Teaching Black History

Black history is American history. Said perfectly by Newark Trust, “teachers play a crucial role in shaping how children learn to see the world around them,” meaning that the responsibility that falls on educators’ shoulders often goes far beyond the gradebook. Students look to their teachers as an inspiration and a guide–what message are we giving our learners if we are hiding our shared history from them? 

Why Teach Newman’s Poetry?

Incorporating poems from Newman and Brooks into the classroom is a great gateway for educating students here in the heart of Harrisonburg about the reality of life under Jim Crow. As Leonard L. Richards Jr.’s argues in “Desegregating Our Curriculum: Integrating A Miserable Revenge into Virginia’s Classrooms,” “pairing poetry with historical context” opens the door for conversations about race, power, and the fight for equality over the course of American history. It is our job to educate future generations, not only about our nation’s history, but also that the truth about our past should never be hidden. 

What was Jim Crow?

Referred to as a “racial caste system” (Jim Crow Museum), the Jim Crow period took place between the late 1870s to the middle of the 1960s. Determined by both law and custom, Black citizens were denied their constitutional rights, including the right to vote; denied access to opportunities such as education, jobs, and housing; and looked upon and treated as though they were beneath white people. Black people were also conditioned to believe or at least act as if they were not equal to their white peers. They were to treat these peers as their superiors and never indicate equality between the two races, which in southern states like Virginia might be punished by violence, intimidation, or death.

One well-known implementation of Jim Crow laws was associated with public transportation, where Black people were forced to sit in separate train cars, such that the two races would not mix. An early separate car law in Louisiana “made it illegal for black people to sit in coach seats reserved for white people, and white people could not sit in seats reserved for black people” (Jim Crow Museum). Along with being prohibited to sit on specific public cars, Jim Crow laws also prohibited Black people from accessing basic necessities such as drinking fountains, bathrooms, hospitals, schools, and more. 

Jim Crow laws were enforced partly through fear, especially in the South where “violence was an instrument.” If a Jim Crow law was deemed to have been broken, or even often when it was not, there would be violent repercussions, including mob violence and murder known as lynching. Lynchings were usually made public for everyone to see, as a way of intimidating local Black populations into staying “in their place.”

What was Plessy v. Ferguson?

The Plessy v. Ferguson case was a continuation of Louisiana’s “Separate Car” Act of 1890, preventing Black and white individuals from riding in the same transportation cars. Homer Plessy was an American of mixed race, as he was known to be ⅞ white and ⅛ Black. As a way of challenging the constitutionality of the Louisiana transportation law, he purchased a ticket and rode in a car for white people. After being asked, Plessy refused to move to a car for Black people, resulting in his arrest. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana’s favor, arguing that separate cars were not unconstitutional, and segregation became the law of the land for the next seventy years.