Unfinished Migrations

“Do you think our family could sail back to Africa like we did before?” A question I still remember asking my mom in 8th grade and for the first time in my educational career after attending predominantly white schools, had learned that blacks were brought over to America on a boat. My mother told me, “No, Slave traders forced us to come here, we did not have a choice as a people.” Once I began to learn black heritage, I became upset at the fact that, after all that time I was finally learning my true history, and to think, there are adults to this day unaware of the things we went through and how some of it is repeating, and for this reason, it is important for students to understand concepts used in the readings apart of the ADW curriculum including, “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World” by Tiffany Ruby Patterson and Robin D. G. Kelley, “Racial Formations,” by Michael Omi, and “Dyaspora,” by Joanne Hyppolite.

International migration and civilization, the shaping of the African Diaspora as known today, and internal and external power relations are essential to the development of high school students’ curriculum, as it gives them an understanding of Black heritage and the world around them.