My reading journey began in first grade with a tattered hand-me-down Dick and Jane book. These stories first appeared in the Scott Foresman Elson Basic Reader Primer, copyrighted in 1930. My schooling was built on the segregated system of Southern public schools, which I only experienced in kindergarten. Two worlds shaped my lens on culture: the academic perspective, as presented through textbooks, sources, and curriculum, which showed one world, and the reality of having access, shaped by the possibilities that emerged from the remnants of the Civil Rights Movement. That is what W.E.B. Du Bois’s concept of “double consciousness” captures: a deep psychological and cultural struggle, the internal conflict of “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others,” particularly in a society that historically held African Americans in contempt. This leads me to this point as a history teacher in politically challenging times: I would argue that it has always been a period of politically challenging times. 

It is just now, as the actor Will Smith remarked,  “Racism is not getting worse, it’s getting filmed.” Teaching now is not just becoming challenging; it has always been that way. The dismissive and neglectful ways of oppressing the oral history and narratives of the Indigenous people, who had to wait until 1821 for the creation of the written Cherokee language, which Sequoyah introduced. In a truly ironic twist, it would be the language of several Indigenous tribes that would serve as the code for the winning of World War I and World War II. The language and stories that came over in the hulls of slave ships had to be morphed into an understanding and ability that was tempered by the illegality of allowing these people of African and African descent the ability to learn how to read and write. Even before this country became a country, the law was codified first in the South Carolina colony with The Negro Act of 1740, which prohibited enslaved Africans from moving abroad, assembling in groups, raising food, earning money, and learning to write. Additionally, enslavers were permitted to kill those whom they deemed had violated these laws legally. The Act remained in effect until 1865, the end of the American Civil War.

While many understand the importance of the history of the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education, the Lemon case, before Brown v. Board of Education, refers to the Lemon Grove Incident, a 1931 legal battle over the segregation of Mexican American students in Lemon Grove, California. The case involved Mexican American parents successfully challenging the school board’s decision to create a separate school for their children, all in the interest of getting what they would consider the best education for their children. The Chicano Movement of the 1960s, exemplified by the Lemon Grove Incident, illustrates that suppressed stories of Mexican American rights-based resistance demonstrate the political nature of history. Centering marginalized voices disrupts sanitizing impulses in educational content, and encouraging students to recognize these omissions and resist attempts to erase community struggles builds more creative thinkers and stronger academically. This habit empowers students to view history as a form of activism, as seen in the past, even in the face of political pressure, education matters.

Understanding these marginalized narratives is not just a historical obligation but a moral imperative that can foster greater empathy and understanding within our society. It is through this empathy that we can genuinely connect with the experiences of others and build a more compassionate society. For me and my teaching, there is no stronger way than listening and learning from the stories of others. In this contemporary age, it means reading books for us as teachers, academics, historians, and students, as well as for and with our students.