February 2021: Honoring Black Agency & Black Joy

Though classroom instruction focused on media literacy has increased in recent years, that work is often focused on helping students differentiate fact from fiction. In the present news environment where we face an endless stream of questions surrounding the legitimacy of the information we encounter, helping students cultivate such skills is critical. But so too is there a chance to embrace media as something that can enlarge educators’ and students’ sense of what is true, what is possible, and who we can become in this nation and world.

This Black History Month and every month, there are a great many figures, moments, and concepts to highlight while teaching Black history in the classroom. But as information about possible material and approaches becomes more widely available, it can be difficult to pinpoint the best tools, strategies, and resources. Below is a curated list of classroom resources and educator-facing workshops available from Facing History’s peer and partner organizations across the education space this month. 

Black History Month will soon begin and, after a history-making twelve months, we have an opportunity to expand our understanding of what Black history is and how we teach it in the classroom. We believe at Facing History that Black history is American history and that all educators have the responsibility to teach it well all year. 

The Black Lives Matter movement is working to create a more just and equitable society by pushing for systemic reforms and raising awareness of violence and racism against African Americans and other Black people worldwide.

LGBTQ Pride Month every June is an opportunity to explore and amplify the stories of LGBTQ people past and present. But even during Pride Month, we seldom hear stories of LGBTQ people of color. Bayard Rustin was the openly gay African American civil rights activist who served as the chief organizer of the historic March on Washington.

Writer and director Kasi Lemmons’ film Harriet debuted in theaters in November, and is the first feature-length biopic on Harriet Tubman.

As we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the midst of our present climate of hate, we are inevitably asked to consider how far we have come in realizing the visions of justice and equality that King articulated a half century ago.