Teaching Black History in France
In Spring of 2020 all eyes were on the U. S. as people demonstrated in cities in every single state for the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and the everlasting crisis of police brutality in America. It wasn’t until I started working in a French high school, that I realized #BlackLivesMatter had become a global discussion. The English teachers I worked with were starting their unit called “Black Lives Have Always Mattered” just as I arrived. So, during my first week on the job they eagerly asked me if I wanted to do a presentation for two English classes.
Following the chosen theme of Black Lives Have Always Mattered, I decided to teach a timeline of different types of Black protest and resistance. I started with American slavery and finished in the present moment of Black Lives Matter. Some of the subjects included the Underground Railroad, Jim Crow and Lynching, The Black Panther Party, The Los Angeles 1991 Riots and more recent moments in American history like the death of Trayvon Martin. When it was time to give my presentation the teachers and students alike were excited to learn about all I had put together. And I was excited to teach them.
I was happy to share all that I knew personally and all that I’d learned in school about Black history in the U. S. and about the Black Lives Matter movement. When I first started gathering the information for my presentation, I was excited and invested in sharing my history and culture with young French students. As I kept writing and image searching, I started remembering how personal all that history is to me. Black Lives Matter isn’t only personal to me as a Black woman but, I also remembered that while presenting to these young French students, the history would only be shared with me. I’ve given countless presentations on Black history in college, have had many conversations with friends about Black culture, and have learned so much about the lived Black history of my elders growing up. These moments have always been shared; whether through the backdrop of simply being in the U. S. as Black history is American history or whether the moments were shared with other people of color who can relate. While creating this lesson for French kids in France, I realized that when I would be standing in the front of the classroom, I would be alone in authentically speaking about and representing my country and more personal to me, my people.
As I’ve been taught to do I took on all of these realizations with pride! When I gave the first presentation by the end of the week three other teachers had heard about it and asked me if I could do it for their classes too. A month later, I had given the presentation at least 15 times over different classes. The young French students and their teachers alike had connected with my history and I found out I wasn’t alone in understanding the purpose of sharing culture around the world.
