Children need life-affirming and authentic relationships; genuine deeply felt inclusion comes when we share our humanity openly and honestly. This article draws on the research of author Peter W. Cookson Jr., who recently completed a study of success strategies for educating children living in deep poverty. An inclusive school is one where every…

This report examines the ways in which zoning laws affect housing and schooling opportunities in the Buffalo region. It begins with an examination of two communities--the Martin Luther King Park neighborhood in Buffalo and the suburban Village of East Aurora. In addition to the two Buffalo communities where discriminatory zoning has caused extreme…

The complexities of the civil rights movement are rarely presented in elementary social studies. Year after year, students repeat the same decontextualized "I Have a Dream" crafts and assignments, tasks that do little to help students understand the country's history of racism or the racial dynamics of today. Instead of perpetuating the…

In this article, the authors look beyond focusing primarily on Martin Luther King Jr. to Bayard Rustin, his work in the civil rights movement, his friendship with MLK, and his legacy. Kindergarten curriculum withholds stories of LGBTQ+ individuals, often justified with statements like "it isn't developmentally appropriate" or…

Through various efforts, the staff and faculty of San José State University's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library (King Library) are working towards creating more equitable and inclusive collections. Examining the library's collecting practices and collections by and about African Americans, this article presents the ongoing work of a working…

Among his accomplishments, Dr. Martin Luther King served as a driving force in securing basic civil rights for black Americans, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He played a crucial role organizing and leading the protests which led to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation on public buses was…

Despite the popularity of social justice frameworks, today's polarized socio-political environments call for a justice-forward approach where educators blend equity and culturally-responsive pedagogies with experiential approaches to learning. The TALLS (Toward a Liberated Learning Spirit) model for developing critical consciousness infuses…

This study examines how students characterize their experience of a communication-based digital humanities project in relation to elements of situated embodiment and situated learning. Analysis of student response data indicates that the Virtual Martin Luther King Project situates students in a particular space and historical context resulting in…

The "College, Career, and Civil Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards" guides teachers to initiate complex inquiries by sparking students' disciplinary literacy and critical analysis of rich sources. With effective scaffolding and engaging content, elementary students can explore and contextualize complex historical…

Children's literature is a powerful way to engage young learners in understanding the civil rights movement (CRM); yet at the same time, most children's books focused on the CRM often create ahistorical, inaccurate depictions by only focusing on a few key people such as Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr. or events such as the March on…

Black Greek Letter Fraternities are part of America's history and include notable individuals such as Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, W.E.B. Dubois, and Jesse Jackson. The foundation for each of them was a postsecondary education at either a Historically Black University and College (HBCU) or a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). What…

Humour, when engaged in the classroom, tends to be used as a means to hook youth into the 'real' material of school, when officially sanctioned at all. Humour can be dangerous, not-the-least in its potential to produce chaos, presenting difficulties in the rigid climate of accountability and standardisation. As we animate, humour can trouble…

In this essay Sandra Vanderbilt explores philosophies of peace and protest through a dialectical reading of the works of Martin Luther King Jr., Daisaku Ikeda, and Paulo Freire, and considers these philosophies in relation to her own activism, specifically in the context of dealing with White postracial myths and more overt acts of racism. This…

When the coronavirus pandemic arrived, the United States was already deeply unequal. Before the pandemic, 140 million Americans were poor or near poor, living just one emergency above the poverty line. Inequality in the United States did not happen suddenly and cannot be explained as the consequence of individual failures; rather, decades of…

African American high school students' erudition of Black history, including the events and individuals who afforded them freedoms, enhances their informed decision making and impacts them as citizens. The purpose of this article is to detail how African American high school students engage in critical discourse regarding how historical events…