If you've ever taught a course in the subject, you know how hard it can be to get young people interested in history. I've often felt one reason youth are turned off from the subject is that history books so often omit the contributions of youth. October is the month to finally put young people back into our discussions of history.
Who are some of the youth left out? A prime example is Barbara Johns. She was one of the most exciting figures of the American Civil Rights Movement, but because she was 16 when she made her contribution, she was widely overlooked then and is all but forgotten today.
In 1951 Johns took over her black high school in Virginia, and I mean TOOK OVER. First, she tricked her principal into leaving campus for a few hours on a wild goose chase for some truant students. Then she forged a memo supposedly from the principal instructing all teachers to bring their students to a special assembly. Once the students were all together, Johns informed them why she had done this: to organize a student strike. They shut down their school, demanding better funding. This created a legal crisis that ultimately merged with four other legal battles to become known as Brown v. Board, the case that ended segregation in America.
From my experience, when you tell students about Barbara Johns outwitting the school staff and changing history, students become very excited about history. They start to see that history is not just about "old dudes" making changes for other "old dudes," that history is about all of us.
Another example from an earlier part of our history: Eliza Lucas Pinckney. At 16, she took over her father's plantation while her father was away on military duty. She drew up new business strategies and she quickly became one of the wealthiest business leaders in the colonies. She later used her wealth to help bankroll the American Revolution.
Alexander the Great was 16 when he founded his first colony. Cleopatra was 17 when she took command of Egypt. David G. Farragut, who would lead the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, commanded his first ship at the age of 12.
Throughout history, young people have played their part. Yet the credit due them has slipped through the cracks of our history books. During Youth History Month, let's pave those cracks and give credit where credit is long overdue.
(posted first at My Left Wing)