Black History Month - Learning and Growing

[jaygee]

Happy Black History Month!

The amazing Rachel Cargle is doing a free educational series to celebrate Black History Month on IG. It a daily prompt about a topic or person to learn about. I thought I would share them here and we can discuss.

Also it would be great to discuss what conversations and learnings you are having with your children to honor this month.

ETA: here is the intro post from Ms Cargle:

http://instagram.com/p/B78k6qEHQXd

[jaygee]

Day 1 Prompt:

http://instagram.com/p/B8BUSGPHegN

[Ls2012]

This is wonderful! Thanks for sharing it jaygee.

[jaygee]

Two interesting resources I found are:

1) The Middle Passage Project website. I liked the video at the bottom of the home page that showed a ceremony in Boston. One of the first speakers talked about how we still haven’t reached the point in time where emancipation has been as long as slavery.

www.middlepassageproject.org/

2) this NY Times article about the 2017 installation of markers in Camden New Jersey. Some good quotes by Senator Booker about the significance.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/nyregion/slavery-memorial-marker-camden-nj.amp.html

“ The ceremony was organized by the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers project, which has been working for seven years to place markers at locations where Africans arrived in the United States and were sold into bondage. So far, 50 locations have been identified from Maine to Texas, according to the group. Of those, markers have been installed at 17 sites.”

“ The markers here are the first to be placed by the Middle Passage project in New Jersey, which was the last state in the North to emancipate slaves before the Civil War. More than 800 slaves arrived along the Camden waterfront, according to the Camden County Historical Society, and New Jersey at one point had as many as 12,000 slaves. The first marker was placed at a site formerly known as Cooper’s Ferry.”

“ Mr. Booker said the markers in Camden were especially important “at a time when people are trying to bring about revisionist history, they’re trying to take treasonous traitors and elevate them to high pedestals in our time, and try and tell a different truth — a lie — about our past.””

[jaygee]

For my personal reflection I am still at the point of relearning true history where I am still astounded by the numbers and magnitude of slavery and the slave trade. The way I was taught in school was that it was a period of time and then it ended. Fits in a tidy, distant box. But now learning more and finding out the staggering numbers 12 million people over 250 years and being able to have perspective on that as an adult it’s just unreal. This is the type of trauma that is carried down from generations. This can’t be washed away as the past. It’s recent history and it’s still impacting everyone even if we didn’t participate in it. I want to be much more intentional with how I think of and speak of slavery, especially in regards to American history.

[punker1212]

Langston Hughes’ bday! I’m always looking for resources to share with my kids:

kidworldcitizen.org/langston-hughes-poet-activist-leader-of-the-harlem-renaissance/

[jaygee]

Feb 1, 2020 10:53:26 GMT -6 punker1212 said:

Langston Hughes’ bday! I’m always looking for resources to share with my kids:

kidworldcitizen.org/langston-hughes-poet-activist-leader-of-the-harlem-renaissance/

Fantastic. I have never been a huge poetry fan (uncultured I know) but I remember the only poems I ever liked in school where Langston Hughes poems. Of course I didn’t fully understand them but they always felt more alive to me.

[layloo]

The Google Doodle today is a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Woolworth sit-ins in Greensboro, NC.

And they have a cool link about things about black history that have been searched.

[dc2london]

Feb 1, 2020 10:50:45 GMT -6 jaygee said:

For my personal reflection I am still at the point of relearning true history where I am still astounded by the numbers and magnitude of slavery and the slave trade. The way I was taught in school was that it was a period of time and then it ended. Fits in a tidy, distant box. But now learning more and finding out the staggering numbers 12 million people over 250 years and being able to have perspective on that as an adult it’s just unreal. This is the type of trauma that is carried down from generations. This can’t be washed away as the past. It’s recent history and it’s still impacting everyone even if we didn’t participate in it. I want to be much more intentional with how I think of and speak of slavery, especially in regards to American history.

This is so true. White children have always been taught that slavery was abolished and that was the end of slavery. We need to teach our children about the ongoing, multigenerational effects of slavery that persist today.

[hawkeye2015]

So far ds(4) and I have read Henry's Freedom Box, I Am Rosa Parks, and I Am Abraham Lincoln. Slavery seems to go a bit over ds's head but the Civil Rights movement he seems to get much better. Our library has Counting on Katherine so we're going to read that this week, he is very space obsessed so I think that will go over well.

