Historian Michael Hines's A Worthy Piece of Work is such a book. 'Every so often a book appears that speaks profoundly to the very moment within which we live. Span, author of From Cotton Field to Schoolhouse: African American Education in Mississippi, 1862-1875 It is a book every educator and concerned citizen should read if they want to better understand the long struggle to teach and learn untold histories in America and how to speak truth to power despite the opposition.' -Christopher M. Hines's exploration and biography of the particular efforts of Madeline Morgan to advance African American history is poetically written, evidentiary rich, and timely.

It is a remarkably compelling study that appropriately situates the struggles and contributions of African American educators within the broader movement to educate youth about African American life, culture, and history at the height of the Jim Crow era. ' A Worthy Piece of Work is a must-read and poignantly illustrates the transformative power of teaching.

This timely and critical study reminds us that progress and regress are unfortunately a common occurrence in the implementation of Black history curriculum.' -Dionne Danns, author of Crossing Segregated Boundaries ' A Worthy Piece of Work eloquently centers women and recovers the crucial role Madeline Morgan played in writing and advancing Black history curriculum. At a moment when Black history is under attack in school districts and state legislatures across the country, A Worthy Piece of Work reminds us that struggles over history, representation, and race are far from a new phenomenon. Scholar Michael Hines unveils this history for the first time, providing a rich understanding of the ways in which Black educators have created counternarratives to challenge the anti-Black racism found in school textbooks and curricula. During the Second World War, as Black Americans both fought to save democracy abroad and demanded full citizenship at home, Morgan's work gained national attention and widespread praise, and became a model for teachers, schools, districts, and cities across the country. The story of Madeline Morgan, the activist educator who brought Black history to one of the nation's largest and most segregated school systems A Worthy Piece of Work tells the story of Madeline Morgan (later Madeline Stratton Morris), a teacher and an activist in WWII-era Chicago, who fought her own battle on the home front, authoring curricula that bolstered Black claims for recognition and equal citizenship.

A Worthy Piece of Work by Michael Hines