African American Homeschooling
More and more African American families are choosing homeschooling as a great option for their children. If you are looking for information about homeschooling and support for black families who have chosen home education, you've come to the right place.
Resources
Homeschooling as a Mother's Right

Margaret is a homeschool veteran who explains why traditional schooling was never an option for her children. Margaret’s narrative documents the complexity of being a single Black mother and choosing to live in a low-income housing community, and not working full-time in order to fulfill her rights as a mother to do what she determined would be best for her children. Her account also demonstrates the role of faith, spirituality, and the complexity of building a curriculum to meet her children’s needs.

Morning by Morning : How We Home-Schooled Our African-American Sons to the Ivy League
Home schooling has long been regarded as a last resort, particularly by African-American families. But in this inspirational and practical memoir, Paula Penn-Nabrit shares her intimate experiences of home-schooling her three sons, Charles, Damon, and Evan. Paula and her husband, C. Madison, decided to home-school their children after racial incidents at public and private schools led them to the conclusion that the traditional educational system would be damaging to their sons’ self-esteem. This decision was especially poignant for the Nabrit family because C. Madison’s uncle was the famed civil rights attorney James Nabrit, who, with Thurgood Marshall, had argued Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court; to other members of their family, it seemed as if Paula and C. Madison were turning their backs on a rich educational legacy.

But ultimately, Paula and C. Madison felt that they knew what was best for their sons. So in 1991—when Evan was nine and twins Charles and Damon were eleven—the children were withdrawn from the exclusive country day school they’d been attending.

In Morning by Morning, Paula Penn-Nabrit discusses her family’s emotional transition to home schooling and shares the nuts and bolts of the boys’ educational experience. She explains how she and her husband developed a curriculum, provided adequate exposure to the arts as well as quiet time for reflection and meditation, initiated quality opportunities for volunteerism, and sought out athletic activities for their sons. At the end of each chapter, she offers advice on how readers can incorporate some of the steps her family took—even if they aren’t able to home-school; plus, there’s a website resource guide at the end of the book.

Charles and Damon were eventually admitted to Princeton, and Evan attended Amherst College. But Morning by Morning is frank about the challenges the boys faced in their transition from home schooling to the college experience, and Penn-Nabrit reflects on some things she might have done differently.

With great warmth and perception, Paula Penn-Nabrit discusses her personal experience and the amazing outcome of her home-schooling experience: three spiritually and intellectually well balanced sons who attended some of the top educational institutions in this country.

What we learned from home schooling:

-Use your time wisely.
-Education is more than academics.
-The idea of parent as teacher doesn’t have to end at kindergarten.
-The family is our introduction to community.
-Extended family is a safety net.
-Yes, kids really do better in environments designed for them.
-Travel is an education.
-Athletics is more than competitive sports.
-Get used to diversity.
-It’s okay if your kids get angry at you—they’ll get over it!

-from Morning by Morning
Black Books Galore's Guide to Great African American Children's Books
"This is a great resource that fills a tremendous need. It should be on parents' shelves at home as well as in every school." —Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D. Harvard Medical School

These are exciting times for African American children's literature. Never before have there been so many titles available. Now the three mothers who founded Black Books Galore! —the nation's leading organizer of festivals of African American children's books —share their expert advice on how to find and choose the best. This fully annotated guide opens the door to a wonderful world of reading for the children in your life. Here are the most positive, the best-written, and the most acclaimed books in every category, including board books, story and picture books, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, history, biography, fables, and more.

Invaluable for parents, teachers, and librarians, this easy-to-use, illustrated reference guide features:

  • Quick, lively descriptions of 500 books, plus 200 additional recommendations
  • Helpful guidelines for encouraging young readers
  • Easy-to-find listings organized by age level and indexed by title, topic, author, and illustrator
  • Portraits of selected authors and illustrators
  • Listings of award winners and Reading Rainbow Books.
Black Children : Social, Educational, and Parental Environments

Black Children, Second Edition collects current empirical research unique to the experiences and situations of black children and their parents. As the editor emphasizes, "African American children develop a duality for their existence. To be fully functional, they must develop the skills to do well simultaneously in two different cultures, both black and non-black." This volume explores the meaning of this duality in four distinct environments: socioeconomic, parental, internal, and educational. The complex picture that emerges discredits many of the myths that surround black childhood development and initiates in-depth exploration into the diversities of the African American experience.

Taken together, the entries in this volume provide a valuable collection (suitable as both a core or supplemental textbook) for scholars, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and professionals in the fields of education, counseling and clinical psychology, social work, family services, and related social services who are concerned about the optimal growth and development of black children.

