Black History and Theoretical Possibilities of Critical Race Theory and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

• In Event: Black History Past and Present: Theoretical and Practical Considerations for Teaching and Learning Black History

Abstract

In this conceptual paper, we argue that theories and pedagogies of Black History took form within the socio-historical context of race, what Omi and Winant (1994) call racial formation.
We argue that Jim Crow, Civil Rights and Post-Civil Rights eras are key moments in time where new theories of race and blackness helped to reconceptualize Black History. Consistent across these periods, however, has been the utilization of Black History to provide counternarratives to the existing curricular discourses, as well as the use of Black History to help Black children make relevant connections to their lives. In this sense, we maintain that some of the key precepts of critical race theory (e.g., counternarrative) and culturally relevant pedagogy (relevant cultural knowledge) are present across most of the twentieth century, albeit for different purposes.

Jim Crow Black Counter Narratives
For example, the development of Black History during the Jim Crow Era took form through the pervasive ideologies of Black inferiority. In this paper, we show how textbooks and Black periodicals written by Black scholars during the early twentieth century served as a counternarrative to the majoritarian histories found about Black people during this period. The histories, photographs and commentary in these texts provided some the earliest conceptions of historical revisionism and culturally relevant pedagogy. The cultural knowledge provided in these counter-hegemonic spaces are foundational to the precepts of CRT and CRP, particularly in its application to making Black History relevant to the pervasive anti-Black ideologies of this era.

Black Nationalist Counter Narratives
We argue in this section of the paper that the ideas of Black cultural nationalism provided key theoretical insights to the teaching of Black History. Again, this period is foundational to CRT and CRP because of the insistence to make curricular knowledge relevant to Black people’s lives by challenging the discursive meanings of “blackness” and “Africa,” as well as reconceptualizing the majoritarian narrative of Black people’s history as only being located within the context of U.S. enslavement.

Post-Civil Rights Black History
The post-Civil Rights era galvanized new theories such as CRT and CRP that reveal the durability of racism within a desegregated society. CRT scholars have shown that historical revisionism requires that past racial histories must be reconceptualized beyond the majoritarian narratives that presume certain moments in Black history mark the end of racism or what is called post-racialism. CRP as well emerged out new racial context of a desegregated society, calling for new pedagogies to make learning relevant to Black children through content such as Black History.



The Theoretical Utility of CRP and CRT

We finally show how coupled together CRT and CRP provide a powerful framework for conceptualizing Black history. CRT’s insistence of challenging majoritarian narratives of race and CRP’s core commitment to the practice of teaching ideas that are responsive to Black children’s lives within a post-Civil Rights Era, can enable teachers to use Black History as a vehicle to understand the pervasiveness of race over time.

Authors

• Anthony L. Brown, The University of Texas - Austin

• Keffrelyn D. Brown, The University of Texas - Austin

• Angela Ward, Austin Independent School District