This spring, Ovell Hamilton, a professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, will guide students through a one-of-a-kind course in which black history is taught entirely through the metaverse, a 3D virtual space where people can interact. each other using avatars.

During the class, students will put on virtual reality headsets to see firsthand the brutal reality of enslaved Africans lying chained on top of each other on a slave ship and will see an enslaved person standing on the edge of the ship, facing the heartbreaking choice between life in servitude or freedom in death.

“It definitely evokes emotions of sadness,” said Morehouse sophomore Jerad Evan Young, 41, who is black and majors in film, television and emerging media studies. He virtually toured the Underground Railroad…