"In I'll Make Me a World , Jarvis Givens recasts Black History Month as a century-long struggle over memory and power. Through meticulous archival research and deep attention to the pedagogies of Black educators, Givens traces how teachers, students, and community organizers transformed the study of Black life into a sustained practice of resistance. This is masterful intellectual history from below--an account of how ordinary people have fought to define what counts as history and who counts as human. Rooted in the long fight to define the scope and meaning of the past, I'll Make Me a World illuminates how the preservation and transmission of Black history have always been acts of political courage and collective imagination." - Elizabeth Hinton, author of America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s "This urgent book is about so much more than a commemoration on the calendar. With Black history under attack, it issues a call to arms. Against those who would deny and disavow struggles against enslavement, impoverishment, and racial violence, Jarvis Givens bids us to tell the honest truth. Resisting attempts to control how we teach, recall, and represent our common past, he offers a magnificent tribute to the memory workers who have given us the tools to achieve more freedom, fairness, and justice in the world of the future.

" - Vincent Brown, author of Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War "Jarvis Givens reminds us that Black History is rooted in the everyday efforts of Black people who are deeply committed to the liberatory project of bringing out the genius in all who orbit around them. Through phenomenal storytelling, both personal and historical, he recounts transformative moments, preserved by the labor of memory workers, declaring why knowing the past is a political investment in our future. I love this book!" - Ula Yvette Taylor, author of The Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of Islam "In an era when we are experiencing issues similar to those that early Black scholars confronted in the neglect, misinterpretation, and myths about Black history in Africa, the Diaspora, and the United States, this timely and cogent book is a must read. Indeed, it is an antidote to efforts which seek to erase the real facts about the Black past" - Robert L. Harris, Jr., Woodson Medallion Scholar and Past-President of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History "In an era where our histories are being discarded, distorted, and denied, Jarvis Givens reminds us that we have always preserved our past, our culture, our customs, and our traditions. Black History Month is a testament to the resilience and the spirit of resistance that is Black culture." - Gloria Ladson-Billings, author of The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children.