The Black Experience in America: The Course by Jon Fortt

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A longtime regional celebration in the Black community is suddenly a national holiday

Jun 20

Often, my first impulse when solving a problem — and this is not a good thing — is to invent a solution from scratch. So a year ago, when I told a grou…

Jun 8

I’m excited to unveil the latest interactive offering in The Black Experience in America: The Course. Lesson 2: Othello. Shakespeare is a pillar of Wes…

Jun 1

What’s the right way to teach American history, and the role of race in it? A bill in Texas, HB 3979, takes a stab at the question. It’s part of a push…

May 24

Now available: Teacher training materials for presenting The Course in middle school, as part of a licensing bundle. After I designed and taught The Bl…

May 17

The calendar returns to May. A year ago in 2020, the road to The Black Experience in America: The Course started for me. That’s when Derek Chauvin murd…

May 3

Ida B. Wells, the Statue of Liberty, and the knee of Derek Chauvin on the neck of George Floyd. Photo illustration by Jon Fortt, for The Black Experien…

Apr 26

The first topic we tackle in The Diversity Remix podcast: Charles Blow’s suggestion that Black people migrate back to the South. I argue it’s not that …

Mar 29

My two favorite Korean-American (and African-American) boys, in Seoul, 2019. It’s been my longtime observation that Asian Americans battle a "model min…

Mar 22

Spider-Man was always one of my favorite heroes, so I have to admit, at first it took me a while to “get” Miles Morales. All of a sudden the comic book…

Mar 15

I went to college at DePauw University, in Greencastle, Indiana, in the mid-1990s. I’d grown up in Washington, D.C. and New York, so it was a bit of cu…

Mar 8

Beauty might seem insignificant as a concept, but it’s not. Things and people who are “beautiful” get certain advantages. They’re welcomed into exclusi…

Mar 1

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