It's simple. Black history is American history

Associate Opinion Editor Kevin S. Aldridge can be reached at kaldridge@enquirer.com.

A 2015 poll that surveyed college graduates and the general public found that Americans are “alarmingly ignorant” of our country’s history and heritage. Exactly how dumb are we? Well, the poll found that 10 percent of American college graduates incorrectly thought celebrity television judge Judith Sheindlin, known as “Judge Judy,” is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Our ignorance of and indifference, sometimes willfully, to U.S. history is not only troubling, it can be dangerous. Understanding history is a critical part of understanding the present. This is particularly true for black history, which has traditionally been treated separate and apart from American history and relegated to one month of attention. Want to understand the Black Lives Matter movement better? Then you need to read up on the historical relationship between law enforcement and African-Americans and the criminalizing of blacks that began immediately after the end of slavery.

Author James Baldwin once said “the history of America is the history of the Negro in America. And it’s not a pretty picture.” Perhaps that explains why historically it has been so difficult to incorporate black history into mainstream teaching. It forces us to revisit, study and discuss some disgraceful periods that many Americans would just as soon pretend never happened. But we can’t run from our history. We have to learn from it.

I believe the key to bridging many of the racial divisions in our country begins with learning more about our histories. We do that through the inclusion and honest teaching of black history in our schools. Black history, as well as the histories of other diverse groups, needs to be woven into the fabric of all content taught in the classroom. It’s great to highlight the accomplishments and struggles overcome by African-Americans during the month of February, but students need to see themselves in the learning every day.

Anna Hutchinson, Cincinnati Public School’s curriculum director, said while the contributions of African-Americans are highlighted during Black History Month, the district doesn’t want to teach black history as an “isolated incident.”

“We want to make sure we teach about the contributions of all people throughout all our content, not just history courses. There are historical contributors of all races in science, in art and in math,” she said.

Teachers are also being encouraged to not just rely on textbooks, but to pull from other resources and integrate that information into their lessons, Hutchinson said. For example, groups of students have been taking field trips to see the movie “Hidden Figures,” the story of a team of African-American women mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program. The district is also making history lessons more interactive and hands-on.

Craig Rush and Drew Ransay are currently teaching a two-week intensive study on the Underground Railroad at Clark Montessori High School in Hyde Park. The class of about 30 black and white students is doing activities such as replicating the journey of 28 escaped slaves who came to Cincinnati by walking up Hamilton Avenue disguised as members of a funeral procession. Students will also be visiting notable stops along the Underground Railroad throughout the city, visiting the Freedom Center and writing essays on black history figures, among other things.

Including black history is “something that we have to continually and intentionally do,” said Rush, who has a master’s degree in history and has been teaching for 22 years. “It’s our job as teachers to bring up the good and the uncomfortable and empower our students to think of ways to create change on the things that need to be improved and to celebrate what is good.”

CPS continues to push for textbooks that have multicultural representation and perspectives, connect history with the modern day and present more than “just the facts.” Textbooks have been criticized through the years for presenting history solely from the “white perspective.” Publisher McGraw-Hill Education came under fire a few years ago for a high school textbook that said, in a section called “Patterns of Immigration,” that the Atlantic slave trade “brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.” Many African-Americans took exception with describing the kidnapping of millions of people as “immigration” and slaves as “workers,” a term usually applied to people who get paid for doing a job.

“The textbook companies are coming around,” Hutchinson said. “I think they are getting the message because they are changing their products.”

While much work still remains, we can be encouraged by the approach CPS is taking to teach its students about diverse people and cultures. But it’s also important that adults pick up a book, watch a documentary or movie, and surf the internet for historical facts about African-Americans and other diverse groups. The more we understand about one another, the easier it will be for us to come together to solve our collective problems.

“History can explain a lot about modern attitudes and behavior,” Rush said.

And so can our ignorance.