A Black History Month call-to-action for students, parents, and schools
A Black History Month call-to-action for students, parents, and schools
By Atnre Alleyne
I was rushing to catch a plane last year when a piece of Black history stopped me in my tracks
at an airport bookstore. The book title read – American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black
Men who Became America’s First Paramedics. I hadn’t even read a page of the book and I
instantly felt pride and joy as yet another instance of Black excellence was uncovered for me.
Though, as I quickly made my way through the book during my flight, my excitement and
intrigue were accompanied by anger.
I continue to be angry about the depths to which Black History is ignored, obfuscated, and
outright hidden in America. Now, here we are during another Black History Month. And after all
the racial justice soul-searching, solidarity statements, and book clubs of recent years, I’m
waiting to see who is really serious about honoring Black history.
As I was reading American Sirens, I was inspired by the pioneering paramedic work of the
group of Black men in Pittsburgh, which included several high school dropouts, people with
criminal records, and many who were referred to as “unemployables.” I immediately asked one
of the alums of the college prep program I cofounded — TeenSHARP — if she ever learned
about this history over the course of her Emergency Medical Services career pathway program
in high school. Her answer was “no,” as I suspected.
It has become a sad annual tradition at TeenSHARP to ask the hundreds of high schoolers we
work with from schools all across the country to share how their schools are recognizing Black
history during Black History Month. Like other months of the year, their schools typically give
Black History weak, uninspired, and surface-level treatment. In some of the states where they
live, the situation is even more dire as legislatures in at least 36 states have passed or are
pursuing policies that would restrict teaching about race and racism.
However, an important part of our college, career, and life preparation for our students is
cultivating their power to create and advocate in the face of society’s many injustices. We push
them to demand more and not feel like they have to wait as education leaders preach patience
and proffer bureaucratic excuses. With this mindset, several of our TeenSHARPies were on the
frontlines of getting a law passed in Delaware that requires all schools to teach Black history. A
few of our students also co-founded a statewide movement — the Delaware Black Student
Coalition — after their schools told them creating a Black Student Union would be too divisive.
Practicing what we preach to our students, TeenSHARP recently launched a free, self-paced
online course — The 2024 Black History Challenge. In the course, we’ve pulled together a wide
range of inspiring and informative content students, parents, and educators can use to deepen
their knowledge of Black History. The course includes modules that highlight the contributions of
Black people in science and technology; healthcare; arts and culture; politics and government,
activism; sports; and more.
Students deserve to know how Black nurses helped cure tuberculosis, how Greek philosophers
learned from Africans, and how government policies have robbed Black wealth and potential.
We want to see thousands of students use the course as a way to learn names like Ella Baker,
James Baldwin, Bayard Rustin, and Madam C.J. Walker.
But school and district administrators and classroom teachers should be lining up right
alongside them to address their unfinished learning about this important American history as
well.
And they should be joined by the education think tank and policymaking class who need to be
as fired up about our students’ loss of connection to the history of America’s marginalized
communities as they are about pandemic learning loss.
Many would be able to then learn about thinkers like Carter G Woodson — the man behind
Black History Month — who once wrote:
“The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor with the
thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything worthwhile, depresses
and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the Negro by making him feel that
his race does not amount to much and never will measure up to the standards of other
peoples.”
Black History Month is a perfect time for our schools to commit to giving all students a high
dosage of the beauty, brilliance, and persistence of Black people. We will keep demanding
much more from the education system. And in the meantime, we are going to create the
learning opportunities our students truly deserve.
