Education, Political Leaders Call for Strengthening African American History Lessons in K-12 Classrooms

Panel at Kean University focuses on inclusive education beyond Black History Month

At a National Day of Service event livestreamed from Enlow Recital Hall, Kean President Lamont O. Repollet, Ed.D. and others called for teaching African American history in K-12 education across the curriculum and throughout the school year. 

“Black history is American history,” said Repollet, addressing fellow educators during the event, held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “I challenge all of my colleagues, take this fierce urgency of now and look at how you are leading your district.”

Repollet, the former New Jersey Commissioner of Education, hosted the fireside chat with American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten as part of President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris’ National Day of Service. They were joined on the panel by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and moderator Sancha Gray, superintendent of the Asbury Park school district. 

During the event, the panelists said they supported full implementation and expansion of the Amistad Bill, enacted in New Jersey in 2002, which calls on schools to incorporate African American history into their social studies curriculum.

“The Amistad Commission is about learning that 1619 is as important as 1776 in United States history,” Weingarten said. “Education is a key to being able to help kids critically think. First and foremost, we need to teach fact versus fiction, fact versus propaganda.” 

Baraka said everyone shares some culpability for allowing lies and mistruths to stand unchallenged.

“We should be as direct with exposing lies as people are about telling them,” he said. “We should be teaching our kids all of what happened not just part of it, even the uncomfortable parts of it. We need serious curriculum change.”

Repollet told the virtual audience about a life-changing trip he took to Ghana in 2017 with Gray, students and others while serving as superintendent of the Asbury Park school district. The group visited slave castles and learned about African American history by experiencing it firsthand.

“This experiential learning opportunity could not be captured from a textbook,” Gray said. “It  had to be felt by the human soul.”

Under Repollet’s leadership, Kean is taking steps to diversify its faculty through the Equity in Action Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship program, which seeks a diverse group of candidates to teach, research and collaborate with faculty and students at Kean. In addition, Repollet said Kean will work with its school district partners — 106 in all — to develop programming and curricula that empowers students of color to achieve their goals.

“We want to create a pipeline of educators who can go back into the school districts and talk about not just what’s in the textbook, but also their life experiences,” he said.