Early this month a new state law came into effect in Illinois that will go a little way to making sure that Black History is hitting a wider audience. public colleges and universities state-side must now offer a course in black history.

However, this is related to an OLD state law that made sure that all public schools in Illinois teach black history, which has actually been in place since 1981! But in 2016 the CPS was challenged by Chicago Public Schools history teachers who did not believe they were doing enough to implement the law.

Albert Howard hield lezing over “Black Panther” beweging in USA in Mozes en Aaronkerk A’dam. Howard , hoofdredakteur “Panthers” tijdens lezing. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

State Rep. La Shawn K. Ford co-sponsored the new bill and was quoted saying

“We’re going to have an audit on every school district in the state. In today’s times, where we have so much racial tension, we need to know each others’ culture… You can’t have institutional learning that’s not complete.”

Urban Intellectuals is Illinois based so although we definitely welcome this we are sure it will NOT go far enough which is why we believe that Black history must be taught in depth at home and in our communities. Still any step in the right direction is good!

What do you think?