Home - Teaching for Black Lives

Join the Campaign

At school, we either learn or unlearn our power. By supporting educators in the classroom and the community, we make our schools sites of resistance, justice, joy, and liberation. Together, we are helping dismantle anti-Blackness in education.

Teaching for Black Lives is a book and a national campaign consisting of:

Study groups (over 100 around the country)
Teaching activities and lessons available online
Online “Teach the Black Freedom Struggle” classes and a podcast
Advocacy and organizing for #TeachTruth and making Black lives matter in schools.

The Teaching for Black Lives campaign launched in August of 2020 as a response to the uprising for Black lives and we hope that you will join the movement.

My thinking and practice has changed as I have come to a deeper understanding of what it means to center the counter narrative in my social studies classroom. I have grown to center stories of Black brilliance. My students are able to critique how power shapes and controls the narratives presented or left out.

–Amy McClellan
Shoreline, Washington

Helping Educators Fight Racism

Black students’ minds and bodies are under attack. This is how we fight back.

Rooted in the Black Lives Matter movement, this essential guide demonstrates how educators can teach to affirm Black joy, connect curriculum to young people’s lives, and highlight the hope and beauty of activism and collective action.

LEARN ABOUT THE BOOK

Erin Robinson

Resources for Educators

Educators hold the power to combat racism and anti-Blackness, and transform classrooms into sites of resistance, hope, and learning about the beauty of Blackness. We’re here to support, with classes, study groups, lessons, podcasts and more.

VIEW RESOURCES

Hanna Barczyk

Advocate for Black Lives

Just as it is critical to change what and how we teach in our schools, it is also essential that together—students, educators, parents, and administrators—we act in support of Black lives and Black community, and against anti-Black racism. Learn how you can take action.

START ADVOCATING TODAY

Teaching for Black Lives is not just for teachers in the classroom, but also for those of us who care about making Black lives matter in the community. It should be required reading for all who care about the future of Black youth.

–Ayọ Tometi (formerly known as Opal),
#BlackLivesMatter co-founder

Maya Freelon, 2014, 21.5” x 11.5”, tissue ink mono photo print, courtesy of the artist and Morton Fine Art

Support this Critical Work

This is all of our work. We must come together to support educators to make classrooms and schools into sites of resistance, justice, joy, and liberation. We must join in organizing against anti-Blackness with colleagues and communities in the streets and in our classrooms.

JOIN US