We all know that Black historical past is American historical past and must be embedded into your classroom experiences year-round. On the identical time, Black Historical past Month supplies the required alternative to dig deeper with college students. Each February, we will help college students as they study extra, uncover cultural impacts, and observe social actions from the previous to the current day. These Black Historical past Month classes and actions can’t be remoted or one-off classroom experiences. Consider how one can join these subjects to what you’re already doing and make it genuine. And most essential, don’t simply give attention to oppression: Give attention to the enjoyment too!
Since 1928, the Affiliation for the Research of African American Life and Historical past has offered a theme for Black Historical past Month. In 2024, the theme is African People and the Arts.
1. Study the fundamentals about Black Historical past Month
Watch an introductory video about Black Historical past Month. Then ask college students to jot down their questions on Black historical past and use these to curate your assets and classes for the month.
2. Re-create civil rights freedom posters
The Civil Rights Motion Veterans website presents highly effective examples of freedom motion posters, as does the Civil Rights Digital Library. Assessment them along with your college students, after which have them get into teams and create their very own to share.
3. Discover Black historical past by means of major sources from the Nationwide Archives
Main sources are nice dialogue starters to speak about Black experiences. Select from 1000’s of assets, together with this Seventies photograph collection of Chicago.
4. Find out about well-known Black artists
Future Jacob Lawrences and Elizabeth Catletts will recognize studying extra about artists and increasing their very own skills. Plus, take a look at these different Black artists.
5. Watch a Black Historical past Month video
Get extra particular data or do a deep dive into an space of Black historical past with a video about civil rights, slavery, completed Black People, and extra.
Take a look at this record of Black historical past movies for college kids in each grade degree.
6. Find out about Black Lives Matter
The Black Lives Matter website explains the group’s historical past whereas books like Pricey Martin and The Hate U Give discover the motion from a fictional perspective.
7. Study concerning the inventor of the visitors gentle
Garrett Morgan invented the visitors gentle and patented the three-position visitors sign. Train college students about his achievements for example of how Black People affect our on a regular basis experiences. Watch a video about Morgan and speak about what impressed his invention and the way being an African American impacted him as an inventor.
Purchase it: Garrett Morgan Exercise Pack at Amazon
8. Create a e-newsletter or journal with content material from Black authors
Have your college students generate their very own e-newsletter or literacy journal to distribute to oldsters. Embrace poems and quick tales by Black authors, in addition to student-generated writings and pictures that heart on Black Historical past Month.
9. Learn a Black Historical past Month poem
To reinforce our conversations this month, we’ve put collectively this record of highly effective Black Historical past Month poems for teenagers of all ages.
10. Take heed to younger poet Amanda Gorman
Amanda Gorman is one other completed Black American and an awesome introduction to Black poetry. Watch the poem she learn at Barack Obama’s inauguration, learn her ebook Change Sings, and find out about her at Poets.org.
Purchase it: Change Sings: A Youngsters’s Anthem at Amazon
11. Flip your classroom (or faculty!) right into a historical past museum
Have your college students select a notable Black pioneer they’d prefer to know extra about, akin to voting rights and girls’s rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, dancer Alvin Ailey, or Betty Reid Soskin, the oldest full-time nationwide parks ranger. Then, host a dwelling museum proper in your classroom.
12. Adorn your classroom door for Black Historical past Month
Flip your classroom door into an academic expertise. Take a look at how these lecturers adorned their classroom doorways in superb methods to showcase Black Historical past Month, and evaluate this video with concepts.
13. Learn books with Black characters in honor of Marley Dias
Dias is a younger activist who began the #1000blackgirlbooks marketing campaign as a sixth grader. She has compiled a superb information to books with Black woman characters. Take a look at WeAreTeachers’ record of books with Black protagonists as properly.
14. Study the story of the Henrietta Marie
The Henrietta Marie was a slave ship that sunk off the coast of Florida. Study concerning the ship, its journey, and the underwater memorial that honors African slaves. Get extra details about the Henrietta Marie at Nationwide Geographic.
15. Expertise the I Have a Dream speech from a number of views
Learn A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech that Impressed a Nation by Barry Wittenstein. Then, watch the I Have a Dream Speech on-line, and discover assets concerning the speech at Nationwide Geographic. Interact college students in discussing why this speech is so essential in American historical past and why it continues to resonate as we speak.
Purchase it: A Place to Land at Amazon
16. Meet Oprah
Oprah Winfrey is a reputation each pupil is aware of, study extra about this influential Black American on this interview:
17. Learn Black Historical past Month books
In case you’re on the lookout for extra studying actions, these image books assist rejoice Black Historical past Month and educate your college students on how these influential Black folks helped form historical past.
18. Study the artwork of stepping
Stepping is a type of dancing through which the physique itself is used to create distinctive rhythms and sounds. The web site Step Afrika! has movies and details about the historical past of stepping.
19. Take a digital area journey to the Schomburg Heart for Analysis in Black Tradition
The digital collections of the Schomburg Heart, positioned in New York Metropolis’s Harlem neighborhood, characteristic some superb on-line reveals, interviews, and podcasts.
20. Nearly go to the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition
You possibly can browse the gathering on-line by matter, date, or place.
