Teaching Black History to White People

I have been teaching Black history for twenty-five years, mostly to white people. I have taught for decades on college campuses throughout the south, as well as in the north. I currently teach a course at UT-Austin that admits 500 students, but which always has a waiting list. Students take my class because their friends and roommates suggest it to them. Sometimes students tell me that they talk with their parents weekly about what they learn. Students tell me the course changes their minds, changes their lives. Why are such a wide range of students drawn to my courses on Black history? Why do they open themselves to what I have to say?

I believe that African American history is essential to understanding America. For all Americans. In my class, I make a constant connection between the literature of the field and my own personal experiences as an African American man, living in a society in which racial definitions impinge on my experience. As I teach and pose questions, I ask my students to honestly engage the subject in the same way, examining the formal sources as well as their life histories and assumptions.

I am honest with my students from the very first day, telling them that this is a course on Black history, taught by a Black man from a Black perspective. I warn them that sometimes my authenticity may make some of them uncomfortable. But as I present my authentic self to my students, I encourage them to be equally authentic. I want them to ask themselves troubling questions, and to bring their questions into the public space of the classroom, where they can be grappled with.