Histories of Art, Race and Empire: 1492-1865

Teaching Situation and Rationale

The subject of this unit will focus on art, images, and texts that focus on texts that depict slavery, racism, oppression, and exploitation from 1852 (towards the end of slavery), with a Frederick Douglass speech, to the present. The title, “This is America: Images and Histories of Racism and Exploitation” is a play on Childish Gambino’s 2018 song, “This is America.”² The song and video serve as inspiration to America’s current state of affairs and is at the heart of answering the questions the students asked. However, before I could teach the song to the students, I had to augment my teaching with reference to historical texts and works that would help students understand how we went from slavery in the U.S. to Childish Gambino’s, “This is America.” This unit will be a mix of older historical works and texts with modern material to show students the history of oppression and the roots of why movements such as Black Lives Matter were formed. 

I teach juniors and seniors at Back of the Yards College Preparatory High School, a Chicago Public School, on the Southwest side of Chicago. The school is named for the neighborhood it serves, the Back of the Yards neighborhood. The neighborhood is the former location of the Union Stock Yards; the meatpacking district that was active from 1865 until 1971.³ The stockyards inspired Upton Sinclair to write his sensational novel, The Jungle⁴,after he went undercover in the stockyards in 1904. The novel shocked public opinion with its graphic depiction of the meatpacking industry and the dangerous labor practices. Many of those dangers remain today. According to The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, “…in comparison to other industrial and manufacturing sectors, meatpacking and poultry processing are still among the most dangerous. Food manufacturing workers are twice as likely to experience injuries and illnesses than industrial and manufacturing workers as a whole.”⁵ Many of the students in my high school have family members who work in this industry including themselves. Although the stockyards are gone, the unsafe conditions are not. Ironically, our high school is named after the neighborhood that inspired The Jungle where many of my current students and their families still work in meat packaging companies with little training and unsafe conditions. 

The students at my school not only work in dangerous conditions but also live in a dangerous neighborhood. The current population of the high school is 94.6% Latino, 2.1% Black, 1.8% Asian, and 1.2% White. 93% of our students are low-income.⁶ The neighborhood has high crime, violence, and gangs. 

I teach English III and Argumentative Literature, a senior elective. This unit was created for my elective class; however, it can also be used in any upperclassmen English class; I often use the materials in English III classes. However, the materials in this unit may be too mature for underclassmen. Having the foundation of a strong community in the classroom is key for these lessons to be successful. 

My Argumentative Literature class is an elective that is permitted to have students of all levels; the Illinois State Board of Education allows students of all levels to be programmed in electives of any subject regardless of their academic level. The class is a great opportunity for diverse learners to have classes with their peers. I always have a wide range of students programmed in these classes; students with IEPs, some with more severe disabilities who are in instructional (self-contained) classes, IB students, ELL students, bilingual students, and at-level students. The materials in this unit have been curated to allow all students to find an “in” for understanding and comprehension.