural ideas behind Black people's hair. (Grades 9-12)

Join hip-hop artist Nas via Poetry in America as he discusses his song "N.Y. State of Mind" and considers hip-hop's place in the poetic canon. Note: Includes mature content. (Grades 9-12)

Discover the origins of breakdancing and learn about its far-reaching influence in this short documentary-style video from Vox. (Grades 9-12)

From Art21, step into the world of Kevin Beasley's art through this YouTube video, which explores his historical inspiration and reckons with the brutal legacy of slavery. Or experience the stunning and provocative contemporary art and performance of Abigail DeVille, whose work takes a critical look at history. (Grades 11-12)

Black History Resources: STEM Topics

Learn the amazing accomplishments of these scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and inventors who made an indelible imprint on history and society.

Learn about the first Black pilots in this YouTube video from Sesame Studios. What would it be like to build and fly your own plane? (Grades pre-K-2)

Find out about the inventor of the modern traffic light and what else he created in this YouTube video from Kids Black History. (Grades pre-K-2)

Check out Craig Thompson's alphabet of amazing Black inventors to revisit some who are familiar and discover others you didn't know. (Grades pre-K-2)

This YouTube video from Nickelodeon highlights the brilliant and driven Alexa Canady, the first Black woman to become a neurosurgeon in 1981. (Grades pre-K-2)

Find out about the African American inventor Lewis Latimer, who contributed to the creation of the light bulb, telephone, and more in this YouTube video from the Fab Lab (Grades 1-5).

Check out this video and article on Dorothy Vaughan, the supervisor of a group of boundary-breaking African American women whose calculations got astronauts into space. (Grades 1-5)

From NASA, you can find out about Katherine Johnson, another of the mathematicians whose calculations got us to the moon and back. (Grades 1-5)

Let Flocabulary introduce George Washington Carver's life, the challenges he faced, and his accomplishments as an inventor and innovator. Then, ask students to consider how his ideas changed life for us all today. (Grades 3-8)

From The Kid Should See This, learn about science educator and graduate student Adania Flemming, who studies marine life at the University of Florida. Or discover the trailblazing accomplishments of Matthew Henson, who broke boundaries as an Arctic explorer and African American. (Grades 3-8)

Read this article from IGN about inventor and engineer Jerry Lawson, who developed the first interchangeable, cartridge-based video game system -- before Atari and Nintendo! (Grades 9-12)

More Black History Resources and Collections

If you want a source that houses a treasure trove of resources, look no further! And if you want something that touches on topics not addressed above, check out these other possibilities.
Images courtesy of Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action, and iStock.

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Free Learning Resources for Black History Month (And Beyond) | Common Sense Education

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The inclusion of Black history and culture is essential for an accurate and true representation of American (and world) history overall. Black History Month is a time to highlight the people who have not only created foundational innovations, art, and achievements, but also organized and protested for equal rights and freedoms. Of course, the civil rights movement and figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks are integral pieces of this history.

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Celebrating Black Artists in the Classroom | Advancement Courses

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Posted January 29, 2021 in Arts and Humanities, History, Racial Equity, Social Studies

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Celebrating Black Artists in the Classroom | Advancement Courses

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Black artists belong in your pedagogy. Discover how to celebrate black artists in the classroom and how you can use their work for teaching history.

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306: Continuing the Story - Digital African American History Curriculum - EVERFI

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306: Continuing the Story extends the lessons of the original 306: African American History course, teaching students about events in U.S. history from both before and after the Civil Rights Era that have shaped the experience of many Black people in the United States. This African American History curriculum celebrates exceptional achievements made by Black leaders, trailblazers, and communities, despite an undeniable context of racism, trauma, and dehumanization. Students will draw connections from past and present events to recognize and empathize with the ongoing challenges Black people continue to face in the United States.

EVERFI offers two digital programs, 306: African American History and 306: Continuing the Story, that bring to life a number of the influential leaders and events whose impact changed the fabric of American life. These courses can be used alone or paired for a more comprehensive student experience.

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306: Continuing the Story - Digital African American History Curriculum - EVERFI

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Building off of 306: African American History, this course uses counter storytelling to help students to understand the history of events that have shaped American history, placing an emphasis on many "firsts" that Black leaders have accomplished and highlighting Black professionals who have blazed trails and made significant contributions to their fields.

