How do I teach Black History Month meaningfully?
How do I teach Black History Month meaningfully?
Resources that fit
History units for February and the rest of the year
Ready-made units covering civil rights, Reconstruction and the Great Migration with sources and writing tasks; tap any cover for the full preview, contents and price.
“I Have a Dream” Speech – Rhetoric, Civil Rights & Equality | Martin Luther King Jr. Analysis Workbook | GRADE 5–9
Martin Luther King, Jr. – Civil Rights, Equality & Nonviolence | Social Studies Workbook | GRADE 5–9
Black American History Month - Complete Teaching Bundle
Diversity in Society – Opportunities, Challenges & Social Transformation
Prejudice, Discrimination and Moral Courage – Ethics Unit: Worksheets, Projects & Slides (Grades 6–9)
Step by step
How to plan the month in the classroom
- Start with Woodson's reasonCarter G. Woodson launched Negro History Week in 1926 to correct a curriculum, not to add a celebration.
- Build lessons on sourcesUse a photograph, a speech excerpt or a census page and let students do the interpreting themselves.
- Widen the castTeach Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Claudette Colvin and Fannie Lou Hamer alongside the familiar names.
- Carry it past FebruaryPut Reconstruction, the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance in their proper places in your year.
What's covered
What comes in each download
Each unit is a full teaching set rather than a one-day activity.
- Primary source analysis tasks
- Reading passages at four levels
- Editable PowerPoint slide deck
- Answer keys and discussion prompts
- Lesson plan with timings
Make it work for everyone
Handling hard material with middle graders
Middle school students can handle difficult history when the lesson gives them something to do with it, such as comparing two accounts or tracing how a decision was made. Use the lower reading tiers to keep the same content within reach, and end each lesson on a question about what people did rather than only what was done to them.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
How do I avoid teaching only slavery and segregation?
Balance the unit deliberately. Spend real time on invention, business, music, science and political organizing, and put Black communities in the position of actors rather than subjects. A useful test: count the lessons where the central figure makes a decision, then compare that with the lessons where something is done to them.
Is Black History Month the same everywhere?
No. The United States and Canada mark it in February, following Carter G. Woodson's Negro History Week; the United Kingdom and Ireland observe it in October. If you teach an international cohort, that difference is worth a lesson in itself on how a commemoration travels and changes.
What should I do about the rest of the year?
Map it. Look at where Reconstruction, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance and the long civil rights movement already sit in your scope and sequence, and teach them properly there. February then becomes a focus point rather than the only place this content appears.
Teach February from something solid
Browse the history units and download a complete one before the month starts.
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