There hasn’t been a time when learning wasn’t important to Black people, whether for enrichment or survival. Unfortunately, white supremacy has corrupted information and spread it through an anti-Black school system. Solutions exist, though, and one solution on the rise is unschooling young black people. Today’s guest is a leading voice in the unschooling movement.

For decades, Black people have fought to gain the right to vote. In racism's face, we've marched and protested.

Believe it or not, you’re an artist. You’re a writer, a creator. You’re storyteller with the power to craft the narrative of your life and your future.

Welcome to season six of Black History Year! For five seasons of Black History Year, thinkers, activists, and scholars have come through with hard-line answers

The audience fell quiet as Stevie Wonder took the stage. Soon, joyous notes reverberated.

Learning your history makes you - and your people - stronger. As Black people, we know we’re left out of the history books. That the media images are skewed.

They kidnapped him as a child. They took him far from home and enslaved him.

They enslaved his family and double-crossed him. And when he fought back, they brutalized him and threw him in an alley, left for dead.

“Cowboy Bill” Pickett created a genius technique – and they hated him for it! This Black cowboy revolutionized rodeo, so they wanted him to hide his Blackness to compete?

She leaned over the crackling fire and watched each piece of paper from her lifetime of secrets burn slowly. White supremacy had forced her hand.

A secret FBI break-in. Stolen files. A threatening letter sent to a Black minister. And finally, the lawsuit he filed against the US government.

Today on BHY, we’re featuring an episode from PushBlack’s Instagram Live series. Join us for a candid discussion on an issue targeting Black America: fatphobia.

We're opening up the BHY rolodex to bring you the knowledge that imperialism doesn't want you to hear.

Dianne Stewart is back to talk about Black love.

Today we're sitting down with activist Anita Cameron, who has spent the last 40 years making sure folks with disabilities have equitable rights.

A 6-part audio documentary that asks questions about who we are as a nation, and what race might reveal about our current crisis.

The Black struggle is real. But life isn’t all oppression. Today's guest, Dr. Keith Mayes, will school us on the empowering history of the holidays we created.

The Black barbershop is a cultural institution. It's a place where you can get much more than a haircut. You get community. You get jokes. You might get politicized.

White supremacy has systematically broken the heart of Black America. Its toxic presence has, for generations, harmed our self-concept and even how we view each other.

Every time we hop on Twitter, Instagram, or any other social platform, we’re running into brands who use insidious tactics to get into our pockets. From "Black" CGI influencers to brands that align themselves as Black allies when they just want Black dollars, it's all digital anti-Blackness and it's causing more harm than we may know.

No matter what laws change or how much progress they want us to believe we’re making, racism only evolves and makes it even more necessary for us to get creative in the fight for our liberation.

They say urban legends aren’t real. That they’re only cautionary tales to keep unruly children at bay, but there are elements underlying these stories that are far more terrifying than any monster or ghoul. The biggest horror? How we as Black people have learned to fear ourselves.

LaToya is the perfect person to navigate this conversation. She is the founder and co-director of the Collective Steps Project, an organization holistically empowering Black women and girls. By providing resources, workshops, and other forms of community support, the collective encourages women to do what they’re so often told not to do, and that’s advocate for themselves.

There's a target on our back. We're not talking about individual bull's eyes. We're talking about one big, red dot aimed at us collectively.

For four seasons – that’s right, four seasons – we’ve learned histories hidden from us, challenged the systemic structures built to subjugate us, and asked those critical questions that can push us towards Black liberation.

Four Days in Crown Heights That Changed New York

It’s no secret that the economic system is rigged against us as Black people. Barriers such as the racial wealth gap and banking discrimination continue to plague our communities. Still, economic freedom is within our reach. And it begins with you.

There's a myth going around. The myth that Black revolutionaries of past are no longer living or have retired from the fight for liberation. But this isn't the truth, as today's guest proves.

There is nothing like Black music. From jazz to hip hop, our music's cultural contribution touches every corner of the world.

