Welcome to March. Welcome to the March to freedom.

Thanks for spending the last month learning and growing with us. If you missed a day or two (or twenty), that’s okay. What’s next?

We hope you’ll go back and finish out the curriculum, and then continue your journey using our list of additional resources and the magic of Google. Consider looking up the context and story for today’s featured image.

Take a listen to Curtis Mayfield’s New World Order. What do you think we need to bring this new day? What will you do next to address race-based inequities, inequalities, and exclusionary systems that we live in?

Problematically, awareness and education about Black history and the Black experience often vanishes post-February. But the racism and oppression levied against Black people does not disappear when Black History Month ends and white people choose to stop listening. It is crucial that those in privileged positions continue to listen to and learn from marginalized communities. Listen to what is happening now and if, like many Americans, Black history was glossed over in your school, return to the pages of our shared history book and relearn what brought us to this point. We’ve only scratched the surface in our curriculum.

We hope this was your introduction to the Black Experience, and that it will continue.

For your March reading, we suggest the comic book trilogy “March,” the story of the civil rights movement told by John Lewis, who lived it.

March Trilogy by John Lewis

And if you’ve worked your way through the Black Light posts, you’ve hopefully also arrived at the conclusion that listening, reading, and learning are only the first steps. That knowledge is only useful if it leads to action – and action is needed every day.

Start by reading resources on how to act as an ally and speak up when you see racism happening around you. Share this curriculum with those who aren’t yet thinking about the Black experience, their own privilege, or the ways racism manifests in our society. And never stop questioning yourself or your own implicit bias. John Raible’s checklist is a useful guide.

Allies have to step up with their money, their time, and their voice. Donate to groups doing work on the ground. Go go a march or protest. Call your legislators. Volunteer with a group working on criminal justice reform. Or equal housing. Or voting rights. Or a hundred other things. There is no one right way to put an end to white supremacy, but inaction is deadly. There is no time to waste.

As Common put it, “We staring in the face of hate again – The same hate they say will make America great again.”

This Is Blacklight has been our letter to everyone, in particular to those who already free. Let’s work for us all to be free in spirit, free in the knowledge of our shared Black history. Let’s work for us all to be able to be free from persecution and oppression, to be free and brave: to face the past square on and be free to take strides to the future.

You are welcome to contact the curators of This is Blacklight if you’d like to discuss further development of Curricula for the Free. We’re thinking about where to go next ourselves.