Concluding Thoughts
Ken Carano
Approximately 80% of public school teachers in PK-12 are white (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2023), but the student body is more diverse than it has ever been. It is imperative that we begin teaching more rounded stories that include diverse experiences rather than a narrow story that has traditionally been dominated by white voices (Chandler & Branscombe, 2015). These are just a couple of reasons, teachers should be decentering their own voices and allowing students to build critical analysis skills through exploring a diverse array of voices. Teaching through rather than about and juxtaposing that with using a framework (in this case, Black Historical Consciousness) is one way of doing this.
We hope you find these eleven inquiry lessons helpful in teaching through rather than about Black histories and geographies while encouraging a more rounded method for learning about these voices and places. While we have come to the conclusion of this book, the hope is that this is just the first volume and there will be future volumes with many more stories and lessons that provide a wider array of Black histories and geographies in which readers can have access.
If you are interested in participating and contributing topics to a future volume of this book, which fits within the inquiry and Black Historical Consciousness frameworks we are using, feel free to send an email to caranok@wou.edu. We will leave you with a list of resources below.
Additional Resources
Websites
Oregon Black Pioneers: Racing to Change: https://oregonblackpioneers.org/racing-to-change/
The Oregon Encyclopedia: Blacks in Oregon: https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/blacks_in_oregon/
Ruth and the Green Book Read Aloud (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COlPOzCe710
Digitized collection of the Green Books provided by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-green-book#/?tab=about
158 Resources to Understand Racism in America: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/158-resources-understanding-systemic-racism-america-180975029/#disqus_thread
Syllabus: 21 Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/labor_law/membership/equal_opportunity/?fbcl
How Redlining Shaped Black America as we Know It (Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o-yD0wGxAc
The 1619 Project: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html
Resources for Race and Racism: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2019/06/23/new-resources-on-race-racism-94/?fbclid=IwAR3VRXaYls7nG7dhKvlW79X6vGGUaFeK2rnuecvVccMNhzMhX2Y-NAqgE9c
Teaching Selma: A Civil Rights Struggle Captured in Primary Sources: https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2015/02/teaching-selma-a-civil-rights-struggle-captured-in-primary-sources/
Oregon Journal of the Social Studies Special Issue on Ethnic & Indigenous Studies in Social Studies Education: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nu7Cba5ruZKiXMsbij8ZU2QEo1GQYp_h/view
National Museum of African American History and Culture: https://nmaahc.si.edu/
Equal Justice Initiative: https://eji.org/public-education/
Anti-Racism Resources (Google Doc): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BRlF2_zhNe86SGgHa6-VlBO-QgirITwCTugSfKie5Fs/preview?pru=AAABcoWnEKE*C4gQkjr-FrQaPtbkGmr3fA&fbclid=IwAR0ZtUuVVCwoEFMks_0GQPUU_Q6a6b-IqttviVmeahHTl6wVJNmy0XHgIDU
Books
35 Books About Race Recommended by Black Portland Writers: https://www.oregonlive.com/books/2020/06/35-books-about-race-recommended-by-black-portland-writers.html
Black Lives Matter Instructional Library (Google Doc) – books that are being read-aloud for elementary age children. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18pOK3roiwPQ9WF7D2wA0o7Ktr8KwAJeZfn-o6O8T__Y/mobilepresent?fbclid=IwAR1IKJtfggt_-rvYW4h-bH-um1dxk1jNhYGF6RQ6kDJIYinE9sA-EI7gyBI&slide=id.p
Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press.
Baldwin, J. (1963). The fire next time. Vintage.
Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an Antiracist. One World/Ballantine.
Kendi, I. X. (2017). Stamped from the beginning: The definitive history of racist ideas in America. Random House.
Watson, D., Hagopian, J., & Au, W. (Eds.). (2018). Teaching for Black lives. Rethinking Schools.
Films
DuVernay, A. (Director). (2016). 13th [Film]. Kandoo Films.
Peck, R. (Director). (2016). I Am Not Your Negro [Film}. Velvet Film; Artemis Productions; Close Up Films.
DuVernay, A. (Director). (2014). Selma [Film]. Pathé; Cloud Eight Films; Plan B Entertainment; Harpo Films; Ingenious Media; Redgil Selma Productions.
Folayan, S. (2017). Whose Streets? [Film].
References
Chandler, P. T., & Branscombe, A. (2015). White social studies. Doing race in social studies: Critical perspectives, 61-88.
National Center for Educational Statistics (2023). Characteristics of public school teachers. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/clr/public-school-teachers