To love your community and your family, you've got to love yourself. And a lot of that begins with taking care of your health. Today, herbalist Afya Ibomu discusses the importance of taking care of your whole self -- mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically -- in order to experience and share authentic Black love.

Education has always mattered to Black people. Our enslaved ancestors risked their lives to learn what white oppressors withheld. Because those oppressors understood the important role knowledge of ones history, one's world, and oneself plays in Black liberation.

There have been innumerable attempts to silence the voices of our ancestors, especially the stories of enslaved Black women. While we hear about the realities they faced of sexual violence and exploitation, there’s a layer not readily discussed.

You've likely heard them before. "Don't get too dark." Or "You look good, have you lost weight?" And even, "Be quiet -- that's not ladylike." These phrases might seem inconsequential, but embedded deep within are messages of anti-Blackness.

It's not news that white folks in power have manipulated and weaponized the interests of Black people to their benefit. It's why oftentimes we see Black folks electing other Black folks into office.

Contrary to what you might think, many of us are living on plantations in present-day. While the plantations many of us occupy look vastly different than our forebearers', white supremacy continues to trap us within violent systems -- and the mental health consequences in our community are resounding.

For centuries, white historians’ have attempted to erase and whitewash Black history. Despite their best efforts, it can’t be erased. Today, we're talking with Debora Heard to help us reclaim and recover the history many have attempted to falsify.

Black women don’t often get their roses in the history books, relegated instead into background roles. But for us to achieve liberation as a people, we must understand the need for collective action to achieve liberation. Dr. Ashley Farmer can attest to this need.

Anti-Blackness is all around us -- at the workplace, the local grocery store we may frequent, and for Black students, even in their classrooms.

There's a power within Black people. One that, through colonialism and westernization, through space and time, has perennially lived at our core: West African spirituality. The problem? Most of us don't know how deeply embedded it is in all of our religious and spiritual practices.

Learning your history makes you - and your people - stronger. As Black people, we know we’re left out of the history books. That the media images are skewed. That we need access to experts, information and ideas so we can advance our people. Black History Year connects you to the history, thinkers, and activists that are left out of the mainstream conversations.

It's a question that requires tapping into your imagination. A question that forces you to explore the possibilities within freedom. And it's a question we ask every guest on Black History Year.

What’s up fam, thanks for tuning into another episode of Black History Year. On this show, we connect you to the history, thinkers, and activists who are left out of mainstream conversations. But this week, we’re switching it up. Instead of our usual show, we’re sharing an episode of PushBlack’s newest podcast, “State of Criminal Justice.”

Juneteenth is a special holiday for Black people - it commemorates when the last of our enslaved ancestors were freed. And yet, many Black people remain in bondage through a new form of slavery that's just as insidious: mass incarceration.

You’ve heard us say it before. The Black vote is powerful. But the two-party system wasn’t designed to actively engage our needs.

The debates over U.S. monuments that celebrate Confederate generals, soldiers, and politicians show just how pervasive slavery's legacy is - and how it continues to impact the way Black America moves and exists in the world today.

It's true: slavery never ended. It's a dehumanizing system that continues to enslave, exploit, and devalue Black people in one particular institution: prisons.

White terrorism has lasting consequences. For the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the generational wealth they spent 15 years independently building was obliterated in a 24 hour period of racist violence. 100 years later, the community formerly known as Black Wall Street is still economically struggling in the massacre's aftermath.

Feminism, Black feminism, womanism. According to our guest today, author, literary scholar, and professor Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems, none of these concepts serve women of African descent or the Black community at large. But one theory does: Africana womanism.

We're making a deadly mistake if we don't talk about environmental justice when we discuss racism and Black liberation.

They say that life imitates art. That's rarely as true when we consider the transformative, evocative, challenging, and inspirational work Black artists have been creating for decades.

White terrorists have devastated flourishing Black communities in the name of white supremacy from Rosewood, Florida to Elaine, Arkansas; Colfax, Louisiana to Charleston, North Carolina. 2021 marks the 100th year anniversary of one such event, the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Everything humanity has ever created – the good and the bad – started with imagination. But what if we could harness the power of imagination to build a truly just future for Black people?