Exploring Single Black Mothers' Resistance Through Homeschooling

This work looks at contemporary Black homeschooling as a form of resistance among single Black mothers, exploring each mother's experience and perspective in deciding to homeschool and developing their practice. It faces the many issues that plague the education of Black children in America, including discipline disproportionality, frequent special education referrals, low expectations in the classroom, and the marginalization of Black parents. Most importantly, this work challenges stereotypical characterizations of who homeschools and why.

National Organizations
Black Homeschoolers' Network
Black Homeschoolers' Network is intended to facilitate a network among African American homeschoolers across the country. Here you will also find a message board for general communication as well as an email pal listing for homeschooled kids.
National Black Home Educators Resource Association (NBHERA)
The National Black Home Educators Resource Association (NBHERA) is a resource network founded by Eric and Joyce Burges in July 2000. This association encourages, supports, and offers fellowship to families who are exploring benefits of home education. NBHERA was created to serve the African American community by providing assistance with information about getting started homeschool, networking/connecting veteran families with new families, recommending resources such as books, music, films, speaking information, curriculum, etc. NBHERA’s mission endeavors to empower parents to educate their children for excellence.
National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance (NAAHA)
The National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance was born out of a desire to unite African-American homeschoolers nationally. Launched in January 2003, NAAHA is the only nonsectarian organization for African-American home schooling families. The primary objective of NAAHA is to disseminate home schooling information relevant to African-American homeschoolers or to anyone home schooling African-American children. NAAHA's fundamental mission is to consistently provide the latest and the best home school information and resources for members and online guests to enjoy--from home schooling books and curricula to new African-American support groups and organizations. In addition to being an information clearinghouse, NAAHA also provides free educational advisory help from educational professionals and from those with a degreed knowledge of a particular subject.
The Liberated Minds Black Homeschool and Education Association
Their purpose is to be a trustworthy, conscientious, and dependable resource in the "true" education of youth and families. By providing consistent support, guidance, and current relevant information, they are committed to assist in all academic subjects and critical life areas that cultivate children to be young dedicated scholars, critical thinkers, builders, and problem solvers; addressing the specific needs of Black/Afrikan people.
Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO)
Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) exists to educate and inform the general public about parental choice initiatives on the local and national level; educate Black families about the numerous educational options available; create, promote and support efforts to empower Black parents to exercise choice in determining how their children are educated; and educate and inform the general public about efforts to reduce or limit educational options available to parents.
African American Homeschool Network
The African-American home school movement is growing; however there is a lack of on-line networks. This FB Community is a prelude to the collaborative effort to create a membership site. Its main function will be to support, encourage, and promote African American Homeschool families. Including curriculum selection and co-op group start up in your local communities.
Afrocentric Homeschoolers Association (AHA) Yahoo Group
A discussion group for pro-Black African and/or African Diasporan, Black homeschoolers, unschoolers, deschoolers, home-based educators everywhere. It is also open to non-homeschoolers and non-Blacks who are trying to teach their children about Blacks.
Articles
Poor Education Prognosis
Drs. Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom's new book "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" shows that the government education whites receive is nothing to write home about, but for blacks, it's no less than a disgraceful disaster.
Beyond Statistics: A Real Look At Black Homeschoolers
In the past couple of years the news has been inundated with national, international and local articles reporting the dramatic rise of homeschooling in the African-American community. Although we often get statistics about Black homeschoolers, we rarely get a glimpse of real families. This article takes you into the lives of Black homeschooling families who are taking their children's education into their own hands.
Web Presence for African-American Homeschoolers
Creating a web presence of African-American home school support groups will do much to organize and network families across the country and internationally. This article the basics for creating a personal home schooling website or site for a home school support group or organization.
New Movement: African-American Homeschooling
While families have been homeschooling for nearly thirty years in the United States, it is only recently that African-American families have seen the proven potential of educating their children at home. In a time of perpetual academic underachievement, the ever-stagnant achievement gap and unfettered, unequal access to quality schools and resources, African-American families are taking a dramatic approach to the educational future of their children by adopting a collective and renewed stance on family-led learning.
The New Pioneers: Black Homeschoolers
A new wave of pioneers is sweeping onto the home schooling trail. After decades of promises that the public school "system" holds the key to success, some African-American families are finding, like those of other ethnicities, that an increasingly centralized system and social decay are fast dissolving the bonds of their culture and families. And many have found a way to reconnect and restore those bonds by home schooling—an educational path so old and overgrown that it's considered radical and cutting edge.
The Rise of Home Schooling Among African-Americans
Significant growth in black families’ participation in home schooling is beginning to show up on the radar screens of researchers. The National Center for Education Statistics computed African-Americans as 9.9 percent of the 850,000 children the federal agency figured were being home-schooled nationally in 1999. Veteran home-schooling researcher Brian Ray figures blacks are currently about 5 percent of the 1.6 million to 2 million home-schooled children but he agrees that black home schooling is growing rapidly.
Homeschooling--It's a Growing Trend Among Blacks
African-Americans are joining the national home schooling community at larger and larger numbers every year. Following a nationwide trend, educating children at home is becoming a popular option for Black Americans as private school costs rise and the reputation of public schools grows worse. Read about the current movement of African-American homeschoolers.
African-American Home Schooling - Why Black Children Benefit From Home Schooling
