This blog post is part of the #SchomburgSyllabus series edited by Zakiya Collier, Digital Archivist, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division. The #SchomburgSyllabus project archives Black-authored and Black-related online educational resources to document Black studies, movements, and experiences in the twenty-first century. In connecting these web-archived resources to the Schomburg Center’s own unique materials, the project honors and recognizes the source and strength of Black self-education practices, collective study, and librarianship.The #SchomburgSyllabus is curated by Schomburg Center staff and organized into twenty-seven themes to foster a greater understanding of the Black experience.

Schomburg Curriculum Project

The Schomburg Curriculum Project is an exciting new initiative that seeks to bring the institution’s dynamic collection of more than 11 million items to classrooms across the country. By introducing students grades 6-12 to a diverse range of primary sources relating to the history of Transatlantic Slavery, the Black Power Movement, and Black Women's Stories, this curriculum seeks to provide greater access to culturally relevant curricula that fosters a deeper appreciation for Black history. The following is a special preview of the curriculum that will be digitally available to all this upcoming Spring 2022.

Transatlantic Slavery

Two essential questions that guides this unit are: 1) How were Black people active in their own emancipation and the abolition of slavery?  2) In what ways can we use the archive, and our understandings of humanity and human behavior, to look at everyday actions by enslaved people as examples of resistance?

The second question is very important when considering the primary sources the institution of slavery produced, because the majority of documents are primarily white-authored and often preserve the experiences of enslaved people through criminalizing accounts. By illustrating how one can “read against the grain” this unit will show educators how to illuminate Black resistance even if sources do not include Black voices.

The selected source for this example is “A Petition to the City of Savannah,” written in 1795. This document really displays the residual fear caused by the Haitian Revolution. It is a petition amongst enslavers attempting to disrupt the arrival of “seasoned Negros” from the West Indies from entering the city’s ports. Although this document does not contain the voices of enslaved people, it highlights for students the frequency of Black resistance and the different types of encounters that provided enslaved people the opportunity to co-conspire strategies towards reclaiming their freedom.

Black Power Movement

One of my favorite lessons within this section of the curriculum is on the Aesthetics of Black Power. While style is often considered an individual act of expression, our personal style can communicate to others ideas about our cherished values, political beliefs, and even our cultural heritage. In this lesson, students will examine primary sources from the Black Power Era to explore the ways that African Americans utilized fashion to disrupt historically entrenched anti-black standards of beauty and imagine a new liberatory politics for Black style.

Utilizing these Black Power buttons as a source of inquiry, this lesson emphasizes how adorning one self with words of affirmation both cultivated an individual sense of Black pride while also communicating to others a sense of Black militancy.

A supplementary source that further illuminates this is a 1969 letter to the New York Amsterdam News written by an African American soldier in Vietnam seeking advice about being forced to remove “I’m Black and I’m proud” from his helmet. In his letter the soldier wrote: "I found out that most people think 'Black Power' means that we the negro are prejudiced or that we think we are better than anyone else. To Me Black power means for my people to unite and strive for equality in America.” Such a statement helps students realize how something as seemingly benign as wearing a button, was in actuality a radical act.

Black Women's Stories

An essential question this section of the curriculum asks is how have ideas of Black womanhood evolved over time? This unit will explore this question and the multifaceted ways that Black women have defined themselves and their place in society from slavery to the present. A key thread throughout this curriculum will be the concept of intersectionality and examining the ways that race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability shaped the lived experiences of Black women. The experience of Black womanhood is varied, complex, and most importantly personal; and therefore cannot easily be encompassed within a single lesson. Still, our goal is to highlight a series of primary sources that put into dialogue past and contemporary notions of Black womanhood so that students may leave with a more critical vocabulary and conceptualization of both womanhood and the Black experience.

An important goal of this unit is to highlight the contributions of prominent Black women like Ida B. Wells, Augusta Savage, Josephine Baker, and Audre Lorde in addition to lesser known trailblazers. For example, a primary source that I found really captivating is a 19th century photograph of an unnamed woman dressed in men’s clothing.

While there are very little details known about this woman’s identity, the photograph encourages students to reflect on the confidence she displays in defining how she presents herself to the world. Although this woman is a figure of the past, the topic of self-representation is a relevant topic that students of the present can deeply resonate with.

Like the syllabi included in the #syllabus web archive collection, the Schomburg Curriculum provides educators and students with the opportunity to guide and direct their own educational paths and recover the Black histories that are often excluded from classroom curricula. Stay tuned for our digital launch in Spring 2022!