Yale National Initiative®

Jonathan Holloway leading our national seminar on "Narratives of Citizenship and Race since Emancipation," July 2012.

To celebrate Black History Month, we are pleased to highlight our curricular resources on African American history. Since its launch in 1978, the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute has been committed to providing public school teachers with the resources and opportunities to create culturally relevant curricula on African American history.

Charles T. Davis leading our 1978 seminar on "20th Century Afro-American Culture."

Amongst our offerings that first year was a seminar on "20th Century Afro-American Culture," led by Charles T. Davis, a pioneering scholar of African American literature and then chair of Yale University's Afro-American Studies program. Since 2005, the Yale National Initiative has invited public school teachers from across the country to New Haven each summer as Yale National Fellows to take national seminars led by Yale faculty. In that time, Yale National Fellows have created hundreds of K-12 curriculum units on or related to African American history and culture, which can be found in our Topical Index. The Index also contains entries for related topics and themes, including "Race," "Social Justice," "Civil Rights," and "Diversity."

Our Topical Index contains a top-level entry for "African Americans" with links to over two hundred curriculum units that either focus on or incorporate African American history and culture. The Index also contains entries specifically for curriculum units on African American history and African American literature. Finally, the Index contains entries for related topics and themes, including "Race," "Social Justice," "Civil Rights," and "Diversity."

Teachers looking for Black History Month resources will also find it useful to browse our curriculum unit database through a list of national seminars. Among the one hundred national seminars we have offered since 2005 are "Narratives of Citizenship and Race since Emancipation," a 2012 national seminar led by Jonathan Holloway, Professor of History, African American Studies and American Studies; and "The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of the Civil Rights Movement," a 2009 national seminar led by Robert A. Burt, Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Law. In addition, several recent national seminars have allowed teachers to explore the concepts of race and racism, including "Race, Class, and Punishment," led by James A. Forman, Jr., Professor of Law; "Teaching about Race and Racism Across the Disciplines," led by Daniel Martinez HoSang, Associate Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration and American Studies.

This month, we are sharing curriculum units on African American history on social media. They include:

"Pain to Pride: How Can the Pain of the Past Generate Hope for the Future" was written by 2019 National Teacher of the Year and three-time Yale National Fellow Rodney Robinson of Richmond Public Schools.
"The 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and Its Legacy: Experiencing Place as Text," by Shanedra Nowell, a 2011 Yale National Fellow from Tulsa Public Schools.
"Medical Inequality in America: Henrietta Lacks, the Tuskegee Study, and Covid 19," by Krista Waldron, a ten-time Yale National Fellow from Tulsa Public Schools.
"In Their Own Words? – Using The WPA Slave Narratives in the Classroom," by Mark Hartung, a six-time Yale National Fellow from the San José Unified School District.
"How Hip-Hop Moved the Crowd to Social Activism," by Sharon Ponder-Ballard, a four-time Yale National Fellow from Chicago Public Schools.
"Jim Crow, Civil Rights, and the Integration of Schools,," by Valerie J. Schwarz, a sixteen-time Yale National Fellow from Richmond Public Schools.

The Yale National Initiative to strengthen teaching in public schools, now in its twentieth year, is a long-term endeavor to influence public policy on teacher professional development, in part by establishing exemplary Teachers Institutes for high-poverty, high-minority schools in states around the country. Teachers Institutes are educational partnerships between universities and school districts designed to strengthen teaching and learning in a community's high-need public schools. These Institutes follow the approach developed originally in New Haven and implemented now in other cities.