Teaching Antiracism Through African American Burial Grounds: A Local Historic Cemetery Experience

Racism is a crisis and urgent matter in public health, and the study of emotions is critical when combating racism and oppression. This article outlines an experiential teaching approach using an African American cemetery tour and headstone cleaning experience, along with semester-long lessons and reflections to impact undergraduate students’ emotions, perceptions, and understanding; awareness; attitudes; beliefs; intentions; and behaviors related to health disparities, health inequities, racism, and oppression experienced by African Americans from the 19th to 21st centuries. The valid and reliable Discrete Emotions Questionnaire (DEQ) was used to measure anger, disgust, fear, anxiety, sadness, desire, relaxation, and happiness at three distinct time points. At the same time, 12 weekly journal entries further examined students’ emotions, motivations, awareness, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, intentions, and/or behaviors. DEQ results revealed increases in anger, mad, pissed off, rage, and sickened from baseline to the end of the study. Feelings of satisfaction increased from baseline to the end of the cemetery tour and headstone cleaning experience. Journal entries allowed students to expand on the emotions they felt during the semester, revealing that behavioral beliefs were the most prevalent theory of planned behavior construct. These results contribute to the existing literature on best practices for public health education programs that aim to educate about health disparities, health inequities, racism, and oppression, as well as a method for addressing racism as a public health crisis in the United States.