African American History Beyond Beyond Slavery

Today we share a blog by GLEN MOURNING a 4th Grade ELA Teacher at Friendship Public Charter school in Washington, D.C. The blog is from PBS.org. Mr. Mourning shares his perspective that we don’t give African American history and culture a complete viewing when we start with teaching the history of slavery and the Civil War. He makes a comparison with what we teach in our schools with what the movie “Black Panther” communicated about respect and unity. He says, “But what if, the core of what Wakanda and the Black Panther stood for wasn’t all fictional? Is it possible that African history, which is widely communicated from Western perspectives as primitive and less than, actually began very similarly to the principles and ideologies that were present in the movie, The Black Panther?” By framing what we teach about African American History through the lens of slavery without the influence of a beautiful and deep culture “we all suffer from receiving such a minimal dose of the richness of African history. “