AS THE UNITED STATES APPROACHES ITS 250TH anniversary, educators and historians across the nation are called to reflect on the civic institutions that have upheld and challenged the nation's democratic foundations. In Illinois, a state long regarded as a middle ground of American political and cultural life, education has played a central role in cultivating informed citizens. From early commitments to public schooling to the development of normal schools and progressive pedagogical innovations, Illinois has consistently stood at the forefront of educational reform. Today, this legacy continues through the state's revised Learning Standards for Social Science, which emphasize inquiry, an expansive vision of democracy, and civic responsibility. Illinois’ educational model provides an example of how civically engaged learning equips students to critically interpret the past and actively shape American democracy.In 1825, Illinois enacted one of the nation's first tax-supported public school laws outside New England, reflecting Jeffersonian ideals that education is essential to liberty and good government.1 The state firmly established free common schools with the landmark School Law of 1855, a Horace Mann–inspired reform ensuring local tax support for public education.2 The state's commitment to accessible education culminated in the 1870 state constitutional mandate for a “thorough and efficient system of free schools” for all children.3 Illinois also led in teacher training with the 1857 founding of Illinois State Normal University, which was among the first public normal schools in the United States.By the 1880s, Illinois schools added civics instruction to its public-school curriculum. In the decades that followed, Progressive Era reformers in the state deepened this connection between schooling and citizenship. Philosopher John Dewey developed his vision of schools as “laboratories of democracy” during his 1890s tenure at the University of Chicago.4 This ethos reverberated through the work of Jane Addams, who opened Hull-House in 1889 as a model for civic education rooted in social experience. Addams regarded democracy as “a way of life,” expressed through communal learning and social responsibility.5 Then notably, African American scholar Carter G. Woodson, who earned a graduate degree in Illinois, helped transform the nation's historical consciousness by inaugurating Negro History Week in 1926. His work centered Black history in the national narrative and illustrated the power of education to foster a more comprehensive democratic memory.6Illinois’ long-standing tradition of consensus politics and emphasis on local control has historically produced a flexible, if sometimes uneven, educational landscape. State laws and governments have specified minimal requirements for schools, leaving much to local discretion.7 Even so, since at least 1985, there has been a statewide understanding that schools are critical sites for transmitting knowledge and democratic values. In 2016, the new Illinois Learning Standards for Social Science significantly shifted the educational focus in the state to a skills-based and inquiry-driven approach to learning.8 By 2022–2023, the standards were updated in what might be described as an “equity revision,” demonstrating a deeper commitment to inclusive, justice-oriented education. Consider the evolution of a history standard for secondary grades: 2016 Illinois State Learning Standard2022 Revision of Illinois State Learning StandardSS.H.6.9-12: Analyze the concept and pursuit of the American Dream.SS.9-12.H.6. Analyze the concept and pursuit of the “American Dream” and identify the factors that could promote or present barriers to the pursuit of the “American Dream” for multiple groups of people.This revision reframes a foundational civic ideal and effectively sets up a deep inquiry. It moves from description to analysis, from abstract idealism to grounded, intersectional critique. Students are now asked to consider how race, class, gender, geography, and other factors shape who can access the American Dream and acknowledge those who cannot. This is significant pedagogically, but also civically: it equips students to recognize systemic inequality and explore democratic remedies.The changes to the Illinois Learning Standards come at a time of profound political polarization in the US. In several states, curricular decisions have become battlegrounds in a broader struggle over historical interpretation, civic values, and the scope of public education. Illinois, by contrast, has resolutely leaned into its tradition, advancing a model of social studies education that resists retrenchment in favor of democratic renewal.As Illinois marks 250 years of educational progress, it presents a powerful model for the nation rooted in cultivating civically literate students. This approach to history and social science is not merely pedagogical; it is a democratic necessity. By centering diverse perspectives, addressing systemic inequities, and fostering critical thinking, Illinois educators are poised to prepare students to understand the past and help shape a more just future. At a time when democratic norms face unprecedented strain, sustained investment in inclusive, rigorous history education is an existential imperative. Illinois affirms that the survival of democracy begins in the classroom.

