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Black history lessons bring global experience to classroom
Wednesday, March 07, 2001 By Edward G. Robinson III, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
First of a series
In 1926, Carter G. Woodson, disconcerted yet confident, established the prototype for what is now known as Black History Month.
At that time, the observation week of contributions by blacks was given the name Negro History Week by the Harvard-educated historian, who said he saw a frustrating dearth of material written about blacks in school textbooks.
As an educator, Woodson wanted to elevate the perception of blacks in the public eye. He dedicated his life to that effort.
Fifty-one years after his death in 1950, the week has long since been stretched to four, and students at every grade level across the country have at some point learned about the contributions of people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or newly appointed Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
Schools in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh celebrated Black History Month in February as well, with a variety of classroom lessons, programs and activities.
There was a schoolwide project completed on King at Bradford Woods Elementary School that included a timeline and research paper. There were numerous assemblies featuring local historians and musicians. Some schools announced black history facts each morning.
Administrators and teachers from the districts say integration of black history into the curriculum has steadily improved but admit they have a long way to go before it's fully incorporated.
They also say including diversity throughout the curriculum, not just at dedicated times such as Black History Month, is imperative to providing a primarily white student population with a well-rounded education.
Dr. Diane Hernon Chavis, director of the YWCA Center for Race Relations and Anti-Racism Training, said diversity in the curriculum teaches students there are valuable viewpoints other than "Eurocentric" ones.
"It's hard for me to see how this could be a negative," she said. "You're enlarging a student's perspective. You're really creating a more realistic picture of the global society."
The Post-Gazette spent February visiting classrooms in the North to see what some students are learning about black history. The lessons and information changed by school district, grade level, teacher and course.
This week, we take a glimpse into a Quaker Valley Middle School classroom. A look into other classrooms will follow in the next two weeks.
The Gold Cadillac
It's 8:45 a.m., and hands are raised high, better to get the attention of sixth-grade social studies teacher Donna Bell.
Bell has begun today's lesson on a short story titled "The Gold Cadillac."
She has explained how the Constitution was amended to free African-American slaves after the Civil War. She has touched on the negative meaning of Jim Crow laws in the South, mentioning how some thought they overrode the Constitution.
Whom does the Constitution protect, she asks? Everyone. But not always, she explains.
She then asks: What's your favorite restaurant? Have you ever stayed in a hotel? Does your family have a new car?
The questions open discussion of the story about a black family who travels from Toledo, Ohio, south to Mississippi in a brand new, gold-colored, 1950 Cadillac Coupe deVille.
The father has traded his Mercury for a jazzier car and wants to show his parents in the South. The two daughters, about the same age as the 12-year-olds in the class, marvel at the new ride. The mother frets the car will bring unwanted attention.
In fact, all the adults making the trip worry. The family decides the safest way to travel is in a caravan, preparing ample food for the long trip.
Why do the parents pack food? Why does the entire family travel together for safety? Bell asks. The pupils don't answer but appear to be thinking hard. Bell explains that blacks were banned from hotels and restaurants.
The story continues with police officers in Mississippi calling the father "boy," searching and arresting him. He's charged with speeding after a three-hour wait in jail.
Why is the father so passive, the pupils wonder? Why doesn't he do something?
"They could do something to his family," avoice chimes in.
The story ends with the father trading the Cadillac for an older Ford, a sounder choice to keep the family safe, the story said.
Bell continues with a story about traveling to Alabama with her family in 1955, when she herself was 12 years old.
She recalls standing in line at a department store with her brother, directly behind an elderly black woman. A white store clerk reprimanded them for allowing the woman to be ahead of them in line, and told them to move up. Bell, who is from Pittsburgh, tells how the experience contradicted her parent's instructions to treat everyone fairly, especially their elders. The incident shocked her, she says.
She recalled there were "White Only" and "Colored Only" signs hanging over water fountains and that she almost drank from the wrong one.
Bell has taught this story, written by Mildred D. Taylor, for seven years; it has been in the literature textbook for four years. She's taught elementary school for 25 years and said she doesn't sugarcoat history for pupils.
She likes the story because it is age-appropriate -- pupils can understand the fear and confusion the two girls must have experienced riding in the car. Combined with her story, the lesson teaches them to have an open mind, she said.
"You were given a brain, use it to be fair," she tells her class.
Buzz. The class is over.
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