Celebrate Black History Month with free and low-cost resources from MIT
From visual art to hip hop music to Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, learn more about African American history and culture.
Did you know that national celebrations of Black history date back to 1915? Fifty years after the emancipation of all enslaved people in the United States, Chicago hosted a three-week exhibit of African American accomplishments. This event attracted thousands of visitors, and inspired the Association for the Study of African American Life and History to formalize an annual period of recognition and reflection in February.
The theme for Black History Month 2024 is “African Americans and the Arts.” From jazz to Afrofuturism, the experiences of African, Caribbean, and Black Americans have shaped popular artistic movements across the world. We’ve compiled a list of free courses, videos, and other resources from MIT that speak to the historical context of the past, arts and culture of the present, and the quest for justice and equity of the future.
Arts
- Global Africa: Creative cultures
- Intentional public disruptions: Art, responsibility, and pedagogy
- “The Nightsea’s Succor” from the Dungeons & Dragons anthology “Journeys through the Radiant Citadel”
- Theater and cultural diversity in the U.S.
Culture
- Africana studies collection
- Black matters: Introduction to Black studies
- Creole languages and Caribbean identities
- Linguistics and social justice: Language, education, and human rights
Environmental justice
- Cities and climate change: Mitigation and adaptation
- Climate justice instructional toolkit
- Environmental justice law and policy
Equity
- Black feminist health science studies
- Equity & inclusion: Local policy-driven strategies for economic development & the just city
- Just money: Banking as if society mattered
- “The movement for economic and social justice” speech by Coretta Scott King
- Reparations for slavery and colonization: Contemporary movements for justice
History
- Africa and the politics of knowledge
- Medicine, religion and politics in Africa and the African diaspora
- Race, crime, and citizenship in American law
- Race, ethnicity, and American politics
Music
- Composing for jazz orchestra
- Lupe Fiasco presents “Rap theory & practice: An introduction”
- Vocal repertoire and performance: African American composers
These course materials are available through MIT OpenCourseWare, MITx, and MIT Video Productions, which are part of MIT Open Learning. OpenCourseWare offers free, online, open educational resources from more than 2,500 courses that span the MIT undergraduate and graduate curriculum. MITx offers hundreds of high-quality massive open online courses adapted from the MIT classroom for learners worldwide. MIT Video Productions offers Emmy® Award-winning video production serving education, research, and outreach at MIT.
Other educational materials are from MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing , MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, and Wizards of the Coast.
Celebrate Black History Month with free and low-cost resources from MIT was originally published in MIT Open Learning on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.