Throughout African American medical history, Black epileptic women have been rendered unwillingly invisible, both as enslaved persons and as patients, and were often construed as defective, resistant, malingering, or disabled. A challenge therefore arises for bioethics scholarship when modern, white-dominated psychiatric institutions conceal the impairment of Black epileptic women within the malleable demarcation of disability. The article advances two distinct yet interrelated perspectives on the concept of disability. First, it theorizes the significance and appliedness of disability bioethics within the fluid intersection of race, gender, and epilepsy. Adopting a "binocular" approach that integrates the medical and social models of disability, it draws on theoretical insights ranging from Penny Rhodes to Sigrid Graumann to problematize the disability epistemology and cultural competence of white physicians in their treatment of impaired and disabled Black epileptic women. Second, the article examines how white physicians proselytize impairment into disability, thereby calling into question notions of "Black dignity." Through a close reading of Rebecca Skloot's TheImmortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010),it investigates the spectral presence and narratively captured deformed face of Elsie Lacks, an impaired epileptic woman subjected to medical experimentation at Crownsville State Hospital. Drawing on the social model of disability articulated by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, the article foregrounds the interlacing stereotypes, the severity of racism and ableism, and the perils of psychiatric treatment experienced by Black epileptic women.

Are traditional evaluation studies always the best method to collect data about museum audiences? This article focuses on how the Fredericksburg Area Museum, a small community history museum in Virginia, adopted care-based evaluation methods to collect feedback while developing new African American history exhibitions and programming. The staff’s care-based approach meant that sometimes data collections with set methodologies were deemphasized to support relationship-building and participatory exhibition design. Findings indicate that museums must carefully balance their desire for data and feedback collected through traditional evaluation methodologies with the needs, emotions, and well-being of their communities.

Storytelling is an inherent aspect of mankind as most of the learning is imparted through it since ages. Stories that are recalled and narrated to others have a greater impact in transferring the knowledge. Native American and Afro-American societies have had the practice of oral tradition in which tales and experiences are passed on from generations to generations based on the memories of the people. Prominent African American author, Toni Morrison has revolutionized the history of Afro-America with her storytelling weapon. With her narrative techniques, she mirrors the repressed realities of her culture. Most of the literature has already existed on Toni Morrison’s works in different themes and concepts. A research gap has identified in Toni Morrison’s two novels particularly God Help the Child (2015) and Home (2012) the concept of radical tool as storytelling is little. Hence, the present research paper digs out on Toni Morrison’s radical tool of storytelling, slave narratives, narrative techniques, repressed memories, trauma, memory & rememory, storytelling as a tool for identity and redemption, memory as a pathway to healing and trauma in the select novels. Through storytelling medium, Morrison has brought the black community into the mainstream of the community with identity and normalize their societal beliefs from African American’s repressed memories. Besides, her narratives also preserve the culture and history of African Americans.

Abstract Barbara Neely’s first two hard-boiled novels manifest features of contemporary narratives of slavery. The paper investigates the hybrid and seemingly ambiguous co-presence of two generic traditions in Neely: the hard-boiled crime novel’s lonely detective hero and scepticism are contrasted to the neo-slave narrative’s trickster protagonist and hopeful stance. The paper demonstrates that the hybrid presence of the two generic traditions withstands a binary logic of social scepticism versus hope. Neely’s novels trace a personal strategy of social resistance performed by Blanche White, Neely’s black female detective, who fights institutional racism via individual acts of speaking out and producing alternative knowledge. (ÁZSK)

From the 1960s to the 1980s, the field of history experienced a revolution via the social history movement; the history department at Virginia Tech was created in the midst of this revolution. The movement valued the incorporation of new perspectives in the field and uniting all stories in history– the intellectual, social, economic, etc. Interestingly, the first women’s history course and African American history course were created in the 1970s, the peak of incorporating minority experiences. However, these courses allowed students to self-select when it came to internalizing the stories of these experiences, resulting in a general critique from activists who campaigned for their inclusion. The history of the history department has gone largely unrecorded with larger histories of Virginia Tech only devoting a couple of paragraphs. Using the course catalogs from 1960 to 1980 alongside the history graduate students’ theses from 1968 to 1980, I created datasets and graphs to dissect the department’s evolution– from dependent on stray subjects to independent with integral connections to the larger field. In this paper, I argue that (1) the history department at Virginia Tech was grounded in American history and Western European history long before it became independent– making its foundation largely traditional to the field. Later, (2) this preoccupation with Western civilization shifted slightly as the department became independent but remained evident. Using the Civil Rights Movement and Second Wave Feminism as case studies, (3) the department adapted to national demands for social progress– adhering to the broader social history movement that was developing within the field of history by offering courses that reflected the movements mentioned previously. Although, (4) activists sharing the role of the academic offered critiques at how these movements were absorbed into greater academia in parts that were more accommodating to pre-existing structures; an intimate example of this partial absorption can be found in the courses offered by the history department in the 1970s.