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306 - Online African American History Curriculum for High School - EVERFI

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306 - Online African American History Curriculum for High School - EVERFI

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Inform and Inspire students by teaching them about the grit, strength, creativity, and intellect of African American men and women throughout history.

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Storied - Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

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What is Storied?

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM) in partnership with Pro Athlete Inc., have teamed up to produce a 22-episode series about the history of the Negro Leagues. Retold by Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Join us for a fascinating recount of Black America's journey toward equality through the game of baseball. We'll release a new chapter each week depicting the greatest stories you've never heard before!

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The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM) in partnership with Pro Athlete Inc., have teamed up to produce a 22-episode series about the history of the Negro Leagues. Retold by Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Join us for a fascinating recount of Black America's journey toward equality through the game of baseball.

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National Museum of American History: Black History Month

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February is Black History Month! Visit our heritage month page and enjoy the many resources presented here about African American history.Diverse peoples of African descent have shaped, and continue to shape, the United States and established lasting legacies in the process. Through African American…

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Separate Is Not Equal - Brown v. Board of Education

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The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education marked a turning point in the history of race relations in the United States. On May 17, 1954, the Court stripped away constitutional sanctions for segregation by race, and made equal opportunity in education the law of the land.

Brown v. Board of Education reached the Supreme Court through the fearless efforts of lawyers, community activists, parents, and students. Their struggle to fulfill the American dream set in motion sweeping changes in American society, and redefined the nation's ideals.

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Separate Is Not Equal - Brown v. Board of Education

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The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education marked a turning point in the history of race relations in the United States. On May 17, 1954, the Court stripped away constitutional sanctions for segregation by race, and made equal opportunity in education the law of the land.

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Biography.com's Collection of Influential Black Athletes in American Sports.
click HERE

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Biography.com's Collection of Influential Black Americans
click HERE

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Poems, articles and podcasts from Poetry Foundation that explore African American history and culture.
click HERE

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The History of Hip-Hop

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Bring on the funk and hear tales of the old school: Fresh Air features interviews with some of the greatest names in hip-hop history. Guests include Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Russell Simmons, LL Cool J, Queen Latifah and Will Smith.

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History of the Banjo | Kentucky Studies | PBS LearningMedia

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History of the Banjo | Kentucky Studies | PBS LearningMedia

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The American banjo has its roots in diverse African cultures. As Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas during the slave trade, they were not able to bring personal possessions with them, but they did bring their knowledge and traditions, including their knowledge of how to make and play mus…

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James Van Leer | Kentucky Studies | PBS LearningMedia

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James Van Leer | Kentucky Studies | PBS LearningMedia

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The U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 ruled that it was unconstitutional to have separate schools for blacks and whites. By 1956, 75 percent of Kentucky school districts had announced desegregation plans.
When fall 1957 came only 9-year-old James Van Leer enrolled in the formerly all-white Waddill Street E…

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Alice Allison Dunnigan | Kentucky Studies | PBS LearningMedia

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Alice Allison Dunnigan | Kentucky Studies | PBS LearningMedia

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Alice Allison Dunnigan was a pioneer in journalism and a civil rights activist. She was the first Black woman to get a press pass to cover the White House and her writing on the civil rights movement was in Black newspapers across the country.

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The Kennedy Center celebrates the vast contribution of Black Americans to music.

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Discovering Rhythm, Improv, Jazz, and Poetry

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In this 9-12 lesson, students will analyze the sound, rhythm, and improvisation of jazz music. They will explore the works of Yusef Komunyakaa, Sonia Sanchez, and Langston Hughes. Students apply musicality and sound elements to original poems.

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The Power of Non-Violence: 6 lesson plans
click HERE

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Black Americans in Computer Science
click HERE

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60 Second Civics
click HERE

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Black History Month Choice Board

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#ELA   #arts   #journalism   #broadcasting

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Voices of Black Creativity

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In conversation: Contemporary Black creatives discuss their work and share advice for future generations.

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Learning for Justice | Education Resources

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Learning for Justice is a community education program of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that centers civic and political action education for everyone.

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Giving voice to the voiceless: Integrating diverse narratives into history education
click HERE

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The Do's and Don'ts of Teaching Black History Month

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The Do's and Don'ts of Teaching Black History Month

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Do's and Don'ts of teaching Black History Month