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“Wait, can you go back to that slide!?” one of my students asked. It was the beginning of February, and I was teaching a World History class about the Enlightenment. After numerous slides highlighting the ideas of European men, I had switched over to a “Black History highlight” slide about Oloudah Equiano, who was an abolitionist writer and activist in Britain. Many of my students perked up, and some even whipped out their phones to take a picture. By highlighting global Black historical figures in a narrative that has often erased them, more students became engaged in a simple history lecture. I thought, “I need to do this all the time, not just in February.”
Just as Black history is an integral part of U.S. history, it is also an integral part of world history. Americans often fail to understand our history as part of a more complex, global story, and we similarly fail to teach Black history as part of a global diaspora. As we fight to protect Black history as a part of U.S. history education, we should remember it is an essential part of every world history lesson too. Scroll down to see a list of some “Black World History Highlights” if you are in need of some global figures to incorporate into your lessons all year long!
The Global Origins of Race
The first Black Americans arrived in what is today the United States in 1619, but by then, the Portuguese and Spanish had already been engaged in the slave trade for over a century. In order to understand the origins of race and, therefore, Blackness, students must study the global context of colonization, Christianity, and slavery. In his book Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi traces the origins of racism back to 15th-century Portugal, where Prince Henry defended his lucrative trade of captured Africans by marking them as barbarians in need of “religious and civil salvation.” Soon, these ideas became mainstream in Europe and continued to spread along with the expansion of empires and the slave trade. While studying this deeply hurtful history in class, it’s important to recognize Black leaders who opposed the slave trade, like Prince Afonso in the Kongo and Queen Nzinga in Angola. They fought the Portuguese colonizers with words and swords and can serve as Black history heroes for our students today.
In the American colonies, most enslaved Africans were transported to the Caribbean and Brazil, while only about 4% of the total were shipped to North America directly. The Americas became the frontier of racial mixing and, therefore, the first place where colonizers sought to identify and classify racial hierarchies. In the Spanish colonies, the casta system defined race by giving new names to mixed-race people like mestizo or mulatto, which came with their own set of rights or oppressions. By the 18th century, in French colonies like San Domingue (Haiti) and Louisiana, there were over 88 different racial categories based on the amount of “Black blood” a person had, including – griffe, quadroon, and octoroon.
But just as colonization in the Americas shaped the sociological systems we know as race and racism, it also gave way to the Black cultures of today. The people of the African diaspora constructed new languages like Creole, religions like Candomblé, and holidays like Carnival. Blackness gave us music like calypso, art forms like capoeira, and foods like gumbo. In the United States, we often draw lines where borders have been created, but we must teach about how race, culture, and history transcend these artificial boundaries. Integrating Black history into world history offers an opportunity to draw connections to diaspora and the shared histories of colonization and resistance that often go overlooked in school.
The Global Origins of Black Resistance and Liberation
Teaching Black history as world history also provides educators with numerous stories to tell about the global connections of Black activism and liberation. In American history, we laud those who resisted slavery, like Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner, but we can also share stories of resistors like Gaspar Yanga, who formed a community of formerly enslaved people in Veracruz, Mexico and resisted Spanish conquest for a decade. Just as enslaved people led rebellions and ran away to freedom across North America, there were hundreds of quilombos in Brazil and maroon towns in the Caribbean that stand as examples of early resistance in the Black community. This resistance gave way to the abolitionist movements, which once again connected the Black diaspora across the globe. While Frederick Douglas led abolitionists in the United States, it was first Oloudah Equiano in England, Toussaint L’Ouverature in Haiti, and then Luis Gama in Brazil.
Finally, we can also trace the throughline of resistance and liberation to the Negritude movement of the early 20th Century and the independence movements in Africa during the 1950s and 60s. Our students step away from high school with knowledge of Civil Rights icons like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X but are often denied stories about Black liberation leaders like Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, and Patrice Lumumba. I’ll never forget showing pictures of MLK and Kwame Nkrumah together and watching the confusion and connection happen in real time for my students. Just as the United States is part of global history, so too is Black history. As we leave Black History Month behind, let this be a reminder that the African diaspora is an essential part of every world history lesson, just as it is an essential part of U.S. history as well.
Black World History Highlights: Fifteen Historical Figures for a World History class
- Queen Nzinga (Angola)
- Prince Afonso (Kongo)
- Gaspar Yanga (Mexico)
- Queen Nanny (Jamaica)
- Toussaint L’Ouverature (Haiti)
- Oloudah Aquino (Great Britain)
- Luis Gama (Brazil)
- Cetshwayo (South Africa)
- Mary Seacole (Great Britain)
- Léon-Gontran Damas (French Guiana)
- Aimé Césaire (Martinique)
- Monja Jaona (Madagascar)
- Marcus Garvey (Jamaica)
- Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana)
- Patrice Lumumba (Congo)
Kristen Sinicariello is currently in her seventh year of teaching at a high school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As a Social Studies teacher, she is passionate about taking a diverse approach to history while helping students unpack bias in a rapidly changing world. Before stepping into the classroom, Kristen spent time as an outdoor educator and wilderness guide, and continues to find most of her opportunities for learning and personal growth in the outdoors. Currently she also keeps busy as a girls soccer coach, a union communications leader, and a Social Justice Club supervisor.
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