Before taking on a full-time administrative position, for two decades I regularly taught an undergraduate lecture-based survey course entitled African American History Since 1876.In sixteen weeks, I ambitiously strove to introduce the basics of more than a century of Black history to diverse groups of Millennial and Gen Z undergraduate learners who had little to no pre-knowledge of the subject matter.Whether deliberately framed as such or not, much of this history is unequivocally the history of African Americans in the South.My own research doesn't focus on the history of the South. 1 As a budding historian, apart from a few graduate seminars on slavery, I had little exposure to the complex history and exhaustive historiography of this region. 2 Of the numerous doctoral candidates I've advised, only two completed dissertations grounded in the history of the South.Yet, as an African Americanist historian, my engagement with the history of the South-namely, how African Americans from this sometimes ambiguously identified area lived, thought, and made choices during various periods-has been inevitable in and outside the classroom.I was reminded of the ubiquitous influence of the South on Black history, and vice versa, during my term as editor of the Journal of African American History, when 40 percent of the published articles focused on African American life in the South.To be frank, I confess that I've not calculatedly pondered how I've taught about the South within the context of my Black history pedagogy.I'm sure that over my long career as a spirited lecturer I've

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in U.S. men, with higher incidence and mortality among African Americans and those with genetic or familial risk. Despite guidelines promoting early detection, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening in primary care remains inconsistent. We assessed PSA screening patterns and the association between risk factors and testing.A retrospective analysis was conducted on men aged ≥40 seen at primary care clinics from 2020 to 2022. Risk scores were created based on the number of prostate cancer risk factors. Univariate and multivariate analyses assessed associations between the risk scores, PSA screening, and cancer diagnosis. Of 176,326 patients, 31.4% underwent PSA testing, rising to 78.1% with a risk score of 4. The predictive model was significant (χ2 = 19,527.021, df = 11, p < .001). PSA testing odds were higher with Medicaid or commercial insurance (vs. Medicare) and lower for self-pay patients. Former and never smokers were more likely to be tested than current smokers. Age, African American race, and family history increased the odds of receiving PSA testing. Prostate cancer diagnosis reached 25% at a risk score of 5, with significant predictors including older age, African American race, family history, and mention of “prostate” in clinical notes. PSA screening remains underused in primary care, even among high-risk patients. More risk factors were linked to higher testing rates, but African American and low-income groups were under-tested. Provider education and decision-support tools may improve guideline adherence and equity.

The Sports Collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Review: <i>Consequential Museum Spaces: Representing African American History and Culture</i> , by Bettina Messias Carbonell

Between 1900 and 1940, African American participants in transatlantic public exhibitions reclaimed a medium that often oppressed non-White bodies: the diorama. This essay traces a transatlantic conversation among African American artists about how to render Black history in diorama form, leveraging the miniature format to make political arguments. In diorama series which circulated on both sides of the Atlantic, such as those designed by Thomas W. Hunster for the Exhibit of American Negroes in the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900 and the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller for the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition in 1907, and Charles C. Dawson for the American Negro Exposition in Chicago in 1940, African American makers selectively used architectural models to signify histories of oppression and liberation as they told transatlantic stories about Black migration and enslavement. This essay argues that this set of dioramas is entwined, growing from 9 to 14 to 33, and that Hunster, Fuller, and Dawson all rendered archetypal buildings, such as slave cabins or plantation homes, to designate the wide and encompassing scope of oppression, while they reference singular buildings associated with public institutions from government to universities—the M Street School in Washington DC, Carnegie Library at Howard University, Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, the Old Massachusetts State House, and the White House—to signify and emplace spaces of Black liberation. Building on research on the layered functions of miniatures and drawing on burgeoning scholarship on entwinements between race and architecture, the article speculates on how architecture style signifies through the models to reinforce what James C. Scott has parsed as dominant narratives and hidden transcripts. Seeking to build Black futurity, all three series facilitated community participation and collaboration to produce an intersocial construction of transatlantic African American history built through mobile models of architecture.