He was a man of the people. A man who wanted one thing and one thing only: true independence for his country. But if the U.S. government had its way? He’d be shot dead before his 36th birthday.

Black people have always created beauty from the bleakest conditions. And to survive in America, we even had to create our own language.

“You can kill a revolutionary but you can’t kill the revolution.” Was it a prophecy, these words spoken by the gunned-down Black Panther leader, Fred Hampton?

As Black people, we know we’re left out of the history books

Sculpting our future in the present is the only way we'll gain the power we need to make the idea of Black liberation a reality. Community Movement Builders (CMB) is doing that work. CMB is a Black-run group creating sustainable and self-determining communities. The organization's executive director, Kamau Franklin, sits with us to break down how CMB organizes and mobilizes to make Black economic and political freedom possible. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

Racism is a public health crisis. In the age of COVID-19, we've witnessed this firsthand as Black people perish at disproportionate rates - and it's not by coincidence. Medical ethicist and award-winning writer Harriet Washington illuminates the design of the systemic and medical racism at the root of it all. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

White supremacy is a horror you'll find at every turn. It’s the foundation of governmental policies that disadvantage us. It lives in policing systems that target us. And most dangerously, it has wormed its way like a parasite into the psyche of much of Black America. So what do you do when the killer's inside the house? Black psychologist Dr. Kevin Cokley takes us deep within to understand the psychological harm of white supremacy - and how to heal from the generational wounds it's inflicted. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

Forget everything you think you know about power and control. On this episode of Black History Year, abolitionist scholar Dr. Joy James explores one specific condition required for Black liberation to occur: a shift in the balance of power to we the people. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

American history is a litany of lies about Black people. One of the most egregious is that slavery's end opened the door to equality and freedom. We hear the knock of oppression - no matter how many “bootstraps” lectures we get, we know the truth: there is a debt to be paid. So today, we are having the reparations conversation with the economist Dr. William Darity. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

Credit unions, housing co-ops, CSAs... Black folks have been building and benefitting from cooperative economics for decades, particularly in parts of the economy where we’ve been cut out by the major institutions. As Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard points out, we all participate in some form of cooperative economics when we use the informal economy. In this episode, we dig into the power that we could amass if we took cooperative economics to scale. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation’s largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

Black people are a spiritual people. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the concept of God was first birthed in Africa, but that didn't stop Europeans from copying our traditions and erasing us from Christianity. Dr. Anthony Browder opens the floodgates to the African origins of a faith so many in our community are committed to. It's time for the truth. It's time to talk about God. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

Black power has many forms: a fist in the air, a liberated mind, or the ownership of the ground upon which you stand. The founders of Africatown, a self-determined community of freed Black people in Alabama knew this kind of Black power. In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston delved deep into this question when she interviewed Cudjo Kazoola, the last surviving member of the community that had founded Africatown. Dr. Natalie Robertson expands on Hurston’s work, the importance of Africatown, and the essential elements of Black empowerment.

Advertising, marketing, the entertainment industry and even the news media are selling us something. And what they’re selling usually isn’t good for us. Racist imagery like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are only the tip of the iceberg. Professor Gene Shelton reveals the racism behind advertising, and gets real about reclaiming our representation in media. This is a stirring conversation on how we all advance Black liberation when we up our media literacy game! BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation’s largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

Food is family, culture and LIFE! As food writer Adrian Miller and Chef Rock Harper remind us, African food traditions are healthy, abundant and delicious. So how did we get to a place where we're told soul food and our food traditions are toxic? It's time to lift up our food culture! BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

Our story begins in Nubia and the Nile Valley, the Kingdom of Kongo, the Mali Empire, and the Great Zimbabwe. Dr. Runoko Rashidi reveals how the origins of Black people lie in great, ancient African civilizations and how our hidden history spans the globe. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

The Black vote is powerful. Just look at the massive amount of voter suppression and intimidation oppressors direct at the Black community. It confirms what we know: our vote is nothing to play with! So what will we do with all that power? The New Georgia Project's Nse Ufot has a few ideas. Ufot opens Season 2 of Black History Year by digging into voting rights, organizing, and what the 2020 election means for the Black community. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com and share this with your people!

