Title: Black History Is About More Than Oppression (Opinion)
Headings: Black History Is About More Than Oppression
Black History Is About More Than Oppression
We keep teaching about Black history, not through it
LaGarrett J. King
Black historical consciousness is a set of principles to understand, develop, and teach Black histories that recognize Black people's full humanity.

Content: Black History Is About More Than Oppression (Opinion)
Social Studies Opinion
Black History Is About More Than Oppression
We keep teaching about Black history, not through it
By LaGarrett J. King —  January 29, 2021 5 min read
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LaGarrett J. King
LaGarrett J. King is the Isabella Wade Lyda and Paul Lyda Professor of Education and the founding director of the Carter Center for K-12 Black history education at the University of Missouri’s College of Education. I begin by asking a simple question, why can’t we get Black history education right? The desire to write and learn Black history has been a priority by Black communities for over a century. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black educators including Edward A. Johnson, Booker T. Washington, Lelia Amos Pendleton, Carter G. Woodson, and Merl Eppse wrote Black history textbooks, teacher guides, and other resources to correct white authors’ omissions and misrepresentations. Black history education became more mainstream during the 1960s as Black children, parents, teachers, and community members protested for more Black history courses. These acts of agency led to more Black history courses and a handful of states creating legislation mandating Black history in public schools. Despite its storied past, Black history education continues to have severe problems in the way it is conceived and taught. As prominent educator Gloria Ladson-Billings wrote in her 2003 Critical Race Theory: Perspectives on the Social Studies, when schoolchildren learn “Black history,” they learn that Black people “are relatively insignificant to the growth and development of our democracy and our nation, and they represent a drain on the resources and values.” The first time many schoolchildren learn about Black people is through enslavement and other oppression-centered narratives.