There is much to understand about the history of Nebraska and how the past shapes the present. This book attempts to bring into clearer focus the triumphs and trials of five broad groups whose lives have often been overlooked when the state’s history is told. The authors know some of this history of racism firsthand: Most of them have lived as people of color in Nebraska. They’ve experienced “the good, the bad and the ugly” that makes up our state story. We encourage educators, scholars and family historians to continue to dig, to document and to tell these stories. And then to ask: How can we best acknowledge the racism that is part of our history? How might Nebraskans remedy the wrongs of the past and create a future in which racism is no longer a divisive issue? Can we imagine a culture in which differences and stereotypes do not rule the future for our children and grandchildren? How is it possible for all Nebraskans, through what organizations and institutions, to work for the common good in Nebraska? May this history compel us all to imagine a better future – and then to take action to make it happen!--From the Foreword by Bill Arfmann Introduction by M. Dewayne Mays and Paul A. Olson, Native Americans I by Gabriel Bruguier, Native Americans II by Kevin Abourezk, African Americans — A History of African Americans in Nebraska by Preston Love, Jr., with Adam Fletcher Sasse and Heather Fryer, Latinos — Voices of Latinidad: A Truth and Reconciliation Movement to Preserve Latino and Latina History by J.S. Onésimo (Ness) Sándoval, Asian Americans — Exclusion from the Good Life: The Impact of Anti-Asian Racism on Asian Nebraskans by Heather Fryer and Sharon Ishii-Jordan, Recent Arrivals: Refugee Resettlement in Nebraska by Emira Ibrahimpašić and Julia Reilly

Black people have been present in Nebraska from its earliest days as a U.S. territory. The first U.S. Census of Nebraska, conducted in 1860, counted eighty-one Black people who, together, formed .28 percent of the young territory’s 28,841 residents. That number grew to 3,443 Black residents in 1900, representing 3.5 percent of the 102,555 residents of the state of Nebraska. The number and location of Black Nebraskans varied greatly through the twentieth century, comprising 13.7 percent of the state’s population in 1940 and 11.8 percent in 2020. Although African Americans have been relatively small in numbers, the historical record reflects the formative role that they have played in Nebraska’s history, and in the national movements for political equality and racial justice. The struggles Black Nebraskans endured as they contributed to the political, economic, social, and cultural development of the state prepared them for leadership on the national stage. If one is to know the history of Nebraska, and of Nebraska’s influence on U.S. history, they must know the history of Nebraska’s Black people and Black communities.

Abstract Scholars of African American religious history who access traditional archives to narrate Black women’s religious experiences ought not neglect the pertinent material sources available in the photographic archive. In this article, I consider how vernacular photography found in R. C. Hickman’s photographic archive uncovers important nuances of Black church respectability politics in Dallas, TX from the 1940s to 1960s. Though vernacular photography is a complicated source of historical knowledge, I argue that one of Hickman’s photographs in particular puts what Tamura Lomax calls “feminine-ism” on display. By situating this photo within discourse on religion and racial politics in the desegregation era, this article models how scholars can explore photographic archives to fill gaps in African American women’s religious history. Thus, this article prompts scholars of African American religious history to embrace the photograph as a significant material source and, thereby, become scholarly witnesses of Black women’s religious lives.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) recently developed new procedures to care for textiles classified as human remains—garments worn at the time of death or associated with burials. The inclusion of Trayvon Martin’s clothing in an exhibition initiated this work. Martin, just 17 when he was killed in 2012, became a national symbol in the fight against racial profiling and gun violence. His parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, entrusted NMAAHC with the garments he wore that day. Acknowledging that standard conservation methods were not appropriate, a collaborative team—including a textile conservator, collections specialist and cataloguer—came together to create guidelines centred on reverence, empathy and respect. This work built on NMAAHC’s existing policies for sensitive collections. New guidelines support museum professionals in caring for emotionally and culturally significant items, fostering a more compassionate and nuanced approach to stewardship.

In 2021, the John G. Riley Center and Museum of African American History and Culture received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to digitise its archives. This project aimed to preserve and make accessible the rich history of African American communities in Florida. The grant facilitated the digitisation of the Riley House Archives at Tallahassee State College (TSC) and audiovisual materials held by Riley House, alongside a series of workshops to share the knowledge gained from the project. The project was a collaborative effort involving Riley House staff, City of Tallahassee personnel, Florida State University faculty, TSC staff and interns. Key challenges included logistical issues, copyright concerns, and the need for continuous adjustments to the project plan. Despite these hurdles, the team successfully digitised over 5,000 items, including photos, letters, business documents, yearbooks and oral histories from 24 collections. The project also focused on creating a sustainable digital library using Omeka S software, ensuring longterm accessibility and management. Interns played a crucial role, gaining valuable hands-on experience and contributing significantly to the project’s success. The initiative not only enhanced the discoverability of the Riley Archives but also provided a replicable model for other institutions within the Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network. This case study will share how we designed and executed this project along with highlighting the challenges and importance of partnership building across institutions to make large-scale digitisation projects successful in a finite timeline. This article is also included in The Business &amp; Management Collection, which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.

