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[Image description: Illustration from All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold & Suzanne Kaufman. Children of various races and faiths pointing to locations on a world map.] If you're nervous about talking about race with your kids, these books about racial diversity will give you an easy place to start destigmatizing difference & celebrating racial diversity. Bold and *marked books are written or illustrated by #OwnVoices makers of color. Books For Littles(BFL) is free and accessible for readers who can't afford a paywall. Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Check out the full affiliate disclosure along with the BFL statement of accountability. If you get books at your local library (please do!), an even better way to support BFL is on Patreon.
Anti-Racism For Beginners: Part 1

Acknowledging & Celebrating Racial Diversity

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" How do I teach my kids to be anti-racist when I'm still learning myself?" - Anonymous, Books For Littles Facebook Group

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It's normal to get flustered when when our children talk about race. But if we let nervousness keep us silent and still, our fear becomes a weapon.

Growing up, I was told that discrimination would magically disappear if we stop acknowledging racial difference. All people are the same. Skin color doesn't matter. Only bad people are racist. If we are all nice and well-behaved, racism will go away.

This is the fallacy of colorblind ideology. It's a tool to keep us complicit in white supremacy. Don't be a tool.

We must talk about race with young kids. Racism thrives in silence.

When we refuse to talk about race at an early age, children absorb our silence as shame. We're taught that if we have nothing nice to say - say nothing at all. Well - white folks are aggressively silent when it comes to race! Does that mean that being Brown or Black is something to be ashamed of?

Kids pick up when we refuse to acknowledge racial difference - and how we treat people of color. Why are we surprised then, to see nice, well-behaved children reflect unconscious bias against people of color, then grow into adults who blame people of color for violence and harm against them?
(It's your job to be that adult.)
Your child needs at least one adult to speak truth to BS about racial assumptions.

My White mother who openly talked about race from birth - and how society would perceive and treat me because of my multiracial heritage. She raised me to understand that discrimination against me was not my fault. Violence would happen to me because of my race, my gender, my class but it wasn't caused by me - it was caused by white supremacy.

The Mominator refused to let me internalize the idea that I deserved racism. To do that, she first needed to acknowledge my race and the fact that I would have obstacles in life that white kids didn't.

We can help our children understand racism - and empower them to work toward racial equality.

Raise kids of color to feel proud of their culture and their right to self-advocate.

Raise white kids to recognize their duty to stand up against injustice.

But first, you've gotta acknowledge that racial differences - even though they are an imaginary, human-imagined construct, exist as a real thing in our society, with real-life impact on real-life people.

Start by telling our kids that yes - we do see skin color and racial identities.

For folks who were never given space to talk about racism and discrimination as kids (or even racial diversity), it's scary to start. We don't want to say the wrong thing and mess it up.

No worries, we are going to start very gently with non-controversial, easygoing books that just show kids that racial diversity exists. In future collections, we'll get into more emotionally loaded topics - like racial discrimination, racial privilege, colorism, and the subtle tools that uphold white supremacy, such as white fragility and respectability politics.

And this diversity is glorious.

Acknowledge & Celebrating Racial Diversity

From two anonymous BFL members:

"My daughter came home saying she didn't like her brown skin and wanted white skin and 'bright' hair instead. I'm looking for books that reinforce pride in who she is."

"My white daughter said to me the other day, 'I don't like dark skin. ' I ran to the internet to research books like these."

Yikes.

Use these comments as learning opportunities. Read these books to discuss biases they've absorbed during a quiet time home together (story time!) Encourage kids to speak bias aloud so they can hear how ridiculous it sounds, think about where it comes from, and realize how it develops.

When children point out that they like particular skin tones, body shapes, or hair textures more than others - don't shout at them or insist they are wrong. Kids this age can't untangle feelings from fact. Shaming them for a gut reaction is just going to get them to clam up.

Instead, help them untangle bias from fact on their own. Ask why they feel this way. Use in an open, non-judgemental tone. Keep asking questions to unpack these assumptions. We're not here to tell them what to think, we're here to model critical thinking about racial bias moving forward.

Discuss how all bodies are good bodies - how we differ, and what we have in common.

All Are Welcome, *Lovely, We're Different, We're The Same

Acknowledge & Celebrate Cultural Diversity

When we over-simplify racism, we tell kids that racism is simply bias against people based on skin color - it's not.
How do we counter the entrenched dominant narrative's focus on whiteness?
(That's colorism, another problem we can tackle later.)

Racism expands beyond skin color - it's assumptions and discrimination against individuals and groups of people, based on racial identity. This includes not just skin color, but also cultural norms and behavior, language, and other markers of racial and ethnic identity.
*On The Day You Begin, *Where Are You From?, *Alma And How She Got Her Name
White supremacy is assuming that racism would be over if people of color just assimilated and acted more like white people, that assimilation is even a goal for people of color, and that non-white culture is deviant or inferior to whiteness.

Read stories that show how people of color are not monolithic - we're complex individuals who can't be reduced to the caricatures of mainstream media. Our ethnic heritage is something valuable worth exploring, and our ancestors traditions, achievements, and challenges have an impact on who we are today.

But our race and ethnicity is not the only thing that defines us. Show kids how we all have a right to pride in our heritage - just not at the expense of punching down another culture.

Not pictured: *Islandborn is another lovely book, which I recommend with reservations. In 2018, several survivors came forth about Junot Díaz's problematic behavior toward women. One of these reports has been shown to have been overblown - but I'm not comfortable with the way we're dismissing all survivors of his actions because of this. The book itself is great - so I'll let you decide how to move forward with all that on your own.

Explain How Diversity Makes Us Stronger

Bonus: When you join our patreon, community, you'll get sneak peeks and exclusive content - such as this guide on How To (Gently) Tell A White Teacher Their Lesson Plan Is Racist and What To Do When You're Invited To A Racist Birthday Party.
Become a Patron!
Having a broad range of experiences to draw from, mindsets to brainstorm, and abilities to solve the problems facing humanity is a very good thing. Human diversity is good for all of humanity and evolution and stuff. I am pretty sure this is SCIENCE.

The idea that winnowing humanity into one make-believe-super-race, or segregating us all into silos based on our racial identity sounds ABSURD. Right? RIGHT?!

Obviously some families are not absorbing the fact that genetic diversity is good for society and the fate of humanity, so we have to make this clear. That whole 'melting pot' assimilation thing our teachers celebrated 20 years ago turned out to be a bad idea.

What we need is more of a chunky stew, with folks proudly retaining and celebrating our individual racial and cultural identities while cognizant of the challenges and discrimination many groups face. These books help kids see how diversity makes us stronger.

Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Talk About Race

Don't stop here. Now that your kids understand that human skin, hair, and all of that stuff comes in a broad change of colors, shapes, and textures - help them see how all people deserve basic human rights, respect, and kindness.

Click here for part 2 of raising Anti-Racist Kids - Children's Books That Teach Kids About Social Power & Paternalism

Join us to help me keep making these articles, and you can ignite a generation of kind & brilliant luminaries.

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Anti-Racism For Kids 101: Starting To Talk About Race - Books For Littles

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Image description: Illustration from All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold & Suzanne Kaufman. Children of various races and faiths pointing to locations on a world map.] If you're nervous about talking about race with your kids, these books about racial diversity will give you an easy place to start destigmatizing difference & celebrating racial diversity.

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I love Black people. I love us so much. I have so many friends who work in the anti-racist space. I worry for our wellbeing when we are inundated with racism. Continuing to engage in confronting racism in the online space can mean taking a risk with your brain and psychological wellbeing. All of the interactions and conversations in the online space, can be received as micro-aggressions and race-based traumas. Though the work of creating a better racial digital landscape is all of our responsibility and intentional conversations matter, we must be mindful to take good care of ourselves. We must be mindful to create space, establish relaxation routines, and recharge with people who give us life while engaging in these discussions and doing this very important work.

When people of color are exposed to repetitive acts of racism (racism has been shown to be processed in our brains as trauma) a kind of post traumatic stress syndrome can develop. Race-based trauma can come in several forms:

Witnessing ethnoviolence or discrimination of another person, historical or personal memory of racism, institutional racism, micro aggressions, and the constant threat of racial discrimination (Helms et al., 2012).

This syndrome can be a response to any traumatic event and can be marked by an acute state of fear, anxiety, and hopelessness. If the acute trauma does not reach resolve, or is not diffused within a reasonable timeframe, it can develop into post traumatic stress disorder.If you are a person of color or an ally you need to evaluate yourself and your loved ones for signs of emotional and psychological trauma. If you already have a history or mental illness, you need to be extra diligent.

If you or your loved one are showing signs of trauma you need to take active steps to care for your psychological well-being (and your brain). To make what happens in your brain plain lets consider what happens to a muscle:

Say 200 people lined up to press their thumb firmly into your bicep. After the 20th person you may feel a little sore, but your body isn't sending signals that you should stop. Each time the next person presses their thumb into your muscle you might flex to resist the pressure. By the 50th person your muscle is communicating signs of pain and fatigue, but there are still people in line to press their thumb into your bicep. You realize that what you are about to experience will hurt.

[In anticipation of the pain, your body signals to activate the limbic system. The limbic system is responsible for the functions that inform our survival instincts and reflexes. It also regulates the autonomic nervous system and informs your stress and relaxation. Your amygdala lights up and begins attaching emotional meaning to these sensations (the thumb in your arm). It signals other parts of the brain that there is danger (habitual pain) and sends outputs to the hypothalamus for activation of your sympathetic nervous system.]

You don't run, because you can't. So you endure 50 more and then 100 more thumbs being pressed into your bicep. When it is over, a bruise has formed. If you don't stop, rest that bicep, provide nutrients that promote healing the wounded part, your adrenal systems goes into overdrive. Your sympathetic nervous system requires a level of signals that communicate that you are safe (no one is going to stick their thumb in your bicep now) in order to achieve homeostasis . If homeostasis isn't achieved, the message of fight or flight gets stuck and other systems attempt to compensate and increase their neuro-response to keep up with your fear signals. Essential your brain will continue to work as if it needs to respond to thumbs being pressed into your bicep even when no one is threatened to repeat the act. The thumb pressing has now been assigned in your brain as a trauma memory. This memory can be triggered (thus activating your fight or flight into a hyper-elevated response) by anything that your brain has filed as related to the incident (schema).

(Of course environment and other biological factors impact this process as well, but for the point of the illustration I've parsed some of the systems down.)

So to bring this illustration back to race-based trauma, your brain is the bicep and the neuro-response translates to your emotional and psychological well-being. Race-based trauma literally leaves bruised spots on your brain. By continuing to enter online conversations, as important as you warrant them to be, you are allowing the bruise to be pressed on over and over. You are harming yourself if you do not step away and heal. These conversations are impacting your emotional and psychological well-being.

If you are still with me, I've provided a way to respond to the trauma in order to help discharge the fight-or-flight response and create homeostasis for your brain.

Take Care of You

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Self Care For People of Color After Psychological Trauma - Just Jasmine

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I love Black people. I love us so much. I have so many friends who work in the anti-racist space. I worry for our wellbeing when we are inundated with racism.

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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law on August 6, 1965. By signing this legislation, President Lyndon B. Johnson brought the authority of the federal government behind the battle to remove state-sanctioned disenfranchisement of Black American citizens. The murders of civil rights activists in Philadelphia and Mississippi and the attack by state troopers on peaceful marchers in Alabama (recently depicted in the film "Selma") brought national attention that prompted the passage of the law, but many had been fighting for centuries to bring about this change.

