The debate about how slavery as a central issue in American history should be presented in history education often forces teachers and students alike to wrestle with how their contemporary positionality is reflected in classroom subject matter that cannot, and should not, be avoided. This article is an overview of the historiography of resistance within American slavery and is intended as a pedagogical tool for K-12 history teachers who sense that there is something wrong with presenting enslaved people merely as passive victims, and yet do not know where to find a better history. This work is framed by revisionist ontology and situated in scholarship on ways history education has often diminished black personhood in its standard narratives. To this end, the scholarship across three sites of resistance are traced: labor, family, and culture. Throughout, it is emphasized that integrating these themes into the history classroom requires striking a delicate balance between oppression and agency in order to avoid the danger of utilizing this history as a means of denial rather than truth-telling. The author concludes by briefly offering implications for classroom practice.