Learning your history makes you - and your people - stronger. As Black people, we know we’re left out of the history books. That the media images are skewed. That we need access to experts, information and ideas so we can advance our people. Black History Year connects you to the history, thinkers, and activists that are left out of the mainstream conversations. You may not agree with everything you hear, but we’re always working toward one goal: uniting for the best interest of Black people worldwide. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation’s largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com.

Kerry Washington and Gabrielle Union bring an inspiring level of wisdom, humility, humor and Black pride to this conversation on Black motherhood. Give it a listen and then share it with every mother, father, sister, brother, other mother and friend in your life. This is for all of us!

Medical treatment disparities for Black women is as old as America. Dr. Dorothy Roberts, a professor of Africana Studies, Law, and Sociology at University of Pennsylvania, has been producing groundbreaking work on race and gender that focuses our attention on urgent, contemporary issues in health, social justice, and bioethics. For this BHY, we dig deep with Dr. Roberts on the history and present legacy of forced sterilization, reproductive choice, and even the misguided idea that reproductive health is “a white woman’s issue.”

Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, even Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. all have a place in one of the most obscured parts of our history - the Black tradition of gun ownership. Douglas Jefferson, the Vice President of the National African American Gun Association, argues that for Black people in America to be fully vested as citizens, we have to be able to experience the fullest freedom every single liberty granted in the Constitution - including the right to lawfully bear arms.

American history is a mess. We’re taught our ancestors were docile, child-like beings who were too incompetent to find a way out of slavery - but we’re expected to study and admire the slaveholding leaders of the American Revolution! We are taught that non-violent protest and forgiveness are the only ways we can achieve our goal of liberation, which can only be granted by benevolent white people. But that’s not the whole story: our true history is LOADED with examples of Black resistance. Dr. Brandon Byrd shows how history reveals the truth about how our ancestors and contemporaries have risen up against oppression, and he takes us inside the most successful Black rebellion - an event that shook the world and challenges the status quo even today.

No matter how many tickets we buy, or how many hours we watch, Black Americans still have very little influence over what film or television gets made - or how it portrays us. The images of Black people pumped out to the mainstream range from affirming to annoying to actively damaging. Morehouse’s Dr. Stephane Dunn helps us unpack how we got here. She is one of the founding members of Morehouse’s Cinema, Television, & Emerging Media Studies Program, serves as its program director, and takes us from "Birth of a Nation" to "Good Times" to Tyler Perry.

“I remember hearing somebody describe freedom as the ability to wake up in the morning and decide what you want to do with your day.” Dr. Boyce Watkins, founder of the Black Business School, has plenty to say about personal freedom, Black liberation, and self-determination. For Watkins, black economic advancement can’t be reduced to whether you are for, or against, capitalism, socialism or any other “ism.” Instead, it’s about wielding economic opportunities to empower ourselves and our people.

“We must face the fact that in America,” said MLK, ”the church is still the most segregated major institution.” For Black people, the church has traditionally been a place of restoration, renewal, community, and collective action. But even during the vigor and heat of the Civil Rights Era, with church leaders like MLK up in front, the role of Christianity did not go unquestioned in Black America. And now, with the “prosperity gospel” as loud as ever, we’re interrogating this pillar of our culture. The Rev. Michael-Ray Mathews of Faith In Action helps understand how we got here, and what we should be asking of our faith communities if we’re truly interested in Black liberation.

Learning your history makes you - and your people - stronger. As Black people, we know we’re left out of the history books. That the media images are skewed. That we need access to experts, information and ideas so we can advance our people. Black History Year connects you to the history, thinkers, and activists that are left out of the mainstream conversations. You may not agree with everything you hear, but we’re always working toward one goal: uniting for the best interest of Black people worldwide. BHY is produced by PushBlack, the nation’s largest non-profit Black media company - hit us up at BlackHistoryYear.com.