UM-Flint Alumna Combines Black History with English Literature

An alumna of the University of Michigan-Flint's master's degree with teacher certification (MAC) program, Kenya Williams is using a common-sense teaching strategy to connect with her students at Beecher High School.

Teaching predominately African American teens in this urban school near Flint, Williams routinely integrates black history into her 9th, 11th, and 12th grade English classes. It is a strategy that has helped her build trusting relationships with her students and to advance their interests in learning and researching independently.

"Teaching them about black history and about the struggles of African Americans is important to these kids," she said. "I teach black history all of the time. I'd recommend it be taught across the curriculum. It's important as a teacher that you have some knowledge of their heritage and can pass that on to them."

Williams was raised by parents who were dedicated educators and who instilled those values in her from a young age. Her mother, Bernice Williams, taught for 39 years in Flint schools.

"I remember being with my mother on the floor of the Flint Public Library when I was six years old and flipping through a book on Egyptian history," she recalled. "My mother was always reading up on African American history and taking us to museums."

Creatively integrating black history into her lessons helps her students to develop a deeper understanding of the literature that is covered in class.

To set up her lessons on Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mocking Bird, Williams uses knowledge cards of past great African Americans, a collection of black heritage postcards issued by the U.S. Postal Service, and a documentary by Henry Lewis Gates, Jr. called "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross."

Williams leads her students on a journey into the social, cultural, and geographical landscape of the book, covering the origins of slavery in America, the Civil Rights Movement, and the old laws that enforced racial segregation in the South.

Many students are surprised by what they learn. Then they go further with an assignment to research a black person in history and report back to the class.

"They know there was segregation but they don't know the depth of it and how it impacted so many lives in America," she said.  "I also express to them that discrimination did not always come from white people and that many white people helped blacks to overcome slavery and supported the Civil Rights Movement."

By teaching black history year-round, Williams also challenges her students to recognize the connections between the past and the present, and to believe that they can do small things on their own to impact the future of their own communities.

"If they don't know the past, how can they make changes for the future?" she said.