Columbus Who? Uprooting Anti-Blackness Through Decolonizing Black History Curriculum by Shirley Vargas and Tameka Porter

In A Talk to Teachers, Baldwin (1963) poignantly notes the root of anti-Blackness in classroom curriculum and instruction:

What is upsetting the country is a sense of its own identity. If, for example, one managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that Negroes learned more about themselves and their real contributions to this culture you would be liberating not only Negroes, you’d be liberating white people who know nothing about their own history. And the reason is that if you are compelled to lie about one aspect of anybody’s history, you must lie about it all. If you have to lie about my real role here, if you have to pretend that I hoed all that cotton just because I loved you, then you have done something to yourself. You are mad.” (p. 43). 

Since its founding, the United States has struggled with who gets to be singularly identified as American (Schwartz et. al., 2012; Mirel, 2010). Groups who are fully embraced as Americans are coded as White and are not identified with a hyphen or a descriptive adjective (Tran & Paterson, 2015). Moreover, the hyphens and the descriptive adjectives are relegated to specific times of the month for recognition and acknowledgement. For instance, Negro History Week, which has since evolved to become Black History Month, was conceived by Carter G. Woodson to counteract anti-Black ideology and violence in schools (Givens, 2019). America celebrates Asian-American History Month in May and Hispanic Heritage Month in September-October. Why are the contributions made by the hyphens and the descriptive adjectives only acknowledged during a certain time of year? Does the study of George Washington take place during British-American History Month? We think not. 

The implication is that Black history, as currently taught, is distinctly not American history. If Amelia Earhart can be heralded as an aviation visionary during any month but the aeronautical feats of Bessie Coleman or Mae Jemison’s space explorations are strictly reserved for February, one might draw this conclusion. 

Our classrooms are plagued by anti-Black misinformation and minimization. When Black History curriculum reifies Blackness, it exemplifies the multifaceted nature of the Black experience in America and across the diaspora and explicitly underscores the myriad figures whose numerous and substantial contributions have shaped and sustained society (King, 2019). Too often, Whiteness is at the heart of Black History as the smog we breathe, reducing Black History to a game of “greatest hits” trivia by rattling off the names of a select few and centering the trauma and pain endured as a result of systemic racism during the shortest month of the year (Tatum, 2017). 

To wit, Black contributions are often siloed into history lessons rather than taught across the curriculum. For example, the invention of the telephone and the three-position traffic signal are integral to everyday life, but only the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, lives on in our history and science texts. Garrett A. Morgan and his genius is often ignored (Colquit, 1976). Black inventors and discoveries might be unknown to many because the more indispensable Black contributions are to the development of this nation, the easier they are disregarded as American ingenuity. Positioning the Black experience as interdisciplinary and multicultural can be a pathway to psychological liberation and academic success for Black children (Chapman-Hillard & Adams-Bass, 2016; Delpit, 2006; Picower, 2012). 

Baldwin (1963) notes that to reckon with the truth about America and how children across the country are taught about Black history and resilience is to be “at war with your society” (p. 44). This does not have to be a foregone conclusion. States can be intentional about recruiting and retaining Black teachers and leaders (Bristol, 2020; Hansen and Quintero, 2018). Districts can provide culturally responsive pedagogies and professional learning opportunities for critical self-reflection (Khalifa et al., 2016; Coomer et. al., 2017). And schools can coordinate with local school boards to design, develop, select, affirm, and sustain curricula and frameworks that uplift Black history, voices, and lives throughout the year (National Association of School Boards, 2021). We can end this war and decolonize Black History curriculum by dismantling the policies, systems, and practices that reinforce anti-Black education.

Shirley Vargas is the School Transformation Officer for the Nebraska Department of Education and holds a doctorate in Education Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has over 15 years of experience in school, district, and central-level leadership.

Tameka Porter an Affiliate Faculty and holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Her research interests include cultural responsiveness, college matching, and multilingual education.

References

Baldwin, J. (1963, December 21). A talk to teachers. The Saturday Review, 42-44. 

Bristol, T. J. (2020). A tale of two types of schools: An exploration of how school working conditions influence Black male teacher turnover. Teachers College Record, 122(3), 1-41.

Chapman-Hillard, C., & Adams-Bass, V. (2016). A conceptual framework for utilizing Black history knowledge as a path to psychological liberation for Black youth. Journal of Black Psychology, 42(6), 479-507.

Colquit, J. L. (1976). Eliminating cultural oppression in the school curriculum. NASSP Bulletin, 60(404), 36-42.

Coomer, M. N., Skelton, S. M., Kyser, T. S., Warren, C., & Thorius, K. A. K. (2017). Assessing bias In standards and curricular materials. Indianapolis, IN: Great Lakes Equity Center. https://greatlakesequity.org/resource/assessing-bias-standards-and-curricular-materials 

Delpit, L. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York, NY: New Press. 

Givens, J. R. (2019). There would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom: Carter G. Woodson and the Occasion of Negro history week. American Educational Research Journal, 56(4), 1457-1494. 

Hansen, M., & Quintero, D. (2018, November 26). School leadership: An untapped opportunity to draw young people of color into teaching. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2018/11/26/school-leadership-an-untapped-opportunity-to-draw-young-people-of-color-into-teaching/ 

Khalifa, M. A., Gooden, M. A., & Davis, J. E. (2016). Culturally responsive school leadership: A synthesis of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 86(4), 1272–1311. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654316630383 

King, L. J. (2019). Interpreting Black history:  Toward a Black history framework for teacher education. Urban Education, 54(3), 368-396.

Mirel, J. (2002). Civic education and changing definitions of American identity, 1900-1950. Educational Review, 54(2), 143-152.

National School Boards Association. (2021, February 10). Reimagining School Board Leadership: Actions for Equity. Alexandria, VA: National School Boards Association. https://www.nsba.org/-/media/NSBA/File/nsba-reimagining-school-board-leadership-guide-2021.pdf 

Picower, B. (2012). Using their words: Six elements of social justice curriculum design for the elementary classroom. International Journal of Multicultural Education,14(1), 1-17.

Schwartz, S. J., Park, I. J. K., Huynh, Q. L., Zamboanga, B. L., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Lee, R. M., Rodriguez, L., Kim, S. Y., Whitbourne, S. K., Castillo, L. G., Weisskirch, R. S., Vazsonyi, A. T., Williams, M. K., & Agocha, V. B., (2012) The American identity measure: Development and validation across ethnic group and immigrant generation. Identity, 12(2), 93-128.

Tatum, B. D. (2017). Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?: And other conversations about race (20th anniversary edition). New York, NY: Basic Books.

Tran, N., & Paterson, S. E. (2015). “American” as a proxy for “Whiteness”: Racial color-blindness in everyday life. Women & Therapy, 38(3-4), 341-355.