A teacher’s creative door painting honoring Black History Month goes viral

Article By Jessica McGrath // EEW Magazine // Black History Month

One teacher’s fierce and fabulous painting of an African-American woman as a door decorator for Black History Month has gone viral.

Baltimore, Maryland-based instructor, Kimberly Tatuem, has wowed thousands of individuals online with her creativity.

Outside her door at the N.A.C.A. Freedom and Democracy Academy II, a public charter school, you can see the artistically designed woman with piercing eyes, a curly afro made from construction paper, a choker customized from Kente cloth, and a dress made from the faces of iconic black historic figures like Dr. Maya Angelou, Thurgood Marshall, Malcom X, and more.

Impressed by her art, teachers across the nation are trying their best to replicate the design.

It’s spread so far across the country,” Tatuem, an American government and history teacher, told Baltimore Sun. “The kids have been so excited to see it go viral.”

Tatuem first shared photos of her work on Instagram and Facebook Feb. 7, not expecting them to gain traction the way they have, garnering more than 27,000 Facebook shares.

Though the popularity is unexpected, the educator is riding the wave. In order to help other teachers do something like this for their own classrooms, Tatuem and her daughter have uploaded a step-by-step YouTube tutorial.

Aside from being noticed by the masses, the creativity of the teacher is serving a greater goal: “It’s about encouraging them to love themselves,” she said, hoping to inspire and uplift the students in a school where the population is majority African-American. “The display encourages them to be comfortable in their own skin.”