Harlem Education
History Project


Histories of education in Harlem. A collaborative project by faculty & students at Teachers College, Institute for Urban and Minority Education, Center on History and Education, Columbia Libraries, and school and community partners.

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About the project


Begun in 2013, the Harlem Education History Project is a collaboration among scholars, students, community members, teachers, technologists, and archivists to recognize, document, and share histories of education in Harlem. Students in classes at Teachers College, and community and local school partners recorded, collected, and interpreted oral histories and archival sources. Scholars from around the country produced the edited volume Educating Harlem: A Century of Schooling and Resistance in a Black Community published by Columbia University Press. These efforts were informed by a lecture series, working conference, and readings in an open bibliography. To connect Harlem’s educational history with local and national communities, high-school students engage in Youth Historians in Harlem classes and summer institutes, and teachers participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute. Together, this ongoing work draws on Harlem’s rich tradition of Black educational visions to inform just education for the future.

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