Most of us know the "big" names and symbols of the Civil Rights Movement: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, bus boycotts, images of horrific violence, thousands of all races marching to the Washington Monument. Unfortunately, we seem to know little else. In its report, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) notes that "Only 2% of high school seniors in 2010 could answer a simple question about the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision."

Here are some resources to help us move beyond tokens and icons to a deeper understanding of our history and its legacy, toward our own marches for liberty and justice for all.

Picture Books

by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Shane W. Evans

Written to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Lillian's Right to Vote tells the story of "a very old woman" named Lillian, who at 100-years-old has seen a great many chapters in American history. As Lillian makes her way up a very steep hill on Voting Day, she is reminded of the enormous uphill battle faced by African Americans in the struggle for voting rights. Through Jonah Winter's poignant prose and Shane W. Evans's expressive illustrations, a new generation of young readers will learn about the long journey - from slavery to segregation, from poll taxes to protests and finally, legislation - to the ballot box.

Tween

Teen

"Someday somebody's going to come along and knock this old fence down," says Annie in The Other Side. This is American history. All of our children should know what happened, why, and what it means in our lives today. And by making these and other stories of the battle for justice a part of our lives, we will continue to knock down fences and build brighter futures.

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Books to Help Kids Understand the Fight for Racial Equality | Brightly

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The Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law on August 6, 1965. By signing this legislation, President Lyndon B. Johnson brought the authority of the federal government behind the battle to remove state-sanctioned disenfranchisement of Black American citizens.

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For Trinity Thompson, the decision of whether or not to address high-profile killings of black people with her second-graders was a no-brainer. She was teaching in Harlem soon after Eric Garner was killed by a police officer in a nearby New York City borough.

"How do I respond to this?" Thompson recalls asking herself. "And then from there, it was like, How do I respond to this- again?" Each time news reports covered another black person dying at the hands of police, her students-most of whom were black-asked more and more difficult questions. A career-long social justice educator, Thompson was committed to a response that focused not only on the problem, but also on how people were resisting it and seeking solutions.

And that meant teaching second-graders about Black Lives Matter (BLM).

She knew it was risky. When the Black Lives Matter movement comes up in conversation, it is often characterized in one of two ways: as the work of strategic activists drawing attention to and combating issues that harm black people, black communities and humanity at large, or as a movement marked by violent outbursts and driven by an exclusionary, racist, anti-police agenda.

This split gives some educators pause when it comes to teaching about BLM. Others embrace the topic, recognizing it as an opportunity to teach about collective action and to link past racial justice movements to the present. But all educators, by virtue of the fact that their students have either direct or mediated exposure to Black Lives Matter, should know the basic facts about the movement's central beliefs and practices.

Not all of us are like Thompson; the students who sit in front of us daily are not always directly affected by the killing of unarmed black people or any of the other injustices that plague our nation. But as teachers who function as caretakers, truth-seekers and advocates of justice, we can acknowledge how the threat of justice in one community is, to borrow from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a threat to justice in every community. We have a civic responsibility to be educated about Black Lives Matter and, as we learn, we must teach.

The Beginning and the Hashtag

The Black Lives Matter movement began with a commitment to ending police brutality and state-sanctioned violence and injustice against black people. It is also dedicated to affirming black people's "contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression," according to its founders. The movement was started by three black women-Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi-following the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, a Florida man who had shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, the preceding year. Garza took to social media the night of that acquittal, stating in part, "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter." A year later, Michael Brown, another unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri; the officer was not indicted. Shortly thereafter, the internet was filled with messages of outcry and support that included #BlackLivesMatter.

Since the Ferguson action in 2014, BLM has taken shape as a multichapter national organization; 37 chapters currently operate in the United States, one in Canada. Many BLM chapters and other organizations that embrace the movement mobilize people to demonstrate in communities where police shootings have occurred and to convene at large gatherings-such as political rallies-to bring awareness to police brutality. The website of the original group, blacklivesmatter.com, also lists other types of local and national events, such as teach-ins, panels and Twitter chats, and encourages organizers to submit their own events.

In an October 2016 interview with TEDWomen, Cullors explained what the movement means to her.

"Black Lives Matter is our call to action. It is a tool to a reimagined world where black people are free to exist, free to live. It is a tool for our allies to show up differently for us," she said. "I grew up in a neighborhood that was heavily policed. I witnessed my brothers and my siblings continuously stopped and frisked by law enforcement. I remember my home being raided. And one of the questions, as a child, I had was why? Why us? Black Lives Matter offers answers to the why."

Myths and Criticisms

People who don't follow Black Lives Matter usually become aware of the movement when news sites report on BLM actions or protests. What many people don't realize is that the leadership also embraces policy change and legislation as necessary elements to end oppression of black people-and that the work and the leadership are not limited to the Black Lives Matter network.

One common misconception about the BLM movement is that it is leaderless. But there isn't one leader; there are many. "BLM is composed of many local leaders and many local organizations including Black Youth Project 100, the Dream Defenders, the Organization for Black Struggle, Hands Up United, Millennial Activists United, and the Black Lives Matter national network," organizers explain on the website. "We demonstrate through this model that the movement is bigger than any one person."

Another misconception is that the movement is solely a mechanism for protest. In fact, the many people and organizations with agendas and goals that overlap and align with BLM have produced detailed policy demands and proposals for institutional reforms. Campaign Zero, for example, outlines a list of policy proposals largely focused on ending police brutality. It is a strategy for addressing one of the most visible, damaging and deadly symptoms of systemic racism. The Movement for Black Lives, a collective of more than 50 organizations, advances a platform covering six areas of domestic-policy reform, including economic justice and investment in equitable education and health care instead of criminalization and incarceration.

Many people, however, view the BLM movement as violent, seeking to "sow a racial divide" and intent on interrupting the work of police officers commissioned to protect and serve the public. For example, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, said in a television interview that the movement is "inherently racist" and "divides us." He further stated, "They don't mean 'black lives matter'; they mean 'let's agitate against the police matters.'"

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Why Teaching Black Lives Matter Matters | Part I

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For Trinity Thompson, the decision of whether or not to address high-profile killings of black people with her second-graders was a no-brainer. She was teaching in Harlem soon after Eric Garner was killed by a police officer in a nearby New York City borough. "How do I respond to this?"

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Walking north on Ninth Street in Springfield as part of a rally protest in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, Jade Pearson admitted she was "overwhelmed" by the day.

Overwhelmed in a good way, though.

"It was peaceful. It was inclusive and I thought (the organizers) did a good," said Pearson of Loami, who was with her wife, Shekeira Pearson. "I hope that people are listening. Everyone deserves a voice. Everyone deserves justice."

Protesters marched from the steps of the Capitol Building around downtown Springfield twice, as the ranks swelled to over 1,000.

A commander for the Springfield Police Department, reached Monday afternoon while the rally was going on, said there were no problems with the crowds. The decision to eventually block off Capitol Avenue and Second Street around the capitol was based on numbers, said Andrew Dodd, commander of field operations.

"It gave them a safe place to convene," Dodd said.

The rally was organized by Allaijah Davis, 15, of Lanphier High; Ariona Fairlee, 16, who attends Southeast High; and Nykeyla Henderson, 17, also a student at Lanphier.

The crowd, while racially diverse, skewed much younger because of the organizers.

Cednyah Kennedy, 10, of Iowa, has one more thing to say at the Capitol Building in Springfield. Listen:#SJRBreaking pic.twitter.com/FXupGCaAQX

- Steven Spearie (@StevenSpearie) June 1, 2020

Floyd "could have been my uncle, my father, my brother," Davis said before the rally.

"We need to stop hurting each other," Henderson added. "The violence has to stop. Period."

Among those in attendance was Tyrese Thomas, 24, who organized the march that went from the corner of Seventh Street and Capitol Avenue to the Capitol Building before the rally began. He grew up in Chicago but moved to Springfield in middle school.

Thomas called Floyd "a symbol of another fallen father and another fallen life. He's a victim of hatred of those who either don't understand us or hate us."

"We're not here to say we hate cops and we're not here to riot," Thomas said. "I want the stigma of black people to be rewritten."

"I don't see white people as the enemy," Thomas said. "I see them as allies. Ninety percent of black America is the same. They get up. They go to work and come home to their families that hopefully haven't been torn apart."

Thomas, who has worked with MP5, a dance group of high school kids, also said he wanted the protest to be peaceful, showing "we're frustrated but composed."

There were also chants of "hands up, don't shoot," and some demonstrators laid down on Second Street with chants of "I can't breathe."

About 300 protesters are lying down in front of the Sangamon County buildings Springfield, Illinois. #SJRBreaking pic.twitter.com/CA0ppmLfzG

- Steven Spearie (@StevenSpearie) June 2, 2020

As protesters marched, some shouted the names of other black men, like Michael Brown and Eric Garner, who lost their lives in struggles with law enforcement officers.

Pearson said it was "important to show (my wife) I understand what's happening and I stand with her and that she matters and her voice matters.

"But I would love to never have to go to one of these (rallies) again."

Alex Jansen of Springfield admitted "I cried a few times" during Monday's rally.

"I didn't think I would be so moved by this," Jansen. "I'm just tired of things and I fear for (my black friends). I fear for them in Springfield, especially on certain sides of town. It sucks that it's so divided."

When protesters arrived at the steps of the Illinois Capitol shortly after 3 p.m., several participated in a 'lie-in' on Second Street.

Among them was Ward 2 Ald. Shawn Gregory. He said the protests were a "magnificent stand that's been made all across the the country."

"If you're not understanding this and why this is so serious then you you lost," Gregory said. "There's people from all colors out here as you see that are just sick of what's been so obvious and still not addressed."

The march came a day after a vehicle procession downtown Springfield Sunday that had what police estimated to 3,000 vehicles. Later, into the night, there were as many as 50 to 60 protesters walking to various locations in and near downtown, with 40 to 50 cars following them, Springfield Police Chief Kenny Winslow said.

Some car windows were broken, but Winslow was not sure that was related. City officials said a person who defaced the police department's sign outside headquarters was arrested, and they were looking to see if that person was involved in other graffiti in the area.

An attempt at some retail theft at White Oaks Mall, which was protected by police, was not successful, said city spokeswoman Julia Frevert.

Winslow said a line of cars had driven near a sporting goods store there, and people "ran inside, grabbed a couple racks of clothes, tried to get them out the door and ended up not being able to get much of anything."

In a Monday night news conference, Winslow said police were "going to have a heavy presence in all of our business districts" and that reinforcements from other agencies had been brought in to cover more ground.

The department has blocked access to White Oaks Mall and has squad cars posted at each entrance to mall property.

Across the street on White Oaks Plaza, several Illinois State Police troopers were seen Monday afternoon in the retail center's empty parking lot. The vast majority of retailers in the plaza were closed.

"Unlike some communities, we're kind of spread out with those shopping districts and we just want to make sure, again, that there are no issues."

Winslow said the department made some tweaks in strategy from Sunday night and that it has "been able to beef up certain areas of the city" Monday night.

"We're not just downtown, we're all over the city," Winslow said. "And we have response teams that can respond to anything that may flare up. So we're confident with what we have right now that tonight will go off peacefully."

Winslow said that city officials briefly considered implementing a curfew, but ultimately decided against it based on the intelligence they had.

Springfield Mayor Jim Langfelder credited Winslow with calling police chiefs of nearby communities, as well as the Sangamon County sheriff's office, to help protect areas of the city.

Langfelder also said he thinks police have done an "outstanding job" building relationships with the community over the years, and he thinks the aldermanic form of government, with men and women on the city council having their own engagement with the the public, has helped.

Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell said he was on the Sunday call with Winslow, and "doubled our manpower" into the night and early morning to help. He said five extra patrol cars were brought in, and watched the Dirksen Parkway corridor.

No incidents were reported in that area, he said.

Winslow said that help from the National Guard has not been requested at this point.

The demonstrations in Springfield and elsewhere caught the attention of lawmakers.

Protesters, chanting "no justice, no peace," now marching down Capitol Ave. Heading into downtown. #SpringfieldILProtest pic.twitter.com/YBNqqg2X51

- Brenden Moore (@brendenmoore13) June 1, 2020

Sen. Steve McClure, R-Springfield, said the demonstrations could lead to movement in the legislature on criminal justice reform issues and race relations.

"I think there should be public hearings on race relations and the interactions between our citizens and law enforcement," McClure said. "I would certainly be open to what everyone has to say on it. I think that it's possible there could be some real legislation that happens after we have a thoughtful discussion where people that their voices are heard."

McClure said he thinks those kinds of hearings need to be held soon and not wait until November when the legislature is next scheduled to be in session.

McClure said he supports any nonviolent demonstrations staged to protest the death of George Floyd and minorities at the hands of law enforcement.

"But when you get to ransacking businesses and looting places, it stops being protests and becomes an excuse to commit crimes," he said.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul worked on criminal justice reform while serving in the Illinois Senate. He said some changes could arise out of the current situation if lawmakers are ready to follow through.

"I've been a part of these hearings in the past and task forces," he said. "I think people are tired of hearing of task forces. They want to see some real follow through, some real action. The legislature has hosted a lot of hearings. The problem is it is already reactive and it always dies down."

Raoul said he has challenged his staff to "reflect upon not only on law enforcement reform, but in other ways where we come in touch with inequities, how we may do things differently in our office and how we may suggest things be done differently outside of our office."

He said he expects to make some concrete recommendations in the future.

Raoul said he believes that "some of what has happened by way of legitimate protests being hijacked by those seeking to create criminal acts is horrible on several levels." Those who hijacked the legitimate protests could be a combination of opportunists and people acting in a coordinated manner, he said. The possibility of a coordinated effort is being investigated at several levels, Raoul said.

Rep. Mike Murphy, R-Springfield, said that he suspects more than one factor is playing into the unrest.

"I think there was a lot of tension built up even before hand," Murphy said. "We've been in shelter in place almost all over the country and then this happens. There's some people on edge and what happened up there (in Minnesota) was tragic and inexcusable. People react in some cases in the worst way."

Murphy said he is pleased with the way local law enforcement handled the unrest on Sunday.

"We had a little incident (Sunday) night, but I don't think it was near the level that is going on in other parts of the country," he said.

Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, said "obviously, this is opening up a giant discussion in our nation."

"It makes me tremendously sad to see what's going on with the rioting, but certainly the peaceful protests have been something to see," he said. "As an American you have to be glad to see peaceful protests. I just hope the rioting gets subdued here quickly."

Butler said there are some "bad actors" that are exploiting the situation for their own gain.

"I think by an large almost all of the people coming out for these rallies are doing it peacefully and want to do it peacefully," he said.

One role for state officials to play, he said, is to "pull together leaders across the state to calm things down a little bit."

About 300 protesters are lying down in front of the Sangamon County buildings Springfield, Illinois. #SJRBreaking pic.twitter.com/CA0ppmLfzG

- Steven Spearie (@StevenSpearie) June 2, 2020

While he is not opposed to legislative hearings, Butler said lawmakers take it upon themselves to open dialogs with community groups, law enforcement and others to determine the best path forward.

The Illinois Black Legislative Caucus issued a statement saying its 30 members "rise in sheer outrage at these blatant attacks on black citizens."

"The utter disregard shown for life in these incidents where individuals believed they were above laws that have been legislated of felt no answerability to the laws that they were sworn to serve based on race is deplorable," the caucus said.

At the same time, the Black Caucus asked that the "protests remain peaceful and that participants are safe while maintaining social distancing with faces masks during this ever-present COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is to honor the lives that have been taken and amplify the voice for fairness, not destruction."

Contact Steven Spearie: 622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/stevenspearie.

Contact Bernard Schoenburg: Bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com, 788-1540, twitter.com/bschoenburg

Contact Doug Finke: doug.finke@sj-r.com, 788-1527, twitter.com/dougfinkesjre

Contact Brenden Moore: 788-1526, bmoore@sj-r.com, twitter.com/brendenmoore13.

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More than 1,000 protesters rally in Springfield

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Walking north on Ninth Street in Springfield as part of a rally protest in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis, Jade Pearson admitted she was "overwhelmed" by the day.Overwhelmed in a good way, though."It was peaceful. It was inclusive and I thought (the organizers) did a good," said Pearson of Loami, who was with her wife, Shekeira Pearson.

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As educators we (sometimes unknowingly) step into roles of advocate, caretaker, guide, and even mother or father to students. Students pay attention to everything we say and do. They particularly pay attention to our silence.

We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent. We have chosen a profession, which-like parenting-requires that our comforts come second to those of children.

Many black and brown students are educated in school systems and classrooms where they, despite making up the racial majority, are taught how to understand a world by a staff comprised of a powerful minority. When their teachers choose to remain silent about moments of racial tension or violence-violence that may well touch students' own communities or families-these children are overtly reminded of their inferior place in society.

Even as a black teacher, I have to set a tone for my students that signals that it's safe to talk about race. Even with me, students of color are afraid to say the word white or to name the blatant racism of slavery and Jim Crow. If that's the case, imagine how much more difficult it is for them to engage in dialogue about mass incarceration rates; the militarism of police; the killing of innocent black men and women; cycles of poverty; the destruction of our bodies, minds and souls; the lack of access to healthy food and quality schools; and gentrification. These are all symptoms of a type of racism that remains deadly to this day because, despite bodies lying in the street, we refuse to talk about it.

White teachers must also broach these topics with white children attending white schools. These students need to learn about the destructive power of racism and brutality that have plagued our country for centuries. They should also understand that Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Trayvon Martin were preceded in death by Emmett Till, Jimmie Lee Jackson and countless others whose stories and deaths we must also teach. Our lack of instruction becomes deadly when we allow fear and discomfort to indirectly allow white students to labor under false, privileged assumptions.

Moreover, the silence on the part of white teachers who teach black and brown children is insulting. Imagine seeing white people, the perceived dominant race, loving and appreciating black culture when it is pretty-enjoying the music, food, culture and beauty of our people-but remaining silent about our oppression and refusing to see how the beauty of our culture was largely born out of necessity. It hurts students when their teachers only acknowledge what black people have done for this country and not what this country has done to them.

But how encouraging is it to know that we stand in a powerful and political position where we can directly influence and break this silence?

Begin by confronting your own biases-about yourself, your students, your fellow educators, the world. This process is essential; if educators don't do this, think about how much damage we could do to the open, vulnerable minds of our students. In particular, examine your feelings about the police. And, regardless of your personal feelings about law enforcement, it is critical to understand that many black and brown students have incredibly negative perceptions about the police. This difficult understanding on the part of teachers can hopefully lead to dialogue and healing in schools.

Once you've done the inner work of evaluating your own comfort levels and examining your biases, start the conversation. You might begin by admitting to students that-like them-you are scared, frustrated, angry, confused, hurt or uncomfortable. Students at any age understand these feelings and will appreciate your humility, compassion and vulnerability, especially black and brown students. This is how you lay the foundation.

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As educators we (sometimes unknowingly) step into roles of advocate, caretaker, guide, and even mother or father to students. Students pay attention to everything we say and do. They particularly pay attention to our silence. We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent.

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106 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

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Note 1: This article was last updated on February 5, 2022.
Note 2: Our work is to fix what we broke and left broken. The work isn’t done…

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We feature 104 free downloadable (PDF) articles on anti-bias early childhood education. These articles are presented in the categories of curriculum, identity development, language development, and parent/family resources. Nearly all of the articles are available in English and Spanish.
First-Language Acquisition

Research/Policy Implications for the Services Provided to English Learners and Native English Speakers by David Ramirez. Brief list of guiding principles.

Linguistic Human Rights and Education by Alma Flor Ada. The author highlights several examples of families in which the first languge was lost through a generation. A parent's rights to preserve home language, liguisicm, language acquisition, and a commitment to language diversity are all discussed.

Language Development

How to Maintain Your Home Language by Dora Pulido-Tobiassen and Janet Gonzalez-Mena. A handout for parents detailing ways to work with children, teachers, and other families to ensure that children maintain their home language.

Mei Mei's Story by Wei Li Chen. A brief narrative story of a family who has a three-year-old child who speaks Chinese at home, and who receives praise from her family because of her ability to speak and understand so much at such a young age. After entering a child care setting where the teachers speak only English, Mei Mei's family is told that there are concerns about her English language development. This story highlights the misinformation that can be a part of second language acquisition and the stress and anxiety that can result. A good handout for a workshop with teachers or families.

Book Resources for Identity & Language - Nurturing Adults. A book list with books for adults on topics of identity and language.

Linguistic Human Rights and Education by Alma Flor Ada. The author highlights several examples of families in which the first languge was lost through a generation. A parent's rights to preserve home language, liguisicm, language acquisition, and a commitment to language diversity are all discussed.

Choosing a Child Care Program

What Kinds of Information do Parents Need for Choosing Child Care in a Diverse Society? by Hedy Nai-Lin Chang, Amy Muckelroy, and Dora Pulido-Tobiassen. This article discusses the ways in which parents choose care settings for their young children, and notes the absence of critical attention to a programs' approach to race, language and culture in most parent decision-making. The article suggests what parents need to know about the program in order to make an informed choice about program approaches to race, language and culture, and suggests ways for parents to pursue related information.

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Anti-bias Education Articles - Teaching for Change

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We feature 104 free downloadable (PDF) articles on anti-bias early childhood education. These articles are presented in the categories of curriculum, identity development, language development, and parent/family resources. Nearly all of the articles are available in English and Spanish. Article sections and sub-sections Anti-bias Curriculum Classroom Environment Cultural & Racial Diversity Working with Parents Working with ...

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From film kits and lesson plans to the building blocks of a customized Learning Plan—texts, student tasks and teaching strategies—our resources will help you bring relevance, rigor and social emotional learning into your classroom—all for FREE.

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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 7 pages. Writing activity for students to complete the narrative of women workers striking at a glove-making factory, exploring possible outcomes.

Themes: Labor, Organizing, Social Class, Women's History

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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 7 pages. Students read a poignant excerpt from Agnes Smedley's novel, Daughter of Earth, and use it to think and write about how schooling-their own included-teaches lessons about social class.

Time Periods: 20th Century, Turn of the Century: 1900 - 1909

Themes: Education, Social Class, Women's History

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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Students are invited to solve a mystery, using historical clues, about the real story of the Draft Riots.

Time Periods: 19th Century, Civil War Era: 1850 - 1864

Themes: African American, Democracy & Citizenship, Immigration, Racism & Racial Identity, Slavery and Resistance, Social Class, Wars & Related Anti-War Movements

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Teaching Materials - Zinn Education Project

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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond. 7 pages. Writing activity for students to complete the narrative of women workers striking at a glove-making factory, exploring possible outcomes. Themes: Labor, Organizing, Social Class, Women's History Read More Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. 7 pages.

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Historian Ed Baptist provides context on the creation and enforcement of a U.S. racial binary that endures today, as well as Black resistance as a force for political change. And Aisha White urges educators to ask themselves, "What did you learn about race when you were younger?" before they engage with children. She argues that self-reflection and ongoing education are vital tools to combat the fallacy of ignoring students' racialized experiences.