With the educational landscape becoming more diverse in America, black parents are looking for better ways in which to teach their children. One of the new educational alternatives and the only one thus far exhibiting parity between the races is home schooling. Though many blacks are embarking on home schooling as a new educational choice, many don't fully know why home education tends to work for black children. This article will piece together clues that account for black children's affinity for learning at home.
Homeschooling Grows in the Black Community
The best research on homeschooling indicates the total number of children who are homeschooled is 1.5 to 2 million, and that number is growing by 10 to 15 percent per year. But not everyone recognizes the academic and social success of homeschoolers and some criticize the movement as being white and elitist. While it's true that the large majority of homeschool children are white, the number of black homeschoolers is growing rapidly. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates that there are 30,000 to 50,000 black children being homeschooled today. Others estimate that black homeschoolers make up 5 percent of the total homeschool population. Most importantly black homeschool movement is growing at a faster rate than the general homeschool population.
The Choice To Homeschool: A Quick Primer For Black Families
When black families look to homeschool there are a lot of questions to take into consideration. Here is a quick primer to get you started.
Support Groups
Culture at Home
Culture at Home is an African American homeschool support group in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area with an emphasis on the older homeschooled student. Culture at Home is a support group for families concerned with the healthy well-being and academic guidance of the African-American child. The purpose of this group is to provide an educational outreach support program and to supplement the curriculum of homeschoolers with children ages 10-18 (grades 5-12), but they also provide some resources for homeschooled children ages 6-10.
Baltimore-Washington African American Homeschoolers (BWAAH)
This group was created for African American homeschoolers in and around the Baltimore/Washington DC/Northern VA area to connect with one another. This is a central place where members of various support groups and/or individual homeschoolers in the area can learn from and help each other.
Afrocentric Homeschoolers Association Email Group
Afrocentric Homeschoolers Association Email Group is a discussion group for pro-Black African and/or African Diasporan, Black homeschoolers, unschoolers, deschoolers, and home-based educators everywhere. It is also open to non-homeschoolers and non-Blacks who are trying to teach their children about Blacks. It was founded as a resource for Black homeschoolers, Blacks in Canada, the U.S., Caribbean, and elsewhere, including the African Canadian, African American, African Caribbean, Black European, African, and Black Canadian.
New Rising Homeschool Network
Are you working fulltime and feeling as though you and your children have been left out of the homeschool loop? Are you a single parent concerned you might not be able to meet the demands of homeschooling? Does your child have special needs? Dell's Place has established a network for working moms, single parents, and the rest of us who struggle to pull it all together. The purpose of this network is for support and encouragement, but it's also to offer real solutions from other parents who struggle with the same issues.
African American Homeschoolers
This group is for African American parents (or parents of African American children) who are homeschooling their children. It is also for parents looking to supplement their children's education with home study.
African American Unschoolers (AfAmUnschool) Email Group
African American Unschoolers email group is for African-American homeschoolers who use the whole world as their child(ren)'s classroom.
Families of Color Utilizing Home Schooling (FOCUHS)
This list is for Christian families of color who've opted to home educate their children. They exist to offer support, fellowship and to share resources with other African American and bi-racial Christian homeschooling families.
African-American Single Parent Homeschoolers
African-American Single Parent Homeschoolers is a discussion group designed to lend support and resources to parents who are home schooling alone.
Black Homeschoolers Club
This is a great social networking site for black homeschoolers. It is designed to help share educational goals and curriculum plans as well as connect with other families.
African American Homeschooler
This is a Yahoo group email list for African American parent(s) who homeschool their children.
African-American Unschool Teens
African-American Teens who unschool/homeschool: Come hear how others live exciting, creative lives outside of traditional schooling. This is a free and comfortable space for teens to call their own. 
Capital Area Homeschooling Community
The Capital Area Homeschooling Community is a homeschooling support community which connects homeschoolers of color throughout the Washington, D.C. area.
Mocha Moms
Mocha Moms, Inc. is a support group for mothers of color who have chosen not to work full-time outside of the home in order to devote more time to their families and communities. Mocha Moms serves as an advocate for those mothers and encourages the spirit of community activism within its membership.
Links
Blacks are the largest segment rising in homeschooling
Black parents are now turning to homeschooling their children. After realizing that public schools are failing black children on a massive scale, black parents are turning to homeschooling. This video discusses these issues.
African-American Unschooling
African-American Unschooling is the resource for African-American homeschoolers with an Africentric approach to learning all the time. African-American Unschoolers encounter math, science, reading, writing, art and history in the real world because real living leads to real learning.
African Centered Resources Part 2
Part two of a youtube video discussing various African-centered resources for homeschoolers.
African Centered Resources
Great youtube video discussing various African-centered resources for homeschoolers.
Tips for Cultural Studies in Homeschooling
Here are some tips on how to incorporate cultural studies into your homeschool. This can be used if you are trying to include or highlight your own heritage/ background or if you want to study another culture that is not your own. One of the blessings of home education is that you have the opportunity to study various different world cultures without limitations. You can go beyond the one or two holidays or cultural activities that they may or may not do in the public school system. You can incorporate your culture into every aspect of your curriculum or just highlight some of the major bullet points of your culture. Either way I think these tips give a great starting point to enriching your curriculum program.
Mocha Moms
Mocha Moms, Inc. is a support group for mothers of color who have chosen not to work full-time outside of the home in order to devote more time to their families and communities. Mocha Moms serves as an advocate for those mothers and encourages the spirit of community activism within its membership.
Large family finds a way to homeschool
This youtube video gives a look into a large successful homeschooling family. This African-American family of seven children has had all children go to college, starting while still in high school.
African Centered Curriculum for Homeschool
This youtube video talks about an African-centered curriculum based on the texts African American History: A Journey to Liberation by Dr. Molefi Kete Asante and Classical Africa.
Resources
Homeschooling and Libraries: New Solutions and Opportunities