[jaygee]

Day 2 prompt:

http://instagram.com/p/B8EM1HqHKM7

[jaygee]

Re: teaching kids about difficult topics in Black/American history:

Also this teacher is one of my favorite follows on IG.

http://instagram.com/p/B8EgtTth3an

[jaygee]

Here is a source that gives the history of Igbo landing:

storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/aeef9b79aba24023b3772dede4d46d3e

While a historical event, the story of the mass suicide at Igbo Landing morphed in to mythology as it was passed down and has inspired works of art from Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon to portions of Beyoncé’s Lemonade. Here is an interesting article that talks specifically about the Beyonce video that evokes this story:

www.q-zine.org/non-fiction/beyonces-love-drought-video-slavery-and-the-story-of-igbo-landing/

[jaygee]

Once again I’m humbled by never having heard this piece of history. It was one of (if not THE) first freedom marches. An act of resistance so big and unfathomable. The empath in me goes two places upon reading this story - (1) reeling from the idea that such a large group of people unanimously decided that taking their own lives was preferable to living one more day as enslaved people - truly shows the magnitude of suffering. (2) the hopes and dreams played out in the folklore version of this story where the people turned into birds and flew back home to Africa is heartbreaking. A wish for the soul to carry one through.

[jaygee]

Day 3 prompt

http://instagram.com/p/B8G70nFHpz9

[athn64]

werehistory.org/the-compensated-emancipation-act-of-1862/


"A second Compensation Act, which Lincoln signed into law on July 12, 1862, allowed former slaves to petition for reimbursement for their own value, so long as their former masters had not already been compensated."

So freed blacks could get money for their free labor only if their former white masters hadn't already. I hadn't heard of this act before.

[jkjacq]

The Yellowhammer Fund on FB is also highlighting 'one woman, queer or non-binary black hero' each day in Feb, if you follow them.

[jaygee]

Day 4 prompt. While we wait for Iowa to pull it together, let’s learn!

http://instagram.com/p/B8JO54SHDVJ

[jaygee]

I also thought this was an interesting piece on explaining the reason behind Black history month and how it got started to kids.

http://instagram.com/p/B8Jg3CUhUOd

[athn64]

Feb 4, 2020 11:10:03 GMT -6 jaygee said:

Day 4 prompt. While we wait for Iowa to pull it together, let’s learn!

http://instagr.am/p/B8JO54SHDVJ

This is interesting: "1 in 4 cowboys was black". They have definitely white washed that history in western movies and tv shows. 

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lesser-known-history-african-american-cowboys-180962144/

[jaygee]

Day 5 prompt:

http://instagram.com/p/B8MBBFqHOfD

[Ls2012]

My god, white people suck. Thanks for these prompts again, jaygee.

Michael Harriot has an informative thread on Twitter today, too. I continue to be appalled by the totality of what isn't taught in schools.

[oreobitsy]

I found this when I googled today's prompt:
www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/hbo-2019/the-massacre-of-black-wall-street/3217/

Just a warning, the post itself was sponsored and paid for by HBO's The Watchmen, but the article itself was informative.

[jaygee]

Sorry, I’m late today. Day 6 prompt.

http://instagram.com/p/B8OWq1xHjVg

[jaygee]

Day 7 prompt:

http://instagram.com/p/B8RI2JPHaqx

[jaygee]

Here are the lyrics:

www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/black-authors-spoken-word-poetry/lift-every-voice-and-sing/

And this article has more info on the meaning behind it and the pivotal role it has played.

www.npr.org/2018/08/16/638324920/american-anthem-lift-every-voice-and-sing-black-national-anthem

[jaygee]

Day 8 prompt:

http://instagram.com/p/B8T7oufnJ1Y

[jaygee]

Feb 4, 2020 12:00:36 GMT -6 athn64 said:

Feb 4, 2020 11:10:03 GMT -6 jaygee said:

Day 4 prompt. While we wait for Iowa to pull it together, let’s learn!

http://instagr.am/p/B8JO54SHDVJ

This is interesting: "1 in 4 cowboys was black". They have definitely white washed that history in western movies and tv shows. 

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lesser-known-history-african-american-cowboys-180962144/

I’m doing some catch up this morning and this article was really good. Thanks for the link.

[jaygee]

This article is a good summary of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade and the impact it had.

www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-children-of-birmingham-changed-the-civil-rights-movement?ref=scroll

[athn64]

Feb 8, 2020 10:46:22 GMT -6 jaygee said:

Day 8 prompt:

http://instagr.am/p/B8T7oufnJ1Y

Dd1 has a book about this called "The Youngest Marcher". It's age appropriate