Key Takeaways from the Gilder Lehrman Center 24th Annual Conference: Teaching Race & Slavery in the American Classroom

By Daisha Brabham

On November 5th and 6th, I was honored to participate in the 24th Annual Conference for the Gilder Lehrman Center. The theme this year was Teaching Race & Slavery In the American Classroom. The conference invited speakers from various academic fields and regions of the country to discuss the importance of anti-racist education and its implementation in K-12 contexts.

Including a range of stakeholders - from journalists to historians to elementary school teachers - each panel provided new insight into educators’ specific craft. Each of us has a role to play in the fight for anti-racist education. Our success depends upon us sharing resources and working together for the greater public good.

In the paragraphs below, I offer a few key takeaways that I hope will tempt you to engage with the panels directly via video if you haven’t watched them already.

Key Takeaways 

This is a fight

As an educator in Connecticut, you can sometimes feel protected from the onslaught of attacks on racial education. Horror stories emerging from places like Florida and Mississippi, where teachers face acute surveillance in their classrooms, can seem like an alternate universe. But it is important to remember that contemporary attacks have long and broad reach. 

During their panel, Gloria Ladson Billings and Hasan Jeffries detailed the history of attacks on public school education. Dr. Jeffries, for example, pointed out that in the aftermath of Brown vs. Board of Education a long fight to integrate schools ensued, including efforts to use public school dollars to fund private school education.

And the attacks remain coordinated. Library Media Specialist from Fairfield, Kevin Staton, demonstrated the dangerous degree of coordination among current attacks. During his presentation, he shared a seemingly benign website titled booklooks. The opening page reads: What’s in a book? Find out what objectionable content may be in your child's book before they do. When you click on the book review section, up pops an alphabetized list of familiar texts, including the Hate U Give, The Bluest Eye, and many more. Each book has been rated on a 5-point scale with “problematic” excerpts organized by page number.  As Staton points out, opponents no longer need even to engage directly with or read a book; they can simply print out decontextualized objections and present them to a local school board. 

We are not without hope 

Despite opposing efforts, panelists remained optimistic about the enduring possibilities of public school education. Across the teacher panels, there were several examples of anti-racist work being implemented in states, districts, schools and classrooms - everything from stocking library shelves with banned books, to pursuing legal defenses and new legislation, to sharing resources with other teachers. Resistance and organizing are always available options for fighting back. 

Ed Donnellan, a teacher from Gonganza High School in Washington, DC, shared how his students went on a three-year journey to study the history of slavery in their local area. Students dove into archives to research how slave labor helped not only build most of the country but also connected to the very land on which their school was built. Projects like Ed’s, Nataliya Braignsky’s Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Walking Tour, and many more show what’s possible when teachers believe that students can and should be critical analysts and leaders in and beyond our classrooms. 

The conference was an inspiring reminder that - with the right resources and a commitment to teaching and learning hard truths - history classrooms can be life-changing and empowering spaces for all.

I encourage everyone to watch the conference’s rich panel discussions below. Each one offers important insights and together they capture and convey what was a truly amazing event.

Teaching Race & Slavery in the American Classroom: KEYNOTE CONVERSATION featuring Jamelle Bouie (NYT columnist) and Danielle Allen (James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University) In conversation with David W. Blight (Sterling Professor of History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale University)

History of U.S. Education: What’s Race Got To Do With It? featuring Hasan Kwame Jeffries (Associate Professor of History, The Ohio State University); Gloria Ladson-Billings (Former Kellner Family Distinguished Chair of Urban Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Immediate Past-President of the National Academy of Education; and Fellow of the American Educational Research Association); Johann Neem (Professor of History, Western Washington University); and Donald Yacovone (Lifetime Associate, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University)

Break-Out Session: Teachers’ Open Mic

Writing Textbooks: Is a Unified Narrative of Pluralistic America Possible? featuring Mia Bay (Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Chair in American History, University of Pennsylvania); Ned Blackhawk (Howard R. Lamar Chair of History and American Studies, Yale University); Eric Foner (DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History, Columbia University); Erika Lee (Regents Professor of History and Asian American Studies, and Director of the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota; and President, Organization of American Historians); and Paul Ortiz (Professor of History, and Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Florida)

Teachers Roundtable: Teaching History in the Classroom Today featuring Daisha Brahbam (HS teacher at Windsor High School, Windsor, CT; member of the Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Collective); Anthony Crawford (Educator, artist, poet, filmmaker, and public speaker); Chris Dier (History teacher, Benjamin Franklin High School, New Orleans; 2021 GLI Louisiana Teacher of the Year); and Layla Treuhaft-Ali (YC ‘2017; 5th and 6th grade reading and writing teacher at Bronzeville Classical School in Chicago)

The Rise of the American Right featuring Carol Anderson (Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of African American Studies, Emory University); Jennifer Berkshire (Adjunct Faculty Member, Economic Policy Institute; Lecturer in Political Science, Yale University); Beverly Gage (Professor of History & American Studies, Yale University); Nancy MacLean (William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy, Duke University); and Rick Perlstein (Author and journalist)

Teachers Roundtable: Dealing with Political Pushback featuring Misty Crompton (Middle School Social Studies teacher, leader in the New Hampshire Just Schools movement); Ed Donnellan (Teacher, Gonzaga College High School, Washington DC); Shekema Dunlap (Founding Executive Director of IFE Academy of Teaching & Technology, Atlanta, GA); Kevin Staton (Library Media Specialist, Fairfield Public Schools, CT); and Stefanie Wager (Senior Technical Assistance Consultant at the American Institutes for Research; Past President of the National Council for the Social Studies)

Break-Out Session: On the Ground in Florida featuring Michael Butler (Kenan Distinguished Professor of History, Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL) and Kacie Nadeau (fifth-grade teacher of the gifted in language arts and social studies in Sarasota County, FL)

Concluding Roundtable: Why Do We Teach US History? featuring Kimberlé Crenshaw (Executive Director, African American Policy Forum); Mira Debs (Executive Director of the Yale Education Studies Program; lecturer in Sociology, Yale University); Dana Goldstein (New York Times journalist); Kimberly J. Robinson (Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law; Professor of Education, School of Education and Human Development, UVA); and Daryl Scott (Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History, Geography, and Museum Studies, Morgan State University)