Race and Ethnicity

Careful planning, thoughtfulness and alliances will help educators avoid the pitfalls of Black History Month.

Planning for Black History Month can be authentic without falling into the pitfalls of the “heroes and holidays.” Look for ways to involve the entire school community and teach about the history and experiences of African Americans across the curriculum and throughout the year.

Two afternoons a week, I tutor a high school junior in English and history and enjoy gleaning insights into a different school community than the one in which I work. My client Mary attends a school with a predominantly white and wealthy student population. I work mainly with students of color from families who live in poverty.

Susan Eaton and Gina Chirichigno have been fighting social inequity for years. Everywhere they went, they heard the same thing from schools and communities struggling to break down racial and economic divisions—we need more positive examples. “Astonishingly,” says Eaton, “there were really very few stories about this type of work out there.”

Our country’s demographics are changing. About 1 in 3 American residents is now multicultural. Much of that change has been in the South, which has seen a multicultural growth of 34 percent in just the last decade. Demographers project that white Americans will be a minority by 2042. These changes have already begun to affect the nation’s electoral map and have huge implications for November’s presidential election. And few places illustrate the pace of those changes more than Clarkston, Ga., where the PBS series “Need to Know” spent time with both old-timers and newcomers. The program, “America by the Numbers: Clarkston, Georgia,” airs tonight and will then be available online to teachers.

“So you’re calling us racists,” students accused.

I was starting to feel a little exasperated. “No, I’m not. I’m saying that you have created an image which suggests a racist stereotype.”

As new generations come along, we hope the old beliefs mired in hate and separation will die out. The lines that once separated us continue to fade. We have evidence. Our society is more accepting now than it was decades ago of multiracial relationships, multiracial families and multiracial children. Blogger Pamela Cytrynbaum says the new generation is “rejecting the color lines” that once constrained them. The New York Times writer Susan Saulny poignantly describes the younger generation as having a “more fluid sense of identity.”

Every city, town and hamlet has them: monuments commemorating pivotal events; memorials to heroes; parks, schools and public buildings named in honor of someone whose legacy is worth preserving.

Today, the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC), together with the Opportunity to Learn Campaign, launches Solutions Not Suspensions, a national campaign calling for a moratorium on out-of-school suspensions. Teaching Tolerance supports this initiative.