Introduction
Black Studies Illinois: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Black Studies Illinois) is a multifaceted project that includes three textbooks, curriculum, a film, and additional resources designed for middle school students in communities and districts across Illinois. These resources illuminate the contributions, struggles, and movements made by Black people and Black organizations throughout Illinois’ history/herstory and beyond.
Black Studies Illinois aims to support learning experiences that:
- reveal often hidden moments of the past that have shaped Illinois,
- create opportunities for all students to take action to create more just moments and movements in the future.
Black Studies Illinois is not just for a select few. It is for all students in every community across Illinois.
Background
In 2024, the Social Studies Network was commissioned by the Illinois State Board of Education to create teaching and learning resources to meet the revised Illinois Inclusive Mandated Unit of Study for Black History. After countless hours contributed by nearly 100 people, Black Studies Illinois was designed and created. It offers a comprehensive, inquiry-based, and justice-centered set of teaching and learning resources for 6th-12th grade students and teachers to meet the calls of the mandate. Black Studies Illinois also affirms the Illinois Black History Curriculum Task Force’s commitment to providing all Illinois students with “an inclusive, contextualized, empowering, and transformative Black history education that fosters critical inquiry, civic engagement, and a deeper understanding of the enduring contributions of Black individuals, families, and communities”.
What are the relationships between past, present, and future that have shaped, and continue to shape, Black life in Illinois?
A Textbook Series
Three free e-textbooks edited by Dr. Asif Wilson that cover a range of themes including: the African Diaspora, Black life in Illinois in past and present, and Black contributions through the arts and sciences. Each text is designed thematically in an attempt to disrupt the linearity of traditional history texts and curricula. Each text can be utilized as a singular unit of study or as an interconnected series. Each text is bound to specific essential and supporting questions.
Key features:
- introductory videos
- key vocabulary words
- inquiry-based: embedded reflections and calls to actions
- hundreds of primary and secondary resources
- social and emotional wellness supports
From the brilliant visual artwork to the captivating learning resources, this collection is an artifact of intergenerational Black genius!... The language is empowering. The curriculum is inviting. The layered texts are multimodal. The questions provoke critical thought. This collection allows students and educators the freedom to learn, create, heal—and to dream.
—Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, John Corbally Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois Chicago
Read A Review
—Whitney Jean Alim, Social Science Content Specialist, Chicago Public Schools
Going back to move forward: Conversations from, within, and across the African Diaspora
Description:
This book prompts students to build the connections between their lives in the U.S., Africa, and the African diaspora in past, present, and future. Students will investigate African cultural foundations, their enduring influence via the African Diaspora, and consider how diasporic experiences have shaped culture, society, and identity in communities across Illinois and beyond. Chapters emphasize how colonization and enslavement impacted the African diaspora, and how people maintained their cultural connections despite these disruptions.
Essential Question:
What are the connections between my life and the values, traditions, and contributions of those before, beside, and ahead of me?
Featuring contributions by: Lasana Kazembe, Courtney Pierre Joseph, Ismael Jimenez, Theo Moton, Jeffrey Trask, and Tonika Lewis Johnson
Download and view here:
For the PDF and EPub files, primary sources can be viewed larger by clicking on the image. Many primary sources can be viewed on a web browser by following the links in image citations at the back of the book.
Read A Review
—Serina Nelson, Principal, Cairo Elementary School
Struggles for freedom: Black agency, resistance, and justice in Illinois
Description:
This book takes students across the state of Illinois in time and place to understand how Black people have constructed and maintained homeplace amidst violence in their lives. It shares stories of Black life prior to statehood, following statehood, and though the present day. In doing so, we hope that students can better imagine and move towards a more just Illinois in the future.
Essential Question:
How have people in Illinois fought against oppression and anti-blackness in pursuit of justice? What role might these memories play in building more just futures?
Featuring contributions by: Mikala Stokes, Ernest Crim III, Francena Turner, Kimberly Ransom, Asif Wilson, Billy "Che" Brooks, Alonzo Ward, David Stovall, Aja Reynolds, and Rachel McMillian
Download and view here:
For the PDF and EPub files, primary sources can be viewed larger by clicking on the image. Many primary sources can be viewed on a web browser by following the links in image citations at the back of the book.
Read A Review
A mentor textbook that offers access to the foundational, existing, and breathing Black history in Illinois, while amplifying what can be taught through storytelling. The interaction between the primary sources and stories is powerful, and this is the work of brilliant dreamers who have imagined the possibilities of Black history education in classrooms.
Black to the future: Identity, innovation, and expression in Illinois
Description:
Told through a series of short stories, this book takes students on a journey to remember the artistic and scientific contributions cultivated by Black people and organizations in Illinois across time and place. As a result of the experience, we hope students can use those models to imagine and construct a plan for a free(er) Illinois. The unit emphasizes agency, creativity, and the power of collective dreaming and action.
Essential Question:
How are my dreams for the future shaped by the artistic and scientific contributions made by Black people in Illinois?
Featuring contributions by: Reginald BoClair, Stephanie Toliver, Yasmine Espert, crystal am nelson, Keisha Rembert, Roderick Johnson, Nina Hike, Ebony Joy Wilkins, april graham-jackson, and Mindy Chappell
Download and view here:
For the PDF and EPub files, primary sources can be viewed larger by clicking on the image. Many primary sources can be viewed on a web browser by following the links in image citations at the back of the book.
Resources
Against the Current: A Documentary Film
Chicago community organizer, Kyla, travels throughout the state of Illinois to learn about Black resistance across time and place, coming to understand that in communities across the world Black people have always found ways to resist oppressive currents.
Interested in screening? Contact Dr. Asif Wilson at ajwilso1@illinois.edu
Curriculum
16 teachers from across the state of Illinois developed units of study to complement the Black Studies Illinois textbooks, the Against the Current film, and additional resources.
The units of study take students on inquiry-to-action journeys across time and place in Illinois. Lessons are standards aligned and include resources for emergent language learners and diverse learners.
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One-Minute Black History/Herstory
Join Aliviyah as she shares Black history/herstory in Illinois in under a minute. Each video complements sections of the textbooks but can also be viewed on their own.
Access the videos on the Social Studies Network YouTube channel
Black Studies Flashcards
Download a printable DIY flashcard set to utilize as a learning resource.
One set of cards covers historically/herstorically significant Black people in Illinois, and the second set covers movements for Black liberation in Illinois.
Mapping Black Studies Sources
Use this map to learn about important places of Black homeplace, resistance, and futurism across Illinois.
Read the stories, dig into the resources, and consider visiting.
