Loading Events

« All Events

  • This event has passed.

In Defense of Teaching Black Studies: Reading, Writing & Justice

November 7, 2023 @ 9:00 am - 11:00 am EST

[THIS PROGRAM IS IN-PERSON *AND* VIRTUAL]

On this Election Day, join authors Kimberlé Crenshaw and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor at the Schomburg Center for a professional learning experience for educators, to explore cutting-edge ideas in the field of Black Studies, and to receive practical, classroom-ready resources.

Black Studies and Black History are under attack and more important than ever. Nearly half of all students in the United States attend schools in states where Black History is, in some form, censored by law. Meanwhile, parents, teachers, and students are pushing back, organizing to stand up for the importance of teaching Black Studies in the classroom. Recently, this scholarship has grown tremendously, yielding new insights into the origins and development of the United States, the world, economics, politics, art, and our contemporary cultural moment.

Black Studies and Black History are essential for understanding how we got here and where we’re going. There is no better place for educators to connect with that scholarship, and each other, than the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

This program is produced by The New York Public Library’s Center for Educators & Schools, an initiative that helps to make all of the library’s resources accessible and useful to teachers and students all over New York City, and beyond.

GUEST SPEAKERS

Kimberlé Crenshaw is popularly known for her development of intersectionality, critical race theory, and the #SayHerName campaign, and is the author of several books, most recently #SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence. She is the co-founder and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum, the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School, the Promise Institute Professor at UCLA Law School, and the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor at Columbia Law School.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is author of several books, most recently Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, a semi-finalist for the 2019 National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2020. She is also a co-editor of Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies. She is a 2021 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. She is currently a professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University.

WORKSHOPS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT. Participants will also have the opportunity to attend ONE of the following workshops:

NEW BLACK HISTORY RESOURCES (Virtual and In-Person). This workshop will present an overview of Black History resources available at the Schomburg Center and NYPL, including new books for students of all ages, a new collection of professional titles for educators, and an overview of the teaching guides for using primary sources in the classroom.

TO MAKE PUBLIC OUR JOY: BLACK NEW YORKERS COMMEMORATING EMANCIPATION, 1808-1865 (In-Person). In this hands-on workshop for grade 7-12 teachers, participants will learn how they can use our new teaching guide to lead students in an investigation of the ways Black New Yorkers grappled with three critical moments in the struggle for emancipation.

NEW TOOLS FOR TEACHING WITH THE LIBRARY’S PRIMARY SOURCES. At this program, we will share physical copies of a newly published teaching guide that uses primary sources to tell the story of how Black New Yorkers grappled with the ever-unfinished work of emancipation. Learn more about To Make Public Our Joy: Black New Yorkers Commemorating Emancipation, 1808–1865.

***
BOOK GIVEAWAY. All in-person participants will also receive a free copy of Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies, edited by Colin Kaepernick, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. This new book brings together canonical texts and authors in Black Studies, including those excised from or not included in the new AP curriculum. The book features short, teachable excerpts from the writings of David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, Zora Neale Hurston, W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, James Baldwin, June Jordan, Angela Y. Davis, Robert Allen, Barbara Smith, Toni Cade Bambara, bell hooks, Barbara Christian, Patricia Hill Collins, Cathy J. Cohen, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Saidiya Hartman, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, and many others.

Eligible NY State educators can receive 3.5 CTLE credit hours for participating.

Space is limited! Registration is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Light breakfast and lunch will be provided for those attending in-person.

Please select ONE ticket option during registration, which will include a total of two workshops. Registrants who reserve more than one ticket will be assigned an option based on availability.

A light breakfast will be served.

For more information about The New York Public Library’s Center for Educators and Schools, visit us at nypl.org/ces or subscribe to our monthly newsletter! If you have any questions, reach out to [email protected]. To stay updated, follow us on X, Instagram, or Facebook.

ASSISTIVE LISTENING AND ASL

ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing [email protected].

PUBLIC NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER

AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING | Programs are photographed and recorded by the New York Public Library. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for all purposes of the New York Public Library.

PRESS | Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio recording, etc.) at least 24 hours before the day of the program to [email protected]. Please note that professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

Click to attend

Venue

In Person & Virtual
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard
New York, NY 10037 United States
+ Google Map