People from all corners of public life are telling teachers to stop discussions about race and racism in the classroom, but keeping the truth of the world from students simply doesn't work. English teacher Matthew Kay urges educators to create brave spaces instead. He provides examples of classroom strategies for engaging with students at the intersections of race, literature and lived experience. Hint: it involves vulnerability, accountability and quality affirmations.

This season, we're examining the century between the Civil War and the modern civil rights movement to understand how systemic racism and slavery persisted and evolved after emancipation-and how Black Americans still developed strong institutions during this time. Co-hosts Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Bethany Jay discuss how students need to grasp this history to understand injustices many of them face today, from voter suppression to mass incarceration.

In 2015, Coach Steve Bandura loaded the Anderson Monarchs, a Little League baseball team from Philadelphia, onto a 1947 Flxible Clipper Bus for a barnstorming tour back in time. Bandura and the players recount lessons learned while visiting historic civil rights sites, meeting veteran activists and playing baseball along the way. And historian Derrick E. White, co-host of The Black Athlete podcast, explores the intersection of sports and civil rights history.

The civil rights movement offers critical context for understanding the systemic police violence, voter suppression efforts, 'law and order' rhetoric and criminalization of activism we see today. It also helps us understand the strategies activists use to fight these injustices. Historians Shannon King and Nishani Frazier explain how they use 21st-century Black activism to teach the movement's history-and how they use the movement to help students better understand the contemporary Black freedom struggle.

The history of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense can help us understand the transition from civil rights to Black Power and contemporary issues like mass incarceration. From the Ten-Point Platform to survival programs, historian Robyn C. Spencer outlines key aspects of the party's revolutionary ideology, grassroots activism and community service. And historian Jakobi Williams joins to share valuable classroom insights.

Historian Clarence Lang joins us for a conversation about Malcolm X. We discuss his commitment to Black pride and self-determination and his rejection of the white gaze and the myth of American exceptionalism. Learn how teaching about the life and works of Malcolm X can illuminate the universe of possibilities of the civil rights movement-and the diversity of ideology, strategy and political thought within the Black freedom struggle.

In this episode, we talk with movement veteran Courtland Cox about lessons from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and his own development as a young organizer of the Emmett Till generation. We join Karlyn Forner and John B. Gartrell to tour the resources available through SNCC Digital Gateway. And we hear from student organizer Kaia Woodford about the lessons from the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements that inform her activism today.

Oral histories, historic sites, archives and museums expand students' understanding of the past. They fill in gaps in our textbooks-complementing what's included and capturing what's not. This episode highlights online oral history collections including the Civil Rights History Project. It offers recommendations for students conducting their own oral histories. And it explores resources from the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

Teaching civil rights history to young learners creates both opportunities and challenges. The 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project and the subsequent Freedom Schools offer important lessons for helping elementary students to understand the civil rights movement. In this episode, we explore community-based strategies and activities for bringing the Black freedom struggle into your classroom.

If you're finding this podcast useful, please support us by taking our 10 question Listener Survey. And stay tuned! More episodes are on the way. In the meantime, if you're looking for ways to talk with students about the relationship between the hard history of white supremacy and the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Learning for Justice resources can help you lead student-responsive, historically grounded discussions about the recent violence.

From the hard work of organizing to the reality of everyday life under Jim Crow, films and literature can bring historical context to life for students. In this episode, we recommend several "must use" films, books, poems and plays for teaching the civil rights movement. We also discuss strategies for incorporating these works across the curricula and for turning even problematic texts into grist for meaningful critical discussions.

Everyone thinks they know the story, but the real history of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott is even better. This episode details the events that set the stage for Ms. Parks' civil disobedience. You'll meet the leaders and organizations who transformed a moment of activism into a 13-month campaign. And you'll learn about the community that held fast in the face of legal and political attacks, economic coercion, intimidation and violence.

To fully understand the United States today, we have to comprehend the central role that slavery played in our nation's past. That legacy is also the foundation for understanding the civil rights movement and its place within the history of the Black freedom struggle. This episode is a special look back at our first season. It explores and expands on the 10 Key Concepts that ground Learning for Justice's K-12 frameworks for teaching the hard history of American slavery.

You cannot teach the civil rights movement without talking about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But it's critical that students deconstruct the mythology surrounding the movement's most iconic figure to learn about the man, not just the hero. The real Dr. King held beliefs that evolved over time. A complex man, he was part of a much larger movement-one that shaped him as much as he shaped it.

The civil rights movement was never strictly a Southern phenomenon. To better understand the Jim Crow North, we explore discrimination and Black protest in places like Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland and New York. To examine the Black Freedom Movement beyond the South, we examine the Black-led fights to gain access to decent housing, secure quality education and end police brutality in these cities.

Armed resistance and nonviolent direct action co-existed throughout the civil rights era. In this episode, three historians confront some comfortable assumptions about nonviolence and self-defense. Wesley Hogan examines the evolution, value and limitations of nonviolence in the movement. Christopher Strain offers a three-part strategy for rethinking this false dichotomy in the classroom. And Akinyele Umoja offers insights about armed resistance from his research in Mississippi.

Alice Qannik Glenn is the host of Coffee and Quaq and assistant producer of The Forgotten Slavery of our Ancestors. This short, classroom-ready film offers an introduction to the history of Indigenous enslavement on land that is currently the United States. This new resource from Learning for Justice features an extensive group of experts, many of whom will be familiar to listeners from Season 2.

Jim Crow was more than signs and separation. It was a system of terror and violence created to control the labor and regulate the behavior of Black people. In this episode, historian Stephen Berrey unpacks the mechanics of racial oppression, the actions white people took-in and beyond the South-to maintain white supremacy, and the everyday ways Black people fought back. And the directors of the film An Outrage join ELA-teacher Ahmariah Jackson to discuss teaching the racial terror of lynching.

Music chronicles the history of the civil rights struggle: The events, tactics and emotions of the movement are documented in songs of the era. From The Freedom Singers to Sam Cooke, historian Charles L. Hughes explains how your students can use music for both historical insight and evidence in the classroom.

Students don't enter our classrooms as blank slates. When it comes to the civil rights movement, we often have to help our students unlearn what they think they know while we're teaching them what actually happened. The people were more complex, the strategies more complicated and the stakes more dangerous than we like to remember. In this episode, historian Nishani Frazier and social studies teacher Adam Sanchez demonstrate the value of teaching the movement from the grassroots up.

Teaching the civil rights movement accurately and effectively requires deconstructing the myths and misconceptions around it. Most people are familiar with a very specific version of the movement that exaggerates government support and denies the existence and persistence of racism outside the South. Julian Bond called this the "Master Narrative." It celebrates sanitized icons and downplays grassroots organizing. And it overhypes nonviolence while disparaging self-defense and Black Power. In this episode, we talk with historian Nishani Frazier and social studies teacher Adam Sanchez about how to separate fact from fiction in your civil rights teaching.

The systems that enabled and perpetuated African and Indigenous enslavement in what is now the U.S. have much in common, and their histories tell us a great deal about the present. Professors Bethany Jay and Steven Oliver join us to talk about connections between the first two seasons and how to teach them, and we preview what's to come in season three.

In this special call-in episode, listeners share their stories and questions from throughout season 2-including teaching remotely, working with families and stakeholders, and incorporating social justice into subjects like math and science. As educators, we're strongest when we support each other. And you'll hear great suggestions from fellow teachers, like these resources we discuss from Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia.

It's time for our first call-in show! We know things are chaotic for you and every other educator right now. We feel it too, so this seems like the perfect time to talk. Pick up the phone and dial 888-59-STORY (888-597-8679). Our lines are open until Sunday night, April 19. Teaching hard history is even harder right now, so let's talk about resources you can use if you're teaching virtually. Ask us your questions; tell us your stories. And let us know how you're doing.

Indian Removal was a brutal and complicated effort that textbooks often simplify. It is also inseparably related to slavery. Enslavers seeking profit drove demand for Indigenous lands, displacing hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people. Some of these Indigenous people participated in chattel slavery. Focusing on the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations, this episode pulls the lens back to show how Removal and enslavement must be taught together. This story must be told if we're going to understand the full hard history of American enslavement.

The Americas were built on the lands, labor and lives of Indigenous peoples. Despite being erased from history textbooks after the so-called first Thanksgiving, Indigenous peoples did not disappear. Colonial settlers relied on the cooperation, exploitation and forced labor of their Native neighbors to survive and thrive in what became North America. Focusing on New England, historian Margaret Newell introduces us to the Charter Generation of systematically enslaved people across this continent.

From 1936 to 1938, the Federal Writers' Project collected stories from people who had been enslaved. The WPA Slave Narrative Collection at the Library of Congress is a valuable resource; these oral histories are also problematic. Interpreting these narratives within literary and historical context, students can develop primary source literacy. Historian Cynthia Lynn Lyerly outlines unique insights these texts can add to your curriculum.

To better understand the United States' past and present, we need to better understand Indigenous identities-and classrooms play a huge role. This starts with examining what's missing from our social studies, history, civics and government curricula. Throughout this episode, we reference the K-5 Framework for Teaching Hard History as we shed light on key topics like sovereignty, land and erasure.

Educators can no longer ignore our country's history of Indigenous enslavement. Our students need a fuller understanding of the pivotal history of slavery to comprehend the present and develop a vision for our nation's future. In this mid-season recap, we highlight key lessons about this consequential part of American history-along with teaching strategies and resources-through the voices of leading scholars and educators featured so far.

Throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the forced labor and bondage of Indigenous peoples was integral to the economic and political history of what became the Southwestern United States. Historian and author Andrés Reséndez outlines the significance of silver mining, Indigenous enslavement and resistance in the history of New Mexico and Latin America. We examine how, as white settlers moved west, so-called "free soil" states like California continued to institutionalize coerced labor.
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A hundred years before the first ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia, Europeans introduced the commercial practice of enslavement in "The New World." And for the next 400 years, millions of Indigenous people throughout the Americas were enslaved through several forms of forced labor and bondage. Historian and author Andrés Reséndez calls this "The Other Slavery," and his work is changing our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade.
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Andrés Reséndez is the author of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. His work has changed conventional wisdom about the institution of slavery in the Atlantic world. Over the next two episodes, host Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Reséndez will discuss key turning points in this history-exploring how it expands our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade and the lasting legacy of colonialism, which continues to reverberate in our communities. Be sure to join us.
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Each autumn, Thanksgiving brings a disturbing amount of inaccurate information and troubling myths into classrooms across the United States. Most students don't learn much about the history of Native nations-and even less about Indigenous peoples today. Dr. Debbie Reese explains what to look for and what to avoid (or teach with a critical lens) when selecting children's books by and about Indigenous people. She also recommends specific books to counter common misconceptions in your classroom.
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Children's books are often the primary way young students are exposed to the history of American slavery. But many books about slavery sugarcoat oppression. Professor Ebony Elizabeth Thomas examines what we should consider when it comes to how children's books portray African Americans and Indigenous people, their cultures and the effects of enslavement. She also explains why it's crucial to create "a balance of narratives" when selecting books about marginalized and underrepresented communities.
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For elementary teachers approaching the topic of slavery, it can be tempting to focus only on heroes and avoid explaining oppression. But teachers' omissions speak as loudly as what they choose to include. And what children learn in the early grades has broad consequences for the rest of their education. Dr. Kate Shuster guides us through the new Teaching Hard History K-5 framework from Learning for Justice. We also learn how four elementary teachers are beginning to use it in their classrooms.
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Understanding Indigenous enslavement expands our conception of slavery in what is now the United States. It spread across the entire continent and affected millions of people of different backgrounds. If we define slavery too narrowly, we can fail to see its persistence over time and even its modern-day permutations. Historian Christina Snyder examines the Civil War, Lincoln and emancipation with Indigenous people in mind.
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Millions of Indigenous people lived in North America before European colonial powers invaded. Along with an insatiable desire for free labor, Europeans brought a system of slavery that significantly differed from the historical practices of enslavement among Native nations. Historian Christina Snyder tells the story of what happened when these worlds collided. European concepts of bondage transformed the way Native nations interacted with each other, resulted in the enslavement and death of millions of Indigenous people, and sparked widespread resistance by Native nations.
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The Smithsonian's Eduardo Díaz and Renée Gokey discuss the importance of learning about Indigenous enslavement. And former Teaching Tolerance Director Maureen Costello explains all of the program's classroom resources available for teaching this history, including a first-of-its-kind K-5 framework.
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We're turning our attention to the enslavement of Indigenous people, spending more time with teachers in the classroom and adding support for K-5 educators. Tune in next week for more advice about teaching the history and long legacy of American slavery.
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Download the transcript for all of season 1 here.

