{"id":51186,"date":"2025-07-09T10:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T10:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51186\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T10:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T10:47:11","slug":"over-35-years-later-african-american-museum-of-dallas-continues-black-history-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/51186\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 35 years later, African American Museum of Dallas continues Black history classes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The African American Museum\u2019s library is filled with decades of Black history from rare books like The Negro In Our History to The Souls of Black Folk. <\/p>\n

This summer, the library is the classroom for the museum\u2019s Freedom School program, which invites community members to learn about prehistorical Africa to the 1619 slave trade and the Black Arts Movement of the \u201960s and \u201970s. <\/p>\n

The program harkens back to the freedom schools launched by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. The education programs followed a legacy of efforts from secret \u201cpit schools\u201d for African slaves in the 19th century to the citizenship schools created by educator and activist Septima Clark in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

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Faith Golden, the museum\u2019s archivist who sometimes teaches the Freedom Schools, said given limitations to teaching Black history in schools, from federal diversity, equity and inclusion bans to the passing of Texas legislation restricting the teaching of race and slavery in public schools, the continuation of Freedom Schools is as important as ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I was preparing myself for such a time as this,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t consider ourselves teaching African history or African American history. We consider ourselves teaching American history. This is all part of our history, and it\u2019s not whole and complete without us.\u201d <\/p>\n

Marvin Dulaney, the museum\u2019s deputy director and chief operating officer, launched courses on African American history at the museum more than 35 years ago. <\/p>\n

Dulaney has been a history professor for 50 years and is the former president for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. The museum\u2019s Freedom School through The Association is one of the branches in Texas, Florida and other states that are aiming to fill in the gaps in public education. <\/p>\n

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He said the lack of Black history education has a powerful impact on communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy restricting the teaching of Black history in our public schools, we lose the empathy that one would develop by learning the history of the various peoples in this country,\u201d Dulaney said. <\/p>\n

Golden said she started learning about that history as a student of Dulaney\u2019s at the University of Texas at Arlington. She said she remembers sitting in class as a young Black woman feeling ashamed that she didn\u2019t know her own history. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m realizing what a big miss it is to become a full adult and not know any of your history, at least in the United States. \u2026 It\u2019s become more and more important.\u201d<\/p>\n

That ongoing hunger for knowledge led her to start attending the museum\u2019s Freedom Schools in 2018. Each year she kept coming back, which eventually led her to transition from being a student to assisting Dulaney with teaching. <\/p>\n

This year, she\u2019s leading classes herself and is entering a role at the museum as an archivist. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m taking a hobby into a mission,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

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The current session is full and the museum will update its website when a new session opens. Each year, the 10-week program is offered to community members ranging from high school students to working professionals and retirees. The course includes homework, readings and quizzes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe teach, but it\u2019s also very conversational because we all have a perspective and an experience. So I would invite anybody and everybody to bring their knowledge and their experience to the class,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

All she asks is that students come with an open heart and mind. <\/p>\n