Black History Month

 

(Memories of and Research on Black History Month)

*

FROM WIKIPEDIA:  "The precursor to Black History Month was created in 1926 in the United States, when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) announced the second week of February to be "Negro History Week".^[8] This week was chosen because it coincided with the birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12 and that of Frederick Douglass on February 14, both of which Black communities had celebrated since the late 19th century.^[8] For example, in January 1897, school teacher Mary Church Terrell persuaded the Washington, D.C. school board to set aside the afternoon of Douglass's birthday as Douglass Day to teach about his life and work in the city's segregated public schools."

*

I grew up in a little white upstate NY town, and graduated HS in 1969, the same year that Kent State University proposed the week commemoration of Black History be expanded into a full month.  I had not heard of it. According to Wikipedia, Kent State first observed African American History month in February 1970. 

What I knew in 1970 was that President Nixon had just expanded the Vietnam war actions into Cambodia, and we were protesting at campuses across the USA. On May 5^th the Ohio National Guard shot 70 bullets into an anti-war protest at Kent State.  This massacre, and others like it, led to the major anti-war protests in DC later that year. 

Now I know that "on May 14, ten days after the Kent State shootings, two students were killed (and 12 wounded) by police at Jackson State University, a historically black university, in Jackson, Mississippi, under similar circumstances – the Jackson State killings – but that event did not arouse the same nationwide attention as the Kent State shootings" (Wikipedia).

It got the attention of Black students where I was, though I didn't know why.  I was fortunate to be at Clark University in Worcester, MA, where the strong presence of the Black Student Union after sit-ins in 1968 and 1970, made me want to know more of Black literature and arts, made me want to know more of the experience that students of color brought to campus.

*

Hey Susan, you are going back too far!  The theme of the 2024 Black History month is African American peoples and the Arts! 

Write about the storyteller and anthropologist Zora Neal Hurston and Ruby Dee, the famous actress who played her in the play “My Name is Zora.”

Write about the amazing performances of students in ACTSO—the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO), informally named the "Olympics of the Mind," a youth program of the NAACP "designed to recruit, stimulate, improve and encourage high academic and cultural achievement among African American high school students."  Write about how much you learned about the excellence parents expected of their children fully on display here.

*

Write about what got you into the study and practice of theatre, the 1976 production of Ntozake Shange’s For Color Girls at the Booth Theatre on Broadway.  Oh, that was a revelation!  “an amazingly beautiful insistent loving spirit.  The play was a choreo-poem about the troubled lives of Black women, but in performance the actresses' powerful presence contrasted so radically with the poverty and pain portrayed, that it showed what could and should be true”—and was true.   Black lives were powerful.  Black woman are powerful.  Let Ntozake Shange and Audre Lorde and Sweet Honey in the Rock portray that, but you live with it.

*

Stop name dropping, Susan.  This is supposed to be a creative writing about Black History Month.

But I never celebrated Black History month! 

By the time school authorities demanded that I provide the band width in my HS English classroom, the works of people of color were so thoroughly integrated into my curriculum, there was little more that I could do but acknowledge the month and encourage projects for students to focus on during the month.  I asked students to write about what African American history and cultural material they were aware of, and what they liked, and why.  I made both informal and formal writing so they could share their feelings as well as focus on something they learned—or wish they learned as part of the celebration.  We moved from writing into oral reports so the students could teach the class.  Group projects included opportunities for music, film, sports, photography, and other research, as well as alternative writings like interviews, poetry, plays, debates, and performances.

Was this successful?

More or less, for most, for some.  There were few protests by white students.  Many students felt that there was too much focus on writing in my classroom, and that other English teachers would be easier.  I also noticed that a few students held themselves back so that they wouldn’t look too interested in learning—at least that’s how I interpreted it.  And there were a few who came after school to work with me privately.

But the student work made me love the possibilities of Black History Month.  What better to learn in a HS English Class than myriad ways to approach what you want to say?

 *

And then, the school itself was not satisfied.  Before I retired, I was told that I needed to use available on-line curricula, that my students weren’t on pace with other students in the city.  This, of course, was the purpose of the core curriculum.  In my defense, I must say that when I taught 11^th grade English, we always made AYP.  My students could think, and they mastered communication skills. 

*

Susan, you’re off topic again.  That used to bother your students a lot!    OK.  But I don’t want to talk about that.

*

Let’s talk about this community at Simpson House, and how even after only 2 months, you are impressed with the great variety of offerings.  And, really, there are few offerings, but within them is a wonderful opportunity each to share with each.  It makes me happy.

AND maybe I can end with a poem:

Black History Month
 
This year in Philadelphia,
Black History Month feels like Spring
bursting forth all at once.  (Maybe
because writing focuses it,
maybe because Imbolc, the
Cross Quarter Day between Winter
Solstice and Spring Equinox
grounds it.)  Light pours in as we turn
toward the sun, hear our hearts drum, and
breathe in our love for each other. 
There is so much to learn.  Learning
is a joy, is the joy, as colon-
ialism fades ‘round the world.
Death and destruction mars the skin
of earth, but deep down seeds open,
and green shoots insist on being born.
We may yet overcome.  Our hearts
are too full to die.  We stand up
to see better what we have missed
and yearned for—full representation
here and now.  We are the green shoots
ripening near to the surface
of our world, and soon the reversal
will be complete.  What was silent
speaks.  What was invisible appears.
Now real progress can begin.

