“[Of slave songs:] Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.”
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass ch. 2 (1845)
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged black history, music, united states history
“Wayne Shorter: (1933-2023) U.S. saxophonist and composer. Born in Newark, New Jersey, he studied at New York University, He played with Art Blakey’s group 1959-64, acting as its musical director, then joined Miles Davis’s remarkable mid-1960s group, including Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams. In 1970, he and Joe Zawinul formed Weather Report, the most significant jazz-rock ‘fusion’ band of the 1970s, with bassist Jaco Pastorius. He has written many distinctive jazz standards.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Alice (Malsenior) Walker: (b.1944) U.S. writer. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, Walker moved to Mississippi after attending Spelman and Sarah Lawrence colleges and became involved with the civil-rights movement. Her works are noted for their insightful treatment of African-American culture. Her third and most popular novel, The Color Purple (1982; Pulitzer Prize; film, 1985), depicts a black woman’s struggle for racial and sexual equality. Her later novels include The Temple of My Familiar (1989) and Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992). She has also written essays, some collected in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983); several books of poetry; short stories; and children’s books.
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
[Addendum: The Color Purple was filmed a second time, in 2023; this second film adaptation was based on the Broadway musical of The Color Purple.]
Sometime not long after I returned to New York in 2021, I attended a lecture a the New York Public Library (the main on 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, with the lions Patience and Fortitude at the front) on Arturo Schomburg. When I lived in Harlem, I walked by his namesake, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, every morning on my way to work. I also regularly stopped in to view exhibits there as well.
Therefore, Arturo Schomburg has been something of a presence in my intellectual life since 2004.
There are two biographies of Arturo Schomburg: Diasporic Blackness: The Life and