Local Woman's YouTube Channel 'Black Gems Unearthed' Offers Lessons In Massachusetts' Black History

BOSTON (CBS) - A local woman is bringing Black history to life on YouTube. Jazz Dottin works at Brandeis University but, spends her free time learning and trying to teach others about Black history in Massachusetts.

"I decided to focus in on Black history because it wasn't taught clearly to me in high school and grade school," Dottin told WBZ-TV. "So, I figured there's other people in my generation that should catch up."

Jazz has her own YouTube channel called Black Gems Unearthed. She believes there are a lot of important lessons in our past.

"I think if kids don't understand Black history they're just not going to have the full picture of how the country came to begin," she said. "The country was built off of the backs of Black people."

Dottin has thousands of subscribers seeing her message and she's been traveling around the state searching for stories to talk about. One spot she really enjoyed was a visit to Salem.

"I didn't realize that an indigenous woman was at the center of the trials of what led it to become a big deal and people were executed as a result of the hysteria," she told WBZ.

Jazz wants her videos to spark a discussion about what history means for our future.

"I'm hopeful that it makes people curious. Curious when they are reading stories and looking at history and kind of start to question like, 'Who wrote this? Why did they write this? What's missing?"

And the name of her channel is directly linked to her mission.

"The channel's called Black Gems Unearthed and it's a metaphor. Because I think Black history is similar to gems because our history is filled with oppression and tough conditions similar to how gems are formed. And we just really need to unearth them, so people can really get the picture."