This is the Bop. The Bop is a type of social dance. Dance is a language, and social dance is an expression that emerges from a community. Below, Camille A. Brown offers a brief history of African-American social dance.

A social dance isn’t choreographed by any one person. It can’t be traced to any one moment. Each dance has steps that everyone can agree on, but it’s about the individual and their creative identity. Because of that, social dances bubble up, they change, and they spread like wildfire. They are as old as our remembered history. In African-American social dances, we see over 200 years of how African and African-American traditions influenced history. The present always contains the past. And the past shapes who we are and who we will be.

Now, social dance is about community and connection; if you knew the steps, it meant you belonged to a group. But what if it becomes a worldwide craze? Enter the Twist.

It’s no surprise that the Twist can be traced back to the 19th century, brought to America from the Congo during slavery. But in the late ‘50s, right before the Civil Rights Movement, the Twist is popularized by Chubby Checker and Dick Clark. Suddenly, everybody’s doing the Twist: white teenagers, kids in Latin America. It makes its way into songs and movies. Through social dance, the boundaries between groups become blurred.

The story continues in the 1980s and ’90s. Along with the emergence of hip-hop, African-American social dance took on even more visibility, borrowing from its long past, shaping culture and being shaped by it. Today, these dances continue to evolve, grow and spread.

Why do we dance? To move, to let loose, to express.

Why do we dance together? To heal, to remember, to say: “We speak a common language. We exist and we are free.”

Camille A. Brown is a choreographer fusing dance and social commentary to explore race, sexuality and femininity.

Title Design by Kozmonot Animation Studio

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Painting of Langston Hughes by artist Winold Reiss, National Portrait Gallery

“I, too, am America,” wrote Langston Hughes in 1927. Like James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, and August Wilson, Hughes was one of the great American writers of the 20th century. At the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, his powerful poetry invites you to explore American history through the African American lens.

Here are 3 digital ways to look at some of the 37,000 historical artifacts contained in the museum:

Download the museum’s mobile app for iOS and Android here. The app offers ways to engage students of all ages — from brief stories about some of the museum’s special objects to augmented reality experiences. For an audio tour of objects in this exhibit, text the word “lens” (not case sensitive) to 56512.

Find a National History Day project idea here and examine primary sources for your project here. Sorted by state, these ideas are available for all students to adapt and use. Learn more about National History Day resources here and here.

Explore the museum’s collection by topic, here. Some great resources to check out include curator perspectives on 3 special objects and tips for planning history-themed events in your area.

Black history is American history. To learn more about it, dive in here.