This Suicide Prevention Week—September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day—support your students and your school community. These resources can help. Use this toolkit to help reduce mental health stigma, promote wellness and acknowledge the mental health needs of students and staff alike. Inform your students about support available through the Crisis Text Line, and use the E.D.G.E. technique to help students support one another throughout the year.
It’s essential to understand—and to teach young people—that enslaved Africans fought for their own liberation, including the first recorded rebellion on Sept. 1, 1663; the Stono Rebellion on Sept. 9, 1739; and David Walker’s September 1829 Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World. For resources on enslaved people’s work toward freedom, check out these texts and this summary objective from our Teaching Hard History framework.
As we remember the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom of 1963, it’s critical not to whitewash this history. Contextualize the campaign and the struggle associated with it, including the impact of the march’s organizer, Bayard Rustin—an openly gay Black man. That also includes complicating the event’s most iconic figure, Dr. Martin Luther King, and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. These resources can help.
Women’s Equality Day commemorates the ratification of the 19th Amendment on Aug. 26, 1920. It’s important to remember that many Black women and more women of color didn’t earn the right to vote until years later. Read Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” with its intersectional message delivered during her 1851 speech at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Also, check out an LFJ lesson featuring an accurate voting rights timeline, and identify ways to take a deeper look at women’s history this Women’s Equality Day—and beyond.
When it comes to investing in racial justice in education, we believe that the South is the best place to start. If you’re an educator, parent or caregiver, or community member living and working in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana or Mississippi, we’ll mail you a free introductory package of our resources when you join our community and subscribe to our magazine.