It’s February, which means it’s Black History Month, a special time to shine a light on Black culture, experiences, and the struggles and triumphs of the Black community in the United States. Starting as “Negro History Week” in 1926, this celebration was first introduced by Carter G. Woodson as a way to highlight Black Americans’ successes and achievements, before gaining official recognition as Black

History Month (BHM) in 1976. BHM is also a time when special attention is paid at BCA to education about the Black experience, and how Black History is integral to our understanding of American and World events. 

Comprehensive Black History Education is invaluable to ensuring BCA students understand truths about our world as well as combatting stereotypes and prejudices through compassion and understanding. Several students, including Vice-President of BCA’s Black and Latine Student Union (BLSU) Ellianna Scislowicz-Torres, agree. When asked about her view on the importance of education, she explained that “Black History Education fosters empathy and helps break down stereotypes and prejudices.”

Ellianna also added that teaching about Black History in the classroom “teaches students critical thinking skills, ways to look at biases, and how to extend history into other ideas.” 

Sophomore and BLSU member Kiki Perez Grovas also agrees, adding: “It is so vital that we learn about the histories of each other to grow into better people and a more welcoming school community.”

To learn more, the Academy Chronicle surveyed BCA students on their thoughts and past experiences with Black History Education, and what our school community can do to ensure a better future for all. 

73.2% percent of surveyed students reported being taught about some Black History before coming to BCA, either in History, English, Art, Music, or other classes. However, the vast majority of these students explained that on a scale of 1 to 5, Black History had only been incorporated into their

middle school education at a level 1 or 2, more as a brief mention than comprehensively across various subject matters. AMST freshman Adeline noted that in her school “Obviously we talked about Martin Luther King Jr. on Martin Luther King Jr. day, but a lot of it was very surface level.”

The level of education also varied by the demographics of a student’s town, with Adeline also mentioning that she “definitely noticed a change from being able to talk about being Black a lot more openly to a place where it was kind of stigmatized.” This change came after moving from a more racially diverse town to a less diverse one. 

Since entering BCA, around 55% of students explained that they’ve had Black experiences and perspectives incorporated into their courses. This includes a focus on the racial dynamics in colonial Haiti, the impacts of Reconstruction-era policy, and a spotlight on Black playwrights and artists. 

English teacher Mr. Hathaway explained that for him, incorporating Black perspectives and writing

into the classroom fit right in. He noted that during the sophomore American Lit II Transcendentalism unit, “early on a few years ago I recognized that MLK was influenced by the transcendentalists […] I thought that Letter from a Birmingham Jail was a perfect compliment to other readings and when we read Letter From a Birmingham Jail, […] and look at the literary structure of the essay, we analyze what King was going through at the time.”

Students have taken note of the integration of Black history, as Ellianna explained. “Teachers have learned how to better incorporate cultured lessons into broader topics such as Mr. Lancaster’s discussion of Puerto Rico’s statehood in his history classes, or Mrs. Wallace’s mentions of different racial issues in smaller communities or showing the Bergen County segregation map. ”

Seeing the value of education in BCA classrooms, last February, Black and Latine Student Union created several feature lessons to expand upon themes being addressed in various classes. These lessons ranged from applying the critical lenses to poems by Claude McKay and Audre Lorde to looking at factors of production and entrepreneurship in Tulsa’s Black Wall Street.

These lessons were all created from scratch by students in BLSU, who also served as teachers, coming in during free periods to run the lessons with classes. Ellianna believed that this added a personal touch, saying “Having student-run lessons gets more interaction from students and allows them to connect with the topic.”

Around half of BCA students mentioned that they’ve attended a student-run BLSU lesson and over 80% of students who attended the lessons mentioned that they learned something new afterward. Student participation was integral to the success of the lessons, opening the door to nuanced discussions about race and its impacts. 

Even after all of the progress we’ve made as a school community, there’s still a long way to go. As Mr. Hathaway explained, “As diverse as we like to think we are, we’re really not that diverse as Black and Hispanic culture goes.” Black and Hispanic students only make up around 3 and 8

percent of the school population respectively, and many students feel like their history and experiences aren’t being fully represented in the school curriculum. Black History Month is an important time for us all to reflect on ways to use education to celebrate, empower, and uplift Black voices. 

Black history, experiences, and perspectives will always be integral to understanding contributions in every field, from business to science to the arts. February is an annual reminder for all of us that Black culture is American culture, and Black history always has been and always will be American history.