Teaching Hard History

When we think of slavery as a strictly Southern institution, we perpetuate a “dangerous fiction,” according to Professor Christy Clark-Pujara. Avoid the trap with this episode about the role the North played in perpetuating slavery and the truth behind the phrase “slavery built the United States.”

Visit the show notes for this episode to find a complete transcript and a list of resources to help you teach the ideas explored by our guests.

And educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

Teaching civil rights history to young learners creates both opportunities and challenges. The 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project and the subsequent Freedom Schools offer important lessons for helping elementary students to understand the civil rights movement. In this episode, we explore community-based strategies and activities for bringing the black freedom struggle into your classroom.

Our latest Spotify playlist has even more Movement Music inspired by this episode.

And visit the enhanced episode transcript for additional classroom resources about Freedom Summer, Freedom Schools and teaching the civil rights movement to K-5 students.

**New For Educators** Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Teaching Tolerance. Listen for the special code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

This nation has a long history of exploiting Black Americans in the name of medicine. A practice which began with the Founding Fathers using individual enslaved persons for gruesome experimentation evolved into state-sanctioned injustices such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, among others. Award-winning author, historian Deirdre Cooper Owens details a chronology of medical malpractice and racist misconceptions about health while highlighting lesser-known stories of medical innovations by African Americans.

Be sure to visit the enhanced episode transcript for additional classroom resources for teaching about medical racism during the Jim Crow era.

Like this online exhibition – Déjà Vu, We’ve Been Here Before: Race, Health, and Epidemics. This helpful resource was created by some of Dr. Cooper Owens' students for the Library Company of Philadelphia, where she also serves as Director of the Program in African American History.

And educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

Opportunities created by the New Deal were often denied to African Americans. And that legacy of exclusion to jobs, loans and services can be seen today in federal programs and policies as well as systemic inequities in housing, education, health and the accumulation of wealth. Historian Jill Watts examines the complicated history of the New Deal, beginning with the growing political influence of Black voters in the 1930s, the election of FDR and the creation of the Black Cabinet.

Educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the code word, then visit tolerance.org/podcastpd.

And be sure to visit the enhanced episode transcript for additional classroom resources for teaching about the intersection of Black military service and American Jim Crow.

Black political ideologies in the early 20th century evolved against a backdrop of derogatory stereotypes and racial terrorism. Starting with Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Agency, historian Minkah Makalani contextualizes an era of Black intellectualism. From common goals of racial unity to fierce debates over methods, he shows how movements of the 1920s and 1930s fed into what became the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement. Educators! Get a professional development certificate for listening to this episode—issued by Learning for Justice. Listen for the code word, then visit learningforjustice.org/podcastpd.

And be sure to visit the enhanced episode transcript for additional classroom resources for teaching about the intersection of sports and race during the Jim Crow era.