The Black History Exhibit: Creating an Authentic Learning Experience

Inspired by that experience, I gathered a small group of students to attend a soil collection ceremony happening in our town a few months later. On a rainy Saturday, we piled into a school bus and headed to the site of two lynchings that had taken place in Frederick County. The students listened intently to speakers who shared details about this painful history. Afterwards, one of the students who had attended became motivated to conduct further research about the lynchings. This gave me an idea.

I wanted students, staff, and members of the community to have an opportunity to learn more about our county’s Black history. To do so, I needed to find a way to help educators expose students to local examples of the major historical movements and events that were covered in American history courses. I also wanted students to be able to engage in historical research that was meaningful to them, while developing their writing and public speaking skills as well.

I thought long and hard about how to achieve these objectives, and eventually came up with an idea for a research project, one that I ended up calling the Black History Exhibit Project.

Getting Started

The basis of the project was simple. I would find student volunteers who would each identify a person or place related to our county’s Black history that they wanted to research. Every student would compose a banner of informative text about their chosen topic, and together the banners would be turned into an exhibit for our community.

Before the fall semester began, I broached the idea of the project with students at our Back-to-School Night. Then, once classes started, I created an advertisement to be read out on our morning announcements and also asked my department members to share the opportunity with their classes. Interested students even spread the word amongst their peers. When all was said and done, eleven students across grades 9–12 ended up volunteering for the project.

To get things started and help students come up with some topics, I reached out to the local African American history organization: AARCH. Two of its leaders led us on a historical walking tour of downtown Frederick, focusing specifically on people and places related to All Saints Street, which was the heart of Frederick’s Black community during segregation.

The tour proved to be an excellent jumping-off point, and it didn’t take long after that for students to decide on their research topics. Some of these included a local plantation, a nearby African Methodist Episcopal church, Frederick’s only high school for Black students, and the stories of three Black individuals who were lynched in Frederick County in the 1800s.

I gave each student an organizer that would help them plan out what they wanted to learn about their topic and who they could try reaching out to for information. Then the research process began.

Relationship-Building

One of the advantages of this type of project is that it helps students and staff build relationships with members of the community. While conducting their research, students spent time engaging with librarians at our local library as they browsed through its historical research collections. The manager of a well-known historic site even came to our school to work one-on-one with a student and to share primary source material.

Although it was somewhat intimidating for students—who conduct so much of their day-to-day communication via devices—to engage with members of the community over the phone or in person, they were determined to pursue these angles of their research. On several occasions they asked for my help, and I would assist them with planning out how to start such conversations in a professional way.

Over the next few months, students composed rough drafts of their banner descriptions. After that, their work went through a rigorous editing process, which was facilitated by other educators in the building who volunteered to help review student work and transcribe historical documents as necessary. I also provided guidance and check-ins throughout the semester.

The Final Product

The initial plan was for the project to include ten banners, each focused on a different topic. By the time it was completed, however, it had ballooned to twenty, based on student interest and research findings. The final exhibit was divided into four sections: slavery, Black churches, racialized violence, and segregation.

It was displayed at the local library for a month, and the students held an opening event to share details about their research with members of the community. This part took a lot of preparation, particularly for students who were nervous at the prospect of standing up in front of a room full of adults to share their work, but they all wanted to have their voices heard, and felt empowered to do so. During the event, it was clear that the students felt a lot of pride in what they had created, and several audience members praised them on the quality of their work.

Following its time at the library, the exhibit began to circulate among the different middle and high schools throughout our district—and still does to this day! It has also been requested by other entities in the community, including a local church and our Board of Education.

New Findings

I was gratified to see the impact this project had on my students. It went far beyond developing their research and writing skills, although one young lady was especially excited to discover the amazing world of microfilm. The students understood their work mattered and took pride in telling our county’s stories as accurately as possible. In fact, they were actually able to share new historical findings with the community.

One surprise came when research at the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis revealed new details about two separate cases that took place in 1820, involving three enslaved persons (Teney, Kitty, and Peter). Aspects of their trials, told incorrectly in our county’s local histories, were accurately detailed in the exhibit. Local newspaper articles also helped one of our volunteers piece together the story of Charles Robinson, a teenager convicted and put to death in 1920. Student researchers and the exhibit’s viewers connected strongly with these stories of young people.

Two of the student volunteers and I were able to present these findings at a local conference for docents in the area, an experience that helped those two volunteers further sharpen their public speaking skills and allowed them to engage with professional historians and educators.

Next Steps

Almost immediately after we had finished the project, students began asking me what we would be doing the following year. Now, for the 2024–2025 school year, instead of creating an exhibit, the volunteers and I are researching the history of Cambridge, MD. We’re looking at slavery in the city as well as its significant role in the Civil Rights Movement. Students will be researching these events over the next few months and hosting a full-day walking tour of Cambridge at the end of March.

Adaptations

This project could be easily adapted to fit other classroom settings. While my students focused on Black history, the history of other groups of Americans (or of a specific time period in general) could easily be done in other communities. When planning the project, teachers should consider which topics will resonate with their own students and motivate them to undertake quality research.

The final product could also be adapted and does not need to be a traveling exhibit. Perhaps students could create a documentary, participate in a history fair, or even submit their work for National History Day. The cost of our project was supplemented by a grant from the Institute for Common Power, but there are plenty of inexpensive ways for students to share their work as well.

Making History Meaningful

When students see how national trends and events impact their own communities, it makes history more relatable. During the research process, we discovered a lengthy documentary that featured testimony by local residents about life during segregation. Students were shocked to learn about a Black man who was ticketed for walking through our main public park and others who were denied access to the library and movie theaters in town. This information was memorable for students and helped them understand the real-life impact of segregation policies.

Teachers can be hesitant to challenge their classes with a long-term project of this size, but I have found that when students see value in what they are doing and can personally connect to the content, it drives them to create quality work. If we want students to care about history, we have to make it meaningful for them. Connecting what we learn in class to our own communities and creating authentic learning experiences is one way to do just that.