This study examines how two teacher educators of color navigate their dual positionalities – both insider and outsider – when designing, implementing and evaluating professional development (PD) programs on African American history. Drawing on Bourdieu’s capital, habitus, and field along with Du Bois’s double consciousness, it asks: How do the dual roles of teacher educators of color as both insiders and outsiders influence the pedagogical structure and execution of professional development programs on teaching African American history? What tensions emerge during this process? Using autoethnography, the analysis identified three key tensions: (a) negotiating their roles between the humanities and K-12 education, (b) grappling with racial and ethnic identity as a form of cultural capital, and (c) navigating the sociopolitical context that shapes PDs as a third space. This study highlights the complexities of PD design, emphasizing the need for reflexive, equity-centered PD models that sustain the teaching African American history while addressing identity, power, and institutional constraints.

A champion of social justice and a distinguished scholar-activist, Amilcar Shabazz has dedicated his life and career to the discipline of Black Studies and community engagement. As a native of Beaumont, Texas, he completed his bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Texas-Austin (1982) before obtaining his master’s degree in history from Lamar University (1990) and PhD in history from the University of Houston (1996). Shabazz has taught at multiple higher education institutions such as the University of Alabama, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Oklahoma. He currently serves as a full professor of history and Africana Studies in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Over the course of his career, Shabazz has accumulated an extensive publication record. He is the author of Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas (2004). He is co-editor of The Forty Acres Documents: What Did the United States Really Promise the People Freed from Slavery? (1994) and Women and Others: Perspectives on Gender, Race, and Empire (2007). His journal articles and short essays appear in the Journal of African American History, The Houston Review, The Human Tradition in Texas, ArtLies: Texas Art Journal, and the Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record. In addition to his written scholarship, Shabazz’s leadership is evident in multiple academic and civic organizations. He is a past president of the National Council for Black Studies as well as a founding member of the New African People’s Organization, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, and the African Heritage Reparation Assembly of Amherst, Massachusetts. His advocacy surrounding reparations has been covered by major media outlets such as the Boston Globe, Washington Post and NBC News. In the following interview, Dr. Shabazz discusses the roots of his activism, his journey to professorship, the state of Black Studies in the academy, and the current push for reparations. This conversation took place at the New Africa House on the campus of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

While Julie Dash’s landmark 1991 film, Daughters of the Dust, has received extensive attention as the first by an African American woman director to receive a wide-scale theatrical release in the US, much less has been written about her sequel, the 1997 novel of the same name. That novel, set twenty years after the actions of the film and following some of the same characters, is another expression of Dash’s efforts to celebrate Gullah-Geechee culture and to highlight its unique position in African American history. Although not an adaptation, the novel does provide an interesting case study for how the same narrative threads and themes can be tackled across different media and sheds further light on the themes expressed in the film. Through an in-depth reading of both film and novel, we argue that Daughters of the Dust “rephrases” African American experience, casting it in a new light. In doing so, Dash masterfully adapts her story for the different medium, emphasizing the cinematic power of the written word, and offering up a call and response structure between the two texts that mimics African storytelling techniques.

ABSTRACT The pastoral has long inspired idyllic representations of the US South, drenched in the 'bright golden haze' of Oklahoma! and where racial politics are but ghostly traces. As such, the pastoral mirrors the musical’s utopian impulse to erase personal and national dissensus through the harmonious interlacing of bodies and voices onstage analyzed by Raymond Knapp – a tendency perpetuated by the genre’s continued reference to the pastoral as shown by Michaud. Yet this paper aims to look at the way two musicals set in the pastoral world of the American South, Marsha Norman’s The Color Purple (2005) and Lynn Nottage’s The Secret Life of Bees (2019) reinject conflictual politics into the pastoral. Against the backdrop of Black American history, they materialise the tension between harmony and chaos inherent in the genre: if the two Broadway productions of The Color Purple (2005 and 2015) illustrate a gradual deconstruction of the pastoral to unearth the violence irrigating Southern topography, The Secret Life of Bees reinvents the pastoral as a feminine shelter, re-actualising the genre’s idyllic and utopian potential. By reworking the pastoral genre and its utopian roots, those two musicals also redefine the contours of hope in the American musical.