Historian Bethany Jay returns - answering questions from educators across the country. Host Hasan Kwame Jeffries and the co-editor of Understanding and Teaching American Slavery confront teacher anxieties and counter misconceptions in our season finale.
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From elementary to high school, YA literature can introduce fundamental themes and information about slavery, especially when paired with primary sources. John H. Bickford shows how to capitalize on the strengths and weaknesses of trade books about slavery.
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Using the present to explore the past. Tamara Spears and Jordan Lanfair suggest a Social Studies unit about Resistance & Kanye West, and a set of English Language Arts lessons examining holidays to understand the legacy of American slavery.
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How it's done. Tamara Spears teaches middle school Social Studies in New York and Jordan Lanfair is a high school English Language Arts teacher in Chicago. Each has been developing additional lessons about slavery for years. They share their experiences.
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Over the next few episodes, we're bringing Season One to a close. Tune in for stories from the classroom, guidance for elementary teachers and language arts classes. And answers to questions from listeners like you.
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Enslavement didn't end with Emancipation. Historian James Brewer Stewart discusses modern-day slavery happening across the world-and right here in the U.S.-showing educators how to connect the past with the present.
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A listener's question leads to a meaningful moment. And now we want more! Take a listen, then email us to tell us your story about teaching hard history for an upcoming, special episode.
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At James Madison's Montpelier, the legacy of enslaved people isn't silenced-and their descendants have a voice. Christian Cotz, Price Thomas and Dr. Patrice Preston Grimes explain how that happened, and why it's important.
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In the United States, justice was never blind. Historian Paul Finkelman goes beyond legal jargon to illustrate how slavery was entangled with the opinions of the Court-and encoded into the Constitution itself.
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Constitutional historian Paul Finkelman explains the deeply racist bargains the founding fathers struck in order to unify the country under one document and discusses what students need to know about how slavery defined America after the Revolution.
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Film historian Ron Briley returns with more documentary, feature film and miniseries suggestions for history and English instructors. From Ken Burns to Black Panther, this episode offers background and strategies for incorporating pop culture into classroom lessons.
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Film has long shaped our nation's historical memory, for good and bad. Film historian Ron Briley offers ways to responsibly use films in the classroom to reframe the typical narrative of American slavery and Reconstruction.
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Most students leave school thinking enslaved people lived like characters in Gone With the Wind. Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens reveals the remarkable diversity of lived experiences within slavery and explains the gap between what scholars and students know.
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To see a more complete picture of the experience of enslaved people, you have to redefine resistance. Dr. Kenneth S. Greenberg offers teachers a lens to help students see the ways in which enslaved people fought back against the brutality of slavery.
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Students learning about slavery often ask, "Why didn't enslaved people just run away or revolt?" Lindsay Anne Randall offers a lesson in "Process Drama"-a method teachers can use to answer this question, build empathy and offer perspective.
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In many ways, the U.S. has fallen short of its ideals. How can we explain this to students-particularly in the context of discussing slavery? Professor Steven Thurston Oliver has this advice for teachers: Face your fears.
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Follow the money. Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara explains why American slavery couldn't have existed without a national commercial infrastructure that supported and benefited from the labor of enslaved people.
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Dr. Bethany Jay is back to talk about teaching the end of the Civil War, and how enslaved people's participation in the war helped subvert the institution of slavery.
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What really caused the Civil War? In this episode, Salem State University Professor Bethany Jay offers tips for teaching lesser-known history that clarifies this question and cuts through our cloudy national understanding of the Confederacy.
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What we don't know about American history hurts us all. Teaching Hard History begins with the long and brutal legacy of chattel slavery and reaches through the victories of and violent responses to the civil rights movement to the present day.

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Welcome to Raising Race Conscious Children, a resource to support adults who are trying to talk about race with young children. The goals of these conversations are to dismantle the color-blind framework and prepare young people to work toward racial justice. If we commit to collectively trying to talk about race with young children, we can lean on one another for support as we, together, envision a world where we actively challenge racism each and every day. Many of the blog's posts are geared toward White people but a community of guest bloggers represent diverse backgrounds and the strategies discussed may be helpful for all.
It starts one conversation at a time.
Quick Links

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Raising Race Conscious Children | A Resource for Talking About Race & Diversity With Young Children

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To support parents who are trying to talk about race and diversity with young children- with the goal of preparing young people to work toward racial justice.

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Sex Positive Families provides the education and resources that help families raise sexually healthy children.

Sex Positive Families provides the education and resources that help families raise sexually healthy children.

Come Learn With Us!

Growing Into You!™ will help your family learn and connect during the tween and teen years.
Our virtual workshops and self-paced course are designed for families of 8-16 year olds, of all gender identities, and their trusted adults to learn together about puberty, changing bodies, media and porn literacy to breakdown taboos and reinforce the power of family support systems.

Our interactive education is available to families in two formats. Learn more:

Grab your copy of Sex Positive Talks to Have With Kids, the best-selling guide to creating an open, shame-free connection with the young people in your world.
It's an inclusive, medically accurate, and comprehensive resource that walks you through over 150 conversation starters, reflection exercises, and activities you can begin implementing at every age and stage to normalize sexual health talks and become the trusted adult we all needed growing up.

Get the Sexual Behaviors in Childhood Guide!

Learn what is typical sexual behavior and what to be concerned about at every age and stage. Join our email community to get your free copy of the Sexual Behaviors in Childhood Guide. You'll also receive monthly tips and resources to support you along the journey of raising sexually healthy children!

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Education and resources that help families raise sexually healthy children at every age and stage.

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Opportunities for Action | whiteaccomplices

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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The notion of race is a social construct designed to divide people into groups ranked as superior and inferior. The scientific consensus is that race, in this sense, has no biological basis - we are all one race, the human race. Racial identity, however, is very real. And, in a racialized society like the United States, everyone is assigned a racial identity whether they are aware of it or not.

Race as Social Construction

​The dictionary's definition of race is incomplete and misses the complexity of impact on lived experiences. It is important to acknowledge race is a social fabrication, created to classify people on the arbitrary basis of skin color and other physical features. Although race has no genetic or scientific basis, the concept of race is important and consequential. Societies use race to establish and justify systems of power, privilege, disenfranchisement, and oppression.

American Anthropological Association states that "the 'racial' worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in the United States has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans, and peoples of African descent." To understand more about race as a social construct in the United States, read the AAPA statement on race and racism.
Learn more about race as it relates to human genetics In the Teaching Tolerance report, "Race Does Not Equal DNA"

What is Racial identity?

Racial identity is externally imposed: "How do others perceive me?"

Racial identity is also internally constructed: "How do I identify myself?"

Understanding how our identities and experiences have been shaped by race is vital. We are all awarded certain privileges and or disadvantages because of our race whether or not we are conscious of it.

Race matters. Race matters ... because of persistent racial inequality in society - inequality that cannot be ignored. Justice Sonya Sotomayor United States Supreme Court

Developmental models of racial identity

Many sociologists and psychologists have identified that there are similar patterns every individual goes through when recognizing their racial identity. While these patterns help us understand the link between race and identity, creating one's racial identity is a fluid and nonlinear process that varies for every person and group.

Think of these categories of Racial Identity Development [PDF] as stations along a journey of the continual evolution of your racial identity. Your personal experiences, family, community, workplaces, the aging process, and political and social events - all play a role in understanding our own racial identity. During this process, people move between a desire to "fit in" to dominant norms, to a questioning of one's own identity and that of others. It includes feelings of confusion and often introspection, as well as moments of celebration of self and others. You may begin at any point on this chart and move in any direction - sometimes on the same day! Recognizing the station you are in helps you understand who you are.

No One is Colorblind to Race

The concept of race is intimately connected to our lives and has serious implications. It operates in real and definitive ways that confer benefits and privileges to some and withholds them from others. Ignoring race means ignoring the establishment of racial hierarchies in society and the injustices these hierarchies have created and continue to reinforce.

Either America will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States

RACISM = Racial Prejudice (Unfounded Beliefs + Irrational Fear) + Institutional Power

Racism, like smog, swirls around us and permeates American society. It can be intentional, clear and direct or it can be expressed in more subtle ways that the perpetrator might not even be aware of.

Racism is a system of advantage based on race that involves systems and institutions, not just individual mindsets and actions. The critical variable in racism is the impact (outcomes) not the intent and operates at multiple levels including individual racism, interpersonal racism, institutional racism, and structural racism.

Individual racism​ refers to the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism in conscious and unconscious ways. The U.S. cultural narrative about racism typically focuses on individual racism and fails to recognize systemic racism.
Examples include believing in the superiority of white people, not hiring a person of color because "something doesn't feel right," or telling a racist joke.

Interpersonal racism​ occurs between individuals and includes public expressions of racism, often involving slurs, biases, hateful words or actions, or exclusion.

Institutional racism​ occurs in organizations These are race-based policies and practices that give unfair advantages to whites over people of color.These institutional policies often never mention any racial group, but the intent is to create advantages.
Example: A school system where students of color are more frequently distributed into the most crowded classrooms and underfunded schools and out of the highest-resourced schools.

Structural racism​ is the overarching system of racial bias across institutions and society. These systems give privileges to white people resulting in disadvantages to people of color.
Example: Stereotypes of people of color as criminals in mainstream movies and media.

Source: Adapted from Terry Keleher, Applied Research Center, and Racial Equity Tools by OneTILT
Breaking the Silence
Silence on issues of race hurts everyone. Reluctance to directly address the impact of race can result in a lack of connection between people, a loss of our society's potential and progress, and an escalation of fear and violence. Silence around other issues of identity can also have the same negative impact on society. Silence on race keeps us all from understanding and learning. We can break the silence by being proactive - by learning, reflecting and having courageous conversations with ourselves and others.

VIDEO: Watch below as Franchesca Ramsey discusses racism on MTV's Decoded (warning: adult language):

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The scientific consensus is that race has no biological basis - that we are all one race, the human race. Racialized identity, however, is very real. And, in a racialized society, everyone is assigned a racial identity whether you are aware of it or not. Let's broaden our awareness.

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American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL)

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Designed to help readers develop a critical eye about representations of American Indians in children's and young adult books

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This article was published in By Brenda Randolph and Betsy DeMulder Teaching Tolerance in the fall of 2008 in collaboration with Teaching for Change. The issue continues to be relevant today.
In the fall of 2007, in a 1st- and 2nd-grade classroom during circle time, Ms. Brown told her students, "My friend is planning a trip to the continent of Africa. Can you tell me what my friend will need when she goes to Africa?" Several children shouted out excitedly.
Animals.
Yeah, animals.
Elephants.
Cheetahs and monkeys.
Lions.
Giraffes.
Jaguars.
Men with spears hunting animals.
Water, 'cause it's very hot.
Food, 'cause they'd be hungry.
A tent.

