It is not easy to teach about race in today’s political and social climate.

One hundred and sixty years after the United States abolished slavery, racial differences continue to spark pervasive misunderstanding, engender social separation and drive political and economic disparities. American educators are naturally intimidated and, at times, discouraged by the huge task before them.

Yet race and racism are key components of American history. Understanding this history illuminates central aspects of American identity for students.

We are university faculty members – one Black, one white – who decided to tackle this topic head on.

Following the rash of police killings of unarmed Black Americans in 2014 and 2015 that inspired the Black Lives Matter protests, we began collaborating on a unique effort at the University of Missouri, where we both taught at the time, to heal our campus and society using the tools of education.

The shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, had enormous reverberations at Mizzou. It spurred walkouts and protests, and ultimately the resignation of the university’s president.

Yet we knew the memory and lessons of this event could too soon fade into the past.

American history is punctuated by recurrent cycles of racial injustice, response and forgetfulness.

The American Revolution inspired a wave of abolitionist fervor – even Thomas Jefferson vehemently condemned slavery as a “cruel war against human nature itself.” Then the political and economic concerns of white Americans eclipsed the issue for decades.

This cycle repeated itself after the Civil War ended slavery in the U.S. in 1865.

Reconstruction efforts in the South were incredibly successful in securing social and political equality for the freedmen. Then came the backlash: the rise of the racist and violent Ku Klux Klan in 1865, followed by the federal government’s political compromises with the South and the withdrawal of federal troops. Justice was delayed another........

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