Narratives of the History of Black Resistance

In 2020, the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery sparked a large wave of nation-wide protests, forcing the country to reckon with its racial past and question the dominant narrative of racial history taught in public schools. The history education recounts a master narrative that legitimates the racial status quo, raising concerns about its impact on American youth for citizenship, participation in democracy, and civic engagement. For example, research has shown that the narrative of racial struggle in U.S. history textbooks is reductive (Ladson-Billings, 2003), inaccurate (Brown & Brown, 2010), and simplistic (Aldrige, 2006) in ways that undermines the motivation to seek change for racial justice (Woodson, 2017). Therefore, disrupting the master narratives and retelling the racial history are key to the movement for racial justice. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and other racial justice organizations have challenged the dominant historical narrative, and advocated a new understanding of the history of the racial struggle. This research will shed light on ways Black activists and organizers construct narratives about the Black liberation movements and how these narratives influence Black activism and organizing today.

This project investigates two research questions: a) How do activists make sense of the history of Black liberation movements, and how does this understanding influence their ongoing activism? b) What are the features of the narratives of Black history in the U.S. that the larger public is exposed to through the social movement’s social media platforms?