Homeschools are alwsy looking for alternative ways of schooling that do not necessarily reflect what a typical classroom looks like. Since homeschooling is so diverse across families, information institutions, including public, academic, school, and special libraries may find it challenging to meet all their needs and desires. This collection of essays offers approaches and strategies from library professionals and veteran homeschoolers on how to best serve the needs and experiences of homeschooled youth. This book includes information on special needs homeschooling, gifted students, and African American students as well.

Footsteps Magazine
Footsteps Magazine is a magazine designed for young people, their parents, and other individuals interested in discovering the scope, substance, and many often unheralded facts of African American heritage. It is an excellent classroom resource for teachers, a valuable research tool for students, and an important vehicle for bringing this rich heritage to people of all backgrounds.
Brown Sugar & Spice Books
Brown Sugar & Spice Books carries African-American children's books, multicultural books, and black history books for adults and children.
4 My Kids Records
4 My Kids Records is committed to producing quality educational and entertainment products that will ignite a child’s excitement to learn. Every catchy song, dance-floor groove, memorable story, colorful illustration and fun-filled animation is created with a timeless heart.
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Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual Spatial Learner
Dr. Linda Silverman coined the term "visual-spatial learner" to describe the special and unique gifts of people who learn best through seeing and with images. This guide is a great resource as you support your homeschooling visual learner in discovering the best ways to learn and succeed. 
100 Top Picks For Homeschool Curriculum: Choosing The Right Curriculum And Approach For Your Child's Learning Style
The key to successful home education is determining your educational philosophy and linking it to your child’s learning style. Then you can make an informed decision in choosing the right educational curriculum for the child. Homeschool guru Cathy Duffy can help you accomplish these critical tasks, with her top choices from every subject area, approaching everything through a Christian worldview perspective. 
The Complete Home Learning Source Book : The Essential Resource Guide for Homeschoolers, Parents, and Educators Covering Every Subject from Arithmetic to Zoology
This ambitious reference guide lives up to its name. Practically three inches thick--and we're not talking large print here--it's packed with titles, ordering information, and Web site addresses. From where to send away for a kit to make your own Chilean rain stick to how to order a set of Elizabethan costume paper dolls, the book connects families to a world of learning possibilities. Book titles, short synopses, authors' names, publishers, and years of print make up the bulk of the guide. Clas...
America's National Parks for Dummies, Second Edition
What makes a trip to a national park so wonderful? For starters, America's national park system is more diverse than any park system in the world. You can stroll the seashore at Olympic National Park in Washington or Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, climb craggy mountains in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, or go underground into the world's largest cave system at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. You can marvel at the largest canyon on Earth (Grand Canyon National Park), ...
Homeschooling Essentials: A Practical Guide to Getting Started
If you're ready to begin homeschooling, then the experiences of others can offer valuable help and encouragement as you jump into this new adventure. This practical guide answers common questions, helps you navigate the legalities of homeschooling, talks about the practical side of homeschooling and different methods, offers resources and gives advice about high school.