21. Host a poetry studying that includes works by Black poets
Have college students select a poem by a Black poet to study and recite for the category. Select a pupil to function the emcee, write up a program, and set the tone with dimmed lights and jazz music performed between performances. The Poetry Basis has glorious assets that may assist get you began.
Right here’s inspiration with Maya Angelou’s Nonetheless I Rise:
22. Take a look at on-line Black historical past reveals
Educating your self and your college students with these reveals is yet one more strategy to perceive Black historical past and the present second.
23. Dive into Georgia Tales: Black Historical past Assortment on PBS
As a state, Georgia performed an enormous function within the 2020 presidential election, and its Black historical past dates again to the earliest days of slavery within the colony.
24. Focus on implicit bias, systemic racism, and social justice
Begin a much-needed dialogue round implicit bias and systemic racism with these assets that may empower college students to battle for justice in our society.
25. Learn and talk about Freedom in Congo Sq.
The award-winning image ebook Freedom in Congo Sq. by Carole Boston Weatherford and R. Gregory Christie is a nonfiction kids’s ebook that describes the tyranny of slavery to assist younger readers perceive how jubilant Sundays have been for slaves.
Purchase it: Freedom in Congo Sq. at Amazon
26. Watch Kevin Hart’s Information to Black Historical past
Kevin Hart highlights the fascinating contributions of Black historical past’s unsung heroes on this entertaining—and academic—comedy particular.
27. Acknowledge Black visionaries
This nice poster that includes activists, artists, authors, and revolutionaries will spotlight Black changemakers in your classroom. Use companion actions to deepen understanding by researching a number of of the visionaries and asking college students to jot down a narrative or create their very own poster about what they’ve realized.
28. Assessment a timeline of Black historical past
Why is Black Historical past Month in February? How way back was it based, and who began it? Discover the solutions to those questions and study extra with this timeline.
29. Discover the music of Black artists
This lesson traces the lengthy historical past of how Black artists have used music as a car for speaking beliefs, aspirations, observations, pleasure, despair, resistance, and extra throughout U.S. historical past.
30. Pattern Black-founded snack manufacturers
Honor Black Historical past Month with scrumptious snacks from Black-founded manufacturers delivered to your classroom—5% of proceeds are donated to the Equal Justice Initiative and one meal is donated to Feeding America for each field delivered.
31. Perceive the function of Black girls in NASA’s historical past
How a lot do your college students learn about Black contributions to house exploration? Hire the movie Hidden Figures and watch along with your college students to recollect, honor, and share the unimaginable accomplishments of three Black girls engaged on NASA’s house flight program. Earlier than watching the film, analysis the liberties the movie took in telling the story and talk about along with your college students the perform of the alternatives. Did the filmmakers make the suitable decisions?
Watch it: Hidden Figures at Amazon
32. Help native Black-owned companies
Analysis your metropolis’s Black-owned companies and see if you should purchase a pattern of their merchandise, invite a few of the entrepreneurs to talk to your class, or ebook a area journey!
33. Stream Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices on Netflix
“Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices is a live-action collection of 12 five-minute episodes featuring prominent Black celebrities and artists reading children’s books from Black authors that highlight the Black experience.”
34. Have fun the “Black Lives Matter at School” motion
“Black Lives Matter at School” is a nationwide coalition organized for racial justice in training. It encourages all educators, college students, mother and father, unions, and group organizations to affix an annual week of motion through the first week of February every year. For quite a lot of Black Historical past Month actions, go to their web site to study extra about their marketing campaign.
35. Watch a historic second
When Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, it was a monumental day for Black Historical past. Watch his inauguration and talk about what this meant for American historical past.
36. Analyze Hair Love
You possibly can strategy the ebook Hair Love by Matthew Cherry in just a few methods. Speak concerning the significance of illustration in image books and media, have college students share their connections with the story, or analyze the ebook as a narrative about fashionable Black households.
Purchase it: Hair Love at Amazon
37. Research the Underground Railroad
Study the Underground Railroad utilizing varied sources, like the image ebook biography Earlier than She Was Harriet by Lesa Cline-Ransome. Nationwide Geographic has a group of assets concerning the Underground Railroad. And you’ll take a digital tour of the Harriet Tubman museum.
Purchase it: Earlier than She Was Harriet at Amazon
38. Analysis Juneteenth
Juneteenth is a vacation that celebrates the liberty of enslaved folks. Find out about Juneteenth, the way it took place, and what it means to Black People with these Nationwide Geographic assets.
39. Take heed to musician Rhiannon Giddens
As she was making an attempt to grasp and make sense of violence in opposition to Black People in 2020, folks musician Rhiannon Giddens wrote and launched the track “Build a House.” The track got here out on the a hundred and fifty fifth anniversary of Juneteenth. The track, which was made into an image ebook, captures 400 years of Black historical past in a lyrical and considerate means. Use Giddens’ ebook both to introduce or wrap up a month on Black historical past.
Learn an essay concerning the track, and watch the video.
Purchase it: Construct a Home at Amazon
40. Research the pivotal court docket case Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia, determined in 1967, made marriage between folks of various races authorized. Study concerning the Loving resolution and why it’s essential at Nationwide Geographic.