Avoid minimizing Black history; include the full human experience beyond enslavement. By Coshandra Dillard in Learning For Justice.

A list of strategies to help students get the most out of Black History and Black History Month. Created by Teaching Tolerance.

Zaretta Hammond writes about the careful planning, thoughtfulness and alliances that will help educators avoid the pitfalls of Black History Month. In Learning For Justice.

In this story shared in Facing History, Tanya Huelett asks how we move past the reliance on Black History Month as a catch-all for representation of the experiences, contributions, and voices of African Americans? You can stand up for Black history every month of the year by thinking about things like:

• Ask yourself - which books have you read this year, in school or on your own? How many of them are by Black authors?
• When you study American history in school, how often do you learn about the history of Black people in our country? If you don’t study much about Black people outside of Black History Month, can you make your next project in history class about a Black leader or about a part of history like the Freedom Riders or the Selma-to-Montgomery march?
• When you study history textbooks at school, who wrote the textbooks? Are any of your textbooks by Black authors? How do you think that what you read in the textbook might be influenced by the experiences and identities of the authors?

This Black History Month, we’re encouraging educators to recognize and teach that Black history includes narratives that don’t focus solely on pain. While it’s imperative to teach about the realities of racial oppression, it’s just as important to engage students with the many ways Black people have consistently and powerfully resisted white supremacy. In Learning For Justice.