Motivated by rethinking her own history growing up as a white child in Englewood, NJ in the 1960s during a battle for school desegregation, Alice Levine has embarked on an effort to understand as much as she can about segregation and civil rights struggles beyond the South.  In looking at how these topics are taught today, she has found that in many schools, especially those for younger children, the emphasis is still placed on the Civil Rights Movement as exclusively or primarily focused on the South–and ending with the passage of federal civil rights legislation.  Because Alice has found that there are so few books for children that focus on segregation and civil rights struggles outside of the South, she is working to support educators to broaden their teaching to include more truthful narratives. 

Having come to WFC for decades, Alice hopes to use this interactive session to share and workshop resources (including books for adults and children, photos and slides) that she will be presenting at the Massachusetts Teachers Association 2024 Summer Conference in late July.  As part of the presentation and discussion, she invites others to browse her book display and to share their perspectives, experiences, feedback, and suggestions on the materials and approach.

Alice Levine has been an educator (primarily in Boston) for over 45 years and currently works as an occasional consultant and teacher trainer, focusing on the use of books that explore many kinds of diversity and social justice issues.  Especially over the past several decades, Alice has also been engaged as an activist, particularly in fighting for the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers who have crossed (or are trying to cross) at our Southern border. In recent years, Alice has been greatly impacted by her participation in several courses on race, racism, and reparations and has been looking critically at the versions of liberal racism with which she was raised. She is now working to apply her understanding of Jim Crow North to her work as an educator by writing blog posts, talking to those who play critical roles in developing curriculum and selecting books, and offering workshops for teachers.