#

So, I rewrote this.  Too much of what I had written required more story.  Now, reading this rewrite, I wish it was less about me and more about the shows or the children.  I've got to wok on that even in my poetry!

The Rewrite:

Thinking about Black History month makes me want to focus this writing on education—mine as well as others.  I worry about African American History Month because of new laws in states like Florida that reject the curriculum proposed in the 1619 Project launched in August 2019.   The curriculum adds the legacy of slavery to other approaches to African American History.  To me, it seems right to acknowledge and include ongoing struggles for survival to the celebration of accomplishments and achievements of African American people.

I grew up in a little white upstate NY rural town, and graduated HS in 1969, the same year that Kent State University proposed the week-long commemoration of Black History be expanded into a full month.  Since the 19^th century, African American communities had celebrated African American history especially during the February week containing both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass’s birthdays.  But I had not heard of it.  I didn’t know about Frederick Douglass.  Nor did I know that Ohio’s Kent State held the first month long celebration in 1970, and that other states adopted it by 1976 when President Gerald Ford recognized it’s observance. 

What occupied my mind in 1970 was that President Nixon had just expanded the Vietnam war actions into Cambodia, and we were protesting at campuses across the USA.  On May 5^th the Ohio National Guard shot 70 bullets into an anti-war protest at Kent State University.  This massacre, and others like it, led to the major anti-war protests in DC later that year.   One of the others was “on May 14, ten days after the Kent State shootings, when two students were killed (and 12 wounded) by police at Jackson State University, a historically black university, in Jackson, Mississippi, under similar circumstances – the Jackson State killings.  But that event did not arouse the same nationwide attention as the Kent State shootings" (Wikipedia).

It got the attention of Black students where I was, however, though they had to tell me why it was important.  I was fortunate to be at Clark University in Worcester, MA, where the strong presence of the Black Student Union after sit-ins in 1968 and 1969, made students like me want to know more of Black literature and arts, made me want to know more of the experience that students of color brought to campus.

*

That was the beginning of mmy life-long education in issues that engaged my Black peers.  My college majors were English, theatre and education, and in each of those areas, I tried to break the white exclusivity and exceptionalism I had absorbed as a child. 

During the next 25 years, I was aware of Black History month but made no attempt to participate.

Fast forward to the year 2001, when I accepted a job teaching HS English in the Philadelphia Public schools.  By the time school authorities told me to provide a focus on Black literature for Black History Month, the works of people of color were so thoroughly integrated into my curriculum, there was little more that I could do.  Instead of adding more literature, I acknowledged the month and assigned students to work in group and solo projects.  Students wrote about what African American history and cultural material they were aware of, and what they liked, and why.  Informal as well as formal writing allowed students to share their feelings as well as to focus on something they learned—or wish they learned.  We moved from writing into oral reports so the students could teach the class.  Group projects included opportunities for music, film, sports, photography, and other research, as well as alternative writings like interviews, poetry, plays, debates, and performances.

Was this a successful approach to African History Month?

More or less, for most.  There were few protests by white students, though some of their parents complained to the principal that I was teaching social studies instead of English.   Many students felt that there was too much focus on writing in my classroom, and that other English teachers would be easier.  A few students held themselves back so that they wouldn’t look too interested in learning.  And there were a few who came after school to work with me privately.  But the student work—both process and product—made me love the possibilities of Black History Month.  What better to learn in a HS English Class than myriad ways to approach and communicate what you want to say?

 *

But the school itself was not satisfied with this approach.  I did not control the material not student voices.  I was told that I needed to use available on-line curricula, that my students weren’t on pace with other students in the city.  This, of course, was the purpose of the core curriculum.  In my defense, I must say that when I taught 11^th grade English, we always made AYP.  My students could think, and they mastered communication skills. 

I’d like to end with a poem that grew from my delight at the Black History offerings here at Simpson House:

 

Black History Month
 
This year in Philadelphia,
Black History Month feels like Spring
bursting forth all at once.  (Maybe
because writing focuses it,
maybe because Imbolc, the
Cross Quarter Day between Winter
Solstice and Spring Equinox
grounds it.)  Light pours in as we turn
toward the sun, hear our hearts drum, and
breathe in our love for each other. 
There is so much to learn.  Learning
is a joy, is the joy, as colon-
ialism fades ‘round the world.
Death and destruction mars the skin
of earth, but deep down seeds open,
and green shoots insist on being born.
We may yet overcome.  Our hearts
are too full to die.  We stand up
to see better what we have missed
and yearned for—full representation
here and now.  We are the green shoots
ripening near to the surface
of our world, and soon the reversal
will be complete.  What was silent
speaks.  What was invisible appears.
Now real progress can begin.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast