Black Students, White Curriculums: How African-Centered Education Shaped a Detroit Scholar’s Path and Purpose 

In Detroit, the fight over what our children are taught goes deeper than an academic debate—it’s a question of survival, self-worth, and the kind of future we’re building for the city’s Black youth. Over the past two installments of this “Black Students, White Curriculums” series, we’ve dug into how Eurocentric lesson plans erase, distort, or dilute the truth about Black history and culture, and what that absence costs our children. Statewide data shows that only a fraction of Michigan school districts include comprehensive African American history in their curricula, and even fewer weave it into everyday instruction. The result is a system where most Black students spend their formative years learning in classrooms where their own heritage is treated as an elective rather than a foundatio