Ms. Brown followed up with another question, "What will my friend see when she goes to Africa?" The children quickly rattled off a list:
Picking fruit.
Growing corn.
Ms. Brown asked, "What kinds of things do they do there?"

Finally, Ms. Brown asked, "What kind of jobs do they have there?" The children seemed stumped. Then two children piped up.

These responses highlight the images that children often have of Africa.

As Professor Michael Bamidele Adeyemi of the University of Botswana suggests, "Americans believe that Africa is a country, that Africa is 'still uncivilized,' that the average African is polygamous, and that Africa is not urbanized." In fact, the African continent encompasses a diverse set of more than 50 nations, each made up of a variety of urban and rural cultures, lifestyles and socioeconomic realities. Rates of urbanization in Africa are the highest in the world. By 2025, more than half of the African population will be urban. Barbara Brown explains in the March/April 2008 issue of Social Studies and the Young Learner: "Americans are often surprised to learn that the majority of Africans have never seen large wildlife."

Images in the news, popular media and school textbooks often highlight African people living in abject poverty; rarely do they show the realities of wealth, power and good health that also exist throughout the continent. Typically, African children are depicted as sick and hungry; rare are depictions of the millions of African children who arrive at school fed and ready to learn each day.

Inaccurate impressions of Africa start early, as children are exposed to stereotypical information in books, the news media, advertisements, and film and TV programs such as "The Lion King," "Madagascar" and "George of the Jungle," to name just a few.

It is not just children who see Africa as a land full of wild animals and starving children. One of the authors of this article showed slides in her child's classroom of their family's trip to the capital city of Dakar in Senegal, with images of cars, tall buildings and people in schools, restaurants and at work. As soon as the slide show was over, the teacher jumped in front of the class and told all the students, "I want you to know that this is not the real Africa that you have just seen here."

Because teachers, parents, and other adults are influenced by ongoing exposure to these stereotypes, we must carefully examine and challenge our own knowledge and assumptions about African environments, customs, traditions and cultural realities. Otherwise, our misimpressions influence the kinds of learning opportunities we create for children.

This is a challenging but essential task. Vivian Yenika-Agbaw, the author of Representing Africa in Children's Literature: Old and New Ways of Seeing, analyzed 50 fictional children's books set in West Africa and published between 1960 and 1995. She found that the texts "represent West Africa as either primitive/barbaric or natural/romantic."

She also examined messages regarding life in Africa as depicted in picture books for young children. Although some picture books depicted "Africans as dignified people with varied cultures," many painted a more stereotypical picture; negative messages included descriptions and depictions of Africa "as a 'Mythical Home' with unexplainable natural and historical occurrences ... as a vulnerable place prone to foreign invasions ... [and] as a place where people share space with animals."

Our own review of 30 children's books about Africa found skewed and incomplete images. More than 90 percent of the books, for example, showed only rural or village life and jungles. Based on images from these books, readers would assume there are no cities in Africa.

Why is this important?

Stereotypical representations of Africa and its people have a profound impact on three levels:

Racial relations and identity development for all Americans. Constant association of Africa with animals, poverty and exotic behaviors affects the perception of African American and black heritage around the world. Such deficit images of Africa contribute directly to racism. Historically, these misconceptions were used to justify enslavement and colonialism. The portrayal of Africa in Western media and children's books continues to feed a belief in white superiority and the need of Africans (Blacks) to be saved or feared. The images also contribute directly to internalized racism, leading many black children in the U.S. to want to distance themselves from any association with their African heritage.

Treatment of first-generation African immigrants. Most recent immigrants from African countries to the United States learn quickly about how little Americans know about Africa and experience firsthand the racism associated with that ignorance. We have heard countless stories from first-generation immigrants from Africa about the questions they receive. Invariably, they are asked about wild animals. Many of these immigrants have come from cities in Africa and have not seen a wild animal except in the zoo. In some cases, children are taunted, told to return to the jungle or asked to show their tail.

Global/international relations and foreign policy. Ultimately what students in the United States learn about Africa impacts our country's relations with and policies toward African countries. If negative stereotypes prevail, then as citizens we are unlikely to challenge policies that are paternalistic or exploitative. If the next generation of students develops a deeper and more respectful understanding of African countries, then our foreign relations and policies will follow suit.
Use the names of specific countries instead of just calling it "Africa."
Challenging African Stereotypes in the Classroom

Below are recommendations for using an anti-bias curricular approach when creating learning experiences about the African continent for children in the United States.

Just as it is unusual to use "Europe" when referring to France or "North America" when referring to Canada, avoid using "Africa" to stand for individual African countries.
Avoid activities that perpetuate stereotypes of hungry and poor Africans.
Some guidance:

Some children's books have Africa in the title, but the author's note indicates which nation is featured.

If a parent, fellow teacher, or guest speaker references Africa, you can ask: "Which country?"

If there are first-generation immigrants from the African continent in your school or classroom, be sure that you and your students know their specific countries of origin.

Read Africa is Not a Country (Burns & Melnicove, 2000) to your students, and find the featured countries on a map of Africa. Reinforce the vastness of the continent with the informative map "How Big is Africa," which fits Europe, China, and the United States into Africa.

Use "regular" language.
Activities that use images of hungry, helpless Africans reinforce negative stereotypes that pervade children's consciousness due to limited exposure to counter images. When fundraising drives, social studies lessons or current events focus on issues of poverty in an African country, use the opportunity to teach about the root causes of hunger and poverty globally. Be sure to help children recognize that poverty is also prevalent here in the United States, and that poverty locally and globally is impacted by U.S. trade policies and multinational corporations. Students can then identify strategies for lasting change, e.g. purchasing fair-trade items, educating their communities, and advocating for progressive legislation.
Pay attention to the messages and images conveyed by your choice of art activities.
Terry Moore, a 3rd-grade teacher, describes how a small group of committed students moved their school "from charity drives to education to action." For their final project, the students held a Hunger Banquet, an activity designed by Oxfam America to mimic inequities and politics in the real world. Students charged $5 admission to an ice cream banquet, then dished out unequal portions to the attendees. The activity dramatically changed the way their fellow students viewed hunger and poverty. The money the students raised was donated to an organization dedicated to helping people obtain a sustainable source of food and income (" Beyond Bake Sales: Elementary Students Fight Hunger and Child Labor" in Rethinking Schools, Summer 2004). Many more lessons like this can be found in Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World.
Make sure you are using as many contemporary stories as you are folktales.
Employ words and phrases that you would normally use when discussing life in the U.S. Use "house" not "hut" and "people" (or identity group or ethnic group) instead of "tribe." The latter is a source of endless debate and discussion. Curtis Keim provides a cogent critique of the term "tribe" in his book Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind (Keim, 1999).
Include North Africa.
In many classrooms, making "African" masks and "huts" are students' first school-based introductions to Africa. Expand students' perspectives by introducing contemporary art and artists. Highlight Nigerian batik specialist Nike Onlaniyi Davies and encourage students to use her techniques to create their own artistic expressions. Davies is featured in Faces magazine's "The Yoruba People: Nigeria and Beyond" (September 1995) and on her website. If mask-making is an essential part of your curriculum, be sure to include masks from throughout the world. Know the country and cultural significance of the masks you are introducing from Africa and be aware that some countries in Africa have no masking traditions. Introduce students to the wide variety of musical expressions from Africa by playing compact discs while students work. Start with Putumayo's "Mali," which features the lyrical kora, the vibrant balaphon and blues-tinged sounds from southern Mali.
Highlight typical social groups and everyday activities.
African folktales are a great way to teach values and gain insight into cultures and beliefs. The heavy use of folktales, however, can lead to misconceptions since folktales are typically set in the past and feature wild animals and rural scenes. Balance folktales with stories that introduce young children to present-day reality in cities and towns. These images are represented well in Ikenna Goes to Nigeria (Onyefulu, 2007) and A Child's Day in a South African City (Wulfsohn, 2002).
Avoid wild animal motifs.
Don't separate the study of North African countries from countries south of the Sahara. Bring North Africa into your discussions with The Day of Ahmed's Secret (Heide & Gilliland, 1990), set in Egypt, and My Father's Shop (Ichikawa, 2006), set in Morocco. When studying ancient Egypt, be sure to include ancient Nubia, Egypt's southern neighbor. The Rise of the Golden Cobra (Aubin, 2007), a novel set during the reign of King Piankhy, is a good choice for upper elementary students.
Explore African perspectives and actions.
Avoid materials that emphasize exotic practices. Provide posters and books that feature African children and families engaged in everyday activities, especially those activities with which children in the U.S. can relate. The African continent is a diverse collection of countries where people live in wealth and in poverty, in rural and in urban dwellings; where livelihoods depend upon farming, business, and industry; and where individuals occupy all of the professions we have come to associate with the industrialized world, including doctors, lawyers, and professors. Tololwa Mollel's My Rows and Piles of Coins (1999) and Big Boy (1997) are much more representative of life in Tanzania than the endless stream of books about East Africa's cattle-keeping Maasai. For occupation diversity, ask children to identify the different occupations in Here Comes our Bride (Onyefulu, 2004).
Take an imaginary city tour.
Did you know that most Africans have never seen large wild animals? Elephants, lions and giraffes populate only a few countries, primarily in East and Southern Africa, and today most of these large animals live in or near national parks. Children in Africa are much more likely to see the same animals an American child would see. I Lost My Tooth in Africa (Diakite, 2006), What's Cooking, Jamela? (2001) and Musa's Journey (Grobler, 1997) collectively feature birds, dogs, cats, chickens and a host of other barnyard animals. If "wild animals" is a must-do theme, read a book about wild animals in the U.S., and then read Home Now (Beake, 2007), a realistic story about an orphaned South African girl who befriends an orphaned elephant that lives in a national park. In Ashraf of Africa (Mennen and Daly, 1990), we see fierce lions, gliding crocodiles, and thundering zebras but discover that Ashraf, who lives "in a city, a city at the very tip of the great African continent," has only seen these animals in a book.
Brenda Randolph is the Director of AfricaAccess, chairperson of the Africana Children's Book Award and served for many years as a Library Media Specialist with the Montgomery County Maryland Public Schools. Betsy DeMulder is the Director of Initiatives in Educational Transformation at George Mason University and served as a visiting scholar with Teaching for Change. Thanks to Barbara Brown (Boston University), Lindsey Allard, Merry Merryfield (Ohio State University), and Deborah Menkart (Teaching for Change) for their contributions to the article.
Share the ways Africans see their world by reading award-winning books by African authors. Tololwa Mollel (Tanzania), Ifeoma Onyefulu (Nigeria) and Elinor Sisulu (South Africa) are just a few of the authors from African countries who have won Children's Africana Best Book Awards (complete list of winners at AfricaAccessReview.org). Highlight Africans who organized to bring about needed change. For example, students can learn about Kenya's Green Movement and the leadership of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. Independent readers can tackle easy-to-read biographies including Lilian Ngoyi (van Wyk, 2003) and Helen Joseph (van Wyk, 2003); these unsung heroes - one black, one white - opposed apartheid side by side and in death are buried side by side.

