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From KQED.

This is Forum. I'm Rachel Myro and Formina Kim. This month we mark a century of formal

black history celebrations, which started with a week in 1926. Today, as political battles over

curriculum rage in state legislatures and local school boards, the question of whose history

gets told and how has never been more relevant. Historian Jarvis Givens joins us today to talk

about his new book tracing the evolution of black history as a formalized study. Dr. Givens,

thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me, Rachel.

You were born and raised in Compton.

I thought we might start with you telling us about your preschool teacher,

Ms. Myron Ruth Butterfield.

What was it about the way she taught Black History

that lit a spark in you all those years ago?

Yeah, I appreciate that this opportunity to kind of go back and think about my early introduction to Black History Month, really.

And I consider Ms. Butterfield to be my first teacher of Black History.

She was my preschool teacher at a small parochial school that I attended in Compton, California. It was independent, all-black

school, all-black teachers. It was formerly at all-white school when Compton as a city was all-white,

but Ms. Butterfield, like many of the teachers that I encountered when I was there in the early 90s,

were all really southern migrants that had migrated. Many when I was there in the early 90s were all really

southern migrants that have migrated. Many of them were educated in the Jim Crow South. And she,

...