BATON ROUGE — Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church is starting up its third year of an educational program diving deeper into Black History.

Samuel Colbert is a volunteer teacher in the program. He said although Black History is taught in school classrooms, it’s important to know more about the unsung heroes and overlooked events.

“We felt like we need to dive a little deeper to let them know about what slavery was all about and what accomplishments we have made. Some of those things we need to know about our culture,” Colbert said.

Volunteer teacher Terrance Turner said Black History isn’t just in the text books but right here in the capital city.

“People don’t know that the bus boycotts of Montgomery from Dr. Martin Luther King, the architect of that was Reverent T.J. Jemison - here in Baton Rouge. They did the bus boycott before it was in Montgomery, Alabama,” Turner said.

He believes understanding the past is key for building a better future.

“Learn about these figures, learn about these different events that happened in history," Turner said. "If not we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, and the only way to do that is to change hearts and minds and the way to do that is through facts.”

The classes are for everyone from different backgrounds. Turner said learning about Black History can strengthen race relations.

“Young black kids don’t know what people did before them then they don’t think they can achieve that today or tomorrow. On the same side of that coin, if young white kids don’t know what Black people did in the past then they’re susceptible to feed into narratives of superiority and we know that those narratives are false," Turner said.

The classes are offered every Wednesday throughout the month of February from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 185 Eddie Robinson Sr. Dr.

The classes are also livestreamed on their YouTube page.  The church is also offering transportation. You can call the church at 225-343-0640.