To ensure that your students never say, "I didn't know there were cities in Africa," pretend your class is taking a trip that includes a tour of two or more cities. Students will need to plan their air travel, select hotels, understand the currency and exchange rate, pack appropriate clothing and identify places of interest to visit. Good choices for this project are: Accra, Ghana; Cairo, Egypt; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Cape Town, South Africa. Cape Town (Stein, 1998) and Cairo (Stein, 1996) are good resources for planning trips to these cities. For Accra and Addis Ababa, use Google Images and the University of Wisconsin's digital collection Africa Focus: Sights and Sounds from Africa. Don't limit your study of urbanization in Africa to the present. Ask students in grades 3 and higher to write about living in an ancient or medieval African city. UNESCO's World Heritage site has useful information on Aksum and Lalibela, Ethiopia, and medieval Timbuktu, Mali.

Reprinted from Teaching Tolerance. Number 34: Fall 2008.

Here are recommended book for pre-K - 12 classrooms on Africa.

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I Didn't Know There Were Cities in Africa! - Teaching for Change

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This article was published in Teaching Tolerance in the fall of 2008 in collaboration with Teaching for Change. The issue continues to be relevant today. By Brenda Randolph and Betsy DeMulder In the fall of 2007, in a 1st- and 2nd-grade classroom during circle time, Ms. Brown told her students, "My friend is planning a ...

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This interactive visualization shows the spread of racially-restrictive deeds across Hennepin County during the first half of the twentieth century.

Click on a racially covenanted lot to learn more about the property. Use the search button at the bottom of the map to look for a specific address.

** If you are having issues with any of the features on our map, try clearing your browser's cache and reloading the window **

Racial covenants were tools used by real estate developers to prevent people of color from buying or occupying property. Often just a few lines of text, these covenants were inserted into warranty deeds across the country. These real estate contracts were powerful tools for segregationists. Real estate developers and public officials used private property transactions to build a hidden system of American apartheid during the twentieth century.

Inspired by the idea that we cannot address the inequities of the present without an understanding of the past, Mapping Prejudice was created to expose the racist practices that reshaped the landscape of Minneapolis. People of color see how discriminatory practices cascade through their lives, erecting barriers that limit access to housing, credit, education, and wealth. But the resulting physical, emotional, and financial baggage has been harder to recognize for people who have not personally experienced racism. Mapping Prejudice seeks to make these burdens visible by locating them on a digital, interactive map. The project team was inspired by a desire to create the first-ever comprehensive map of racial covenants for an American community.

The project started in Minneapolis, where research revealed that the city was not always segregated. Covenants helped remake the racial landscape of the city. As racially-restrictive deeds spread, African Americans were pushed into small and increasingly circumscribed neighborhoods. Even as the number of black residents continued to climb, ever-larger swaths of the city became entirely white.

The project is based at the John Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota. From this base, our interdisciplinary team of community activists, students and scholars has mobilized community members to identify discriminatory deeds. Thanks to the enthusiastic support of the community, the Hennepin County map was finished early in 2020.

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This interactive visualization shows the spread of racially-restrictive deeds across Hennepin County during the first half of the twentieth century. Click on a racially covenanted lot to learn more about the property. Use the search button at the bottom of the map to look for a specific address.

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EmbraceRace supports parents to raise children who are brave, informed and thoughtful about race. Join the movement!

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Talking to your kids about racism can be tough. Here are some books to help get them thinking about it.

Written by Jael Ealey Richardson and illustrated by Matt James, Groundwood Books (AGES 4-9) A children's version of a book Richardson wrote about her dad, Chuck Ealey, The Stone Thrower tells the story of Chuck's life growing up as black kid in a then-racially segregated Portsmouth, Ohio. Chuck loved football, and though he faced many challenges, including poverty and racial taunts, he had an unbeaten record as a quarterback in both high school and university due to his determination. Even with all of this talent, he wasn't chosen to play that position in the NFL because of his race. Instead, he became a quarterback in the Canadian Football League, and in his first year, led his team (the Hamilton Tiger-Cats) to win the Grey Cup in 1972. $19, houseofanansi.com
Read more:
5 books to teach your kids about privilege and socioeconomic differences
16 kids' books about refugees
12 kids' books that combat anti-Semitism

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27 books to help you talk to your kids about racism

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Talking to your kids about racism can be tough. Here are some books to help get them thinking about it. Written by Jael Ealey Richardson and illustrated by Matt James, Groundwood Books (AGES 4-9) A children's version of a book Richardson wrote about her dad, Chuck Ealey, The Stone Thrower tells the story of Chuck's life growing up as black kid in a then-racially segregated Portsmouth, Ohio.

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Teaching social justice in your classroom

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Spread the loveSocial justice is about reciprocity between the individual and society. Individuals owe the society in which they live, and the society owes individuals certain benefits. It begs the question, how should opportunity be distributed among everyone?

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10 Social Justice Activities for Students | Education World

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These great mini-lessons will get kids at different grade levels thinking about human rights and our responsibility to take care of each other.

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Ask teachers to describe the impact they hope to have on their students, and most will eventually say something along these lines: I want my students to grow into responsible citizens. I want my students to participate in society in an active, productive way.

And maybe: I want my students to change the world.

But how many of us know how to make that happen, really? Can we explicitly teach students how to change the world? If this question has been whispering in the back of your mind, the resources in this collection will help.

What is social justice, and how does it fit into the curriculum?

The National Association of Social Workers defines social justice as "the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities." To study social justice is to learn about the problems that dramatically impact quality of life for certain populations, and how people have worked to solve those problems.

If you teach social studies, you'll have no trouble finding direct curricular links to social justice. The National Curriculum Standards for the Social Studies includes Civic Ideals and Practices as one of its 10 Themes of Social Studies, and this includes an emphasis on learning how to get involved in influencing public policy. In history and social studies class, social justice teaching is a natural fit.

In other content areas, teachers disagree over whether social justice has a place. We put ourselves in a vulnerable position by exploring issues that are seen as more controversial than others (a topic I will get into in the next section), and some teachers prefer to completely steer clear of those kinds of complications. For others, social justice was a driving force in why they became teachers, and they weave it into whatever content they are teaching. If you choose to address some or all of these issues in your classroom, the next section offers some tips for doing it effectively.

Some Advice for Teaching Social Justice

As an undergraduate, I served as a student counselor for three years and a resident assistant (RA) for one. I regularly delivered workshops on social justice topics, and I learned a few important lessons along the way. Here are some things to keep in mind when studying social justice issues with your students:

Make getting to know students a key component of any social justice teaching. If you and your students don't spend time examining your own backgrounds, biases, and beliefs, you will be missing an essential component of any social justice curriculum. We all view every social justice issue through the lens of our own experience, and these different lenses can block our growth and learning if we aren't aware of them. If we fine-tune our self-awareness, our individual lenses can richly inform classroom conversations and help us understand issues on a much deeper level, directly from each other.

Know that not all students feel the same way about these issues. Most, if not all, of these resources have been created from a pretty liberal, progressive viewpoint. For example, one of the lessons in the Learning for Justice (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) series described below is on Confronting Unjust Laws. The lesson uses California's Proposition 8 as an example of an unjust law. But not all of your students (or their families) will see a law like Prop 8 as unjust. In fact, some may strongly oppose same-sex marriage. That doesn't mean you can't talk about controversial issues; in fact, teaching students how to respectfully discuss an issue with people who don't see things the same way is a lesson that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

Familiarize yourself with the material before teaching. Sometimes we just skim materials before we teach. With social justice topics, this would be a mistake. Not knowing exactly what's in all of your teaching materials, including the texts or videos you and your students will be looking at, can leave you vulnerable to problems when unexpected content pops up.

Keep your administrator in the loop. As with any potentially controversial lesson, it is essential that you talk to your administrator about it ahead of time. Show the curricular connections between your planned lessons and the standards you're teaching. Talk about potential problems or objections that may come up and how you both plan to address them. That way, if your administrator gets a phone call from a concerned parent, she or he won't be blindsided.

Featured Resources

When I set out to find good resources for social justice teaching, I was looking for classroom-ready materials, lesson plans with supplementary texts or videos that would prompt students to learn about, think about, and talk about social justice issues. I also hoped to find some that would actually teach students about activism, about how a citizen zeroes in on a problem, formulates a solution, then does the grassroots work necessary to see that solution come to life.

Some of these resources fit the bill perfectly, especially the first one on the list. Others do not include lesson plans at all, but serve such an important and innovative role in social justice education, I thought they were essential to include here.

Learning for Justice

This award-winning organization (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) comes up most often any time social justice teaching is discussed. There's lots to explore on their site, including the Classroom Resources section, which is loaded with lesson plans and other resources teachers can use for free in their classrooms. One of these lessons is Confronting Unjust Practices, where students learn about the anti-segregation actions taken by the Freedom Riders and the attack on one of these buses in Anniston, Alabama (pictured above).

Other lessons from this library include What is Ageism?, Unequal Unemployment, and What Makes a Family? Lessons are available for elementary, middle, and high school students.

DoSomething.org

No lesson plans here: DoSomething.org is an outstanding organization whose goal is to support the work of young people who want to make a difference in their world. Students browse through a big list of campaigns, public education and activism projects students can launch right in their own communities, and choose one or more that they'd like to participate in. Once they have finished a campaign, students submit a photo or video to prove they completed the required steps. This entry makes them eligible to win prizes, including scholarships. Currently, only U.S. students are eligible for these scholarships, but DoSomething.org is expanding into other countries as well.

Although this site will not help you do any direct instruction about social justice, it provides incredible opportunities for students to actively participate in social justice projects. Most campaigns are just right for high school students, and some would be appropriate for middle schoolers as well. Some topics may be considered risque, so review the content before introducing it to students.

On a related note, DoSomething.org is the organization where Katia Gomez, the college student who started her own school in Honduras (featured in the first Cult of Pedagogy documentary last year), got her start. One more bit of trivia that totally doesn't matter but might if you are a Melrose Place fan: DoSomething.org was co-founded by 90's heartthrob Andrew Shue. Squeee!!

The Global Oneness Project

The Global Oneness Project offers a beautiful collection of multicultural films, photo essays, and articles that "explore cultural, social, and environmental issues with a humanistic lens." Many of the featured stories are paired with a lesson plan for high school or college classrooms, aligned with Common Core and national standards.

One such pairing starts with the film Amar, which follows a young Indian boy living in a high-poverty neighborhood through a typical day that includes rising before dawn to do one of his two jobs and attending school. The accompanying lesson plan is called A Day in the Life, which has students examine the film and other resources related to the economic situation in India.

The films are truly stunning. This collection doesn't include explicit teachings in any kind of civics or grassroots activism, but it will provide students with a deep understanding of lives completely unlike their own. And that kind of empathy is one of the most important building blocks for any kind of social justice action.

Pushing the Edge: Social Justice Resources Collection

Educator Greg Curran's podcast covers a range of educational topics, but quite a few episodes circle around issues of social justice. Recently, he curated these resources into a Social Justice Resources Collection. These episodes will be mainly useful for teachers to educate themselves about social justice education: what complications and questions come up, helpful do's and don'ts, and why it's worth it. He interviews practicing teachers and administrators who are walking the walk with social justice teaching. Listening to them will give you a template from which to build your own practice.

Here's an example of one episode, where Curran interviews Nakisha Hobbs, principal of the Village Leadership Academy, a k-8 social justice school in Chicago.

GLSEN: Educator Resources

For teachers who want to include consideration of LGBT issues in their study of social justice, a great source for materials is GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network. offers a nice collection of educator guides and lesson plans.

Here are a few examples: The ThinkB4YouSpeak Guide for Educators includes lesson plans, resources, and tips for teachers for addressing anti-LGBT language in the 6-12 classroom. Unheard Voices is a collection of audio interviews with "individuals who bore witness to or helped shape LGBT history in some way." And the Day of Silence Guide shows educators how to run a Day of Silence awareness campaign in their schools.

Educational Video Center

I love this idea: The Educational Video Center teaches students the skills of documentary filmmaking, telling important stories in the name of social justice. Although the EVC holds after-school workshops only for students in New York City, they do offer professional development for teachers anywhere who want to learn how to teach these skills to their own students.

Alumni of the EVC have created documentaries on everything from criminal justice to domestic violence to mental health. You can view a collection of trailers for student-created documentaries here.

The Two Dollar Challenge

The Two Dollar Challenge is a challenge issued to people who want to make an impact on poverty. The challenge is simple: For 5 days, live on just $2 per day, publicizing the complexities of global poverty and helping to raise funds for a partner organization.

What's most striking about this organization is their emphasis on cultivating a deep respect for people affected by poverty and raising participants' awareness of their own privilege. One look at the project's code of conduct shows just how serious they are about that mission: "At all times participants must respect those nearby who are truly in need. If at any time those taking the Challenge are using resources which are valuable for indigent residents in the area this action must be re-evaluated."

Anti-Defamation League

The ADL's collection of lesson plans explore topics in categories like gender issues, sexism, ableism, religious bigotry, and racism. For example, What is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?, a lesson for high school students, has students study and discuss the impact of zero-tolerance policies in schools, statistics on the connection between school suspensions and the juvenile justice system, and their own school discipline policy. The end of the lesson offers students a choice of next steps for taking action on this issue. Lessons are available for preschool through high school.

Update: Since publishing this post, a few readers have pointed out that some of ADL's other website content (separate from this curriculum) takes a strong stance on issues relating to Israel and may offend some users. I still feel that this curriculum contains incredibly valuable lessons on very recent events that you won't find anywhere else, but this reinforces my second and third points above: Know your audience, and read through the materials carefully. For more details on this issue, please read the comments below. This article may also shed some light on the topic.

Further Reading

Stirring Up Justice
Laurel Schmidt, Education Leadership, May 2009
Explores the value and process of teaching students about activism. Offers a template for how to engage students in authentic conversations about difficult issues, ask themselves what they can do about social justice issues, consider ways they have already acted in the past, study how other kids and young adults have successfully solved problems, and participate in their own social justice projects.

Turning Current Events Into Social Justice Teaching
Jinnie Spiegler, Edutopia, January 6, 2016
Spiegler, the curriculum director for the Anti-Defamation League (the first resource in this post) offers advice on teaching social justice topics in a way that's both sensitive and productive.

Educolor Resources
Educolor, an organization dedicated to an equitable, just education for everyone, maintains this list of books, movies, articles, and websites that will educate teachers and students on issues of social justice, especially as it pertains to educational equity.

The Best Teacher Resources Sites for Social Justice
Larry Ferlazzo, Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day, July 1, 2008
A big list of resources related to social justice education.
What Are Your Favorite Social Justice Resources?
This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you have a resource you like to use for teaching about social justice, please share it in the comments below. ♦

Keep in touch.
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A Collection of Resources for Teaching Social Justice

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Want your students to actively engage in addressing inequality? Explore this annotated bibliography of resources for teaching students about social justice.

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With no federal standards for the topic in place, teachers are left to their own devices for creating or finding social justice lesson plans. Our country's history is rich with resistance, organizing, and civil rights campaigning-but for many teachers, these movements seem new.

If you want to guide your students through conversations about inclusion, diversity, and equity, it's important to both teach the history and build upon the work of the countless people who contributed to social justice movements throughout the years.

From habeus corpus for Native Americans, to women's suffrage, to civil rights, none of these freedoms were granted without collective organizing. Unfortunately, many of these stories are invisible. But it doesn't have to be this way.

Make 2019 the year you stretch yourself. Here are 22 free resources for social justice lesson plans.

Take a deep dive with these curriculum planning resources:

We love this website from the Southern Poverty Law Center. It provides free lesson-building materials for teachers of kindergarten through high school. These award-winning resources include everything from a simple weekly newsletter, to magazine articles, to an in-depth lesson-plan builder. With the tool, you can share your learning plan with colleagues for collaborative projects and units. And it doesn't stop there. Teaching Tolerance also offers both self-guided and facilitated professional developments, in person and via webinars.

Okay, we'll stop gushing now and share how this teacher helped destigmatize menstruation at her school -just in time for Women's History Month! Consider building a lesson from staff writer Coshandra Dillard's amazing article.

You might not think about poetry when you think of social justice. But Poets.org has been assisting teachers in teaching historical & contemporary issues through poetry since 1960. Enjoy a monthly curriculum calendar, plus a database of poems filtered by issue and era, and lesson plans designed to teach students about social issues through poetry. BONUS: Sign up for the convenient poem-a-day newsletter for poems and commentary delivered to your inbox.

6 Lessons Plans We Love for Creating Inclusive Communities and Combatting Racism

We are so excited to share these free lesson plans from the Islamic Networks Group (ING) on addressing racism, creating inclusive communities, and building equity. What we love about this unit is how it centers on narratives. Students have the opportunity to look at the origins and history of narratives about people across ethnicities and racialized religious groups and consider their relationship to implicit bias and racism. It also offers young people powerful counter-narratives and ways they can act to counter racism.

These lessons are designed for middle and high school. They would be a great complement to your U.S. history, world history, current events, or ethnic studies course. And ING's work focuses on developing an understanding not just of Muslims, but of all marginalized groups.

These lesson plans are so good they won the 2018 Human and Civil Rights Award (sponsored by the National Education Association).

Created by various groups and individuals-including the Coeur d'Alene Tribe of present-day Idaho, DREAMer Daniel Rodriguez, and Writers in the Schools collaborator Susan Bartley-these K-12 lessons cover subjects related to English, art, and humanities. Links include handouts as well as Common Core equivalencies.

Hey all you data nerds! This three-part project plots open-source historical information into a timeline that looks at both freedom and confinement in the United States.

Use the online interactive experience, a free curriculum guide, and the website's media collection to help your students think critically about who has access to freedom and under which circumstances.

Stay current on evolving social justice issues and happenings. Add these social media influencers and hashtags to your feed:

Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit magazine and book publisher dedicated to strengthening public education through social justice teaching and education activism. While their books are fab, follow them and the hashtag #SoJustEdu to stay in the loop when you don't have time for extra reading. Their feed helps teachers remember significant but underpublicized historical events and stay current on current events like the #Unite4OaklandKids teachers' strike.

If you are looking for monthly chats on language, culture, self-care, and equity, then be sure to follow this hashtag. Organized by a collective of activists of color, EduColor is here to promote intersectional diversity and provide expert resources that help teachers do their part in deconstructing the oppression that lives within the school system.

#DisruptTexts is a Twitter chat founded by Tricia Ebarvia , Lorena German , Dr. Kim Parker , and Julia Torres . The goal is to challenge the traditional language arts canon and create a more inclusive curriculum. Here's how to participate in #DisruptTexts .

This Instagram account discusses parenting and educating through a race-critical lens. You'll love this account for the book recommendations, social commentaries, and critical articles it shares. Click follow and prepare for an elevated consciousness! Be prepared to think twice when selecting books for your class library, but fear not because this influencer provides a variety of equitable alternatives.

Liz Kleinrock is a 2018 Teaching Tolerance Award Winner and TED Talk presenter. @teachandtransform is her anti-bias education platform, where she offers simple and practical shifts for teachers to make their classrooms more inclusive and equitable. Enjoy real-life snapshots of Liz's whiteboard and learn as she learns along the way!

Listen up! Stream these helpful podcasts on your morning commute:

You can find this St. Louis-based, grassroots, teacher-led podcast on iTunes, and it covers issues on race, gender, sexuality, language, and more. Its presence was short but sweet. Listen to the final episode about how to unconditionally support LGBTQ+ youth.

We'll be honest: We love all of the resources from Cult of Pedagogy! But the podcast is extra helpful for the self-proclaimed teacher nerds (like us) who want to hear about teaching strategies, classroom management, education reform, and educational technology-many with a social justice lens. Listen to this recent episode with Pedro Noguera about 10 ways educators can take action in pursuit of equity.

Another resource for more than social justice, the Truth for Teachers podcast is a top-ten podcast for K-12 educators. In this episode, Angela Watson speaks with Dr. Travis Bristol, a former teacher now researching at UC Berkeley. Travis is also the principal investigator for the NYC Young Men's Initiative, which focuses on recruiting and supporting 1,000 male teachers of color. Listen to this episode about why most teachers are white women and how schools can support more diverse faculties. What do you think?

You can rely on these done-for-you activities to promote critical discussion:

This beautiful collection of multimedia includes films, essays, and photography highlighting the universal themes of humanity. Special collections include hot topics like climate change, migration, and endangered cultures. The artwork within all the collections is beautiful, but the bonus is that the webpage offers lesson plans for teachers! Help "bring the world to your classroom" and have a look today.

The Critical Media Project (CMP) is a free media-literacy web resource for educators and students ages 8-21.

CMP provides relevant media clips and follow-up discussion questions based on Common Core Standards that engage with students' capacity to think critically about identity politics and advocate for social change. CMP is founded on the notion that media literacy and analysis are fundamental to all education, and in today's complex political landscape, we agree!

Use the power of gaming to teach your students about civics! This fun and interactive site provides full lesson plans and online games that put your students in the roles of lawmakers and civic servants.

BONUS: Follow @iCivics on Twitter to stay up to date on policy and legislation news, plus see how other teachers are using iCivics in their classrooms!

Explore survivor testimonies with this well-organized activity library for educators. Select your language preferences and choose from a database of powerful videos and Common Core lessons that help your students unpack hatred. BONUS: Check out their completely free professional development webinars.

This extensive searchable database is your one stop shop for accessing constitutions from governments all over the world. Have your students search, read, and compare the laws of cultures around the globe. Filter by country, topic, date adopted, and status. Though there are no lesson plans here, this site is sure to catalyze high-level classroom discussion for high school students.

Mobilize your students to bring about change that they believe in by using these programs as your guide:

Plan your next service project with DoSomething.org! Survey your students to learn what they are passionate about, then help them browse a big list of campaigns to conceptualize a project they can launch in your community. The class can then submit a photo or video of their completed campaign and enter to win prizes, including scholarships.

This Oakland-based organization amplifies the voices of young journalists and artists. Empower your high school students to become reporters, too! Watch videos by YR Media journalists and set your young broadcasters out to find the stories in their communities.

Transform your school culture with these administrative-level resources and professional development trainings:

This organization offers school-wide trainings, a partner school network, and professional development for teachers and administrators. From pedagogical theory to subject-specific content, Facing History tailors their programs to the needs of your school community. Here's how to bring them to your school.

22. The Zinn Education Project

This social justice resource list would not be complete without the Zinn Education Project. This group offers workshops for teachers and administrators on how to teach people's history. By last year, a total of 87,000 teachers had enrolled in Zinn Education trainings and learned about topics like climate change, Islamophobia, the labor movement, the New Deal, antiwar movements, and how to write curriculum and articles for publication.

Whew! What a list-and it barely scratches the surface. We'd love to hear from you-what have been your challenges and successes when planning social justice lessons? Come and share your experiences in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

Plus, Own Voices books to add to your classroom library.

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Here Are 22 Free Resources for Teaching Social Justice in the Classroom

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With no federal standards for the topic in place, teachers are left to their own devices for creating or finding social justice lesson plans. Our country's history is rich with resistance, organizing, and civil rights campaigning-but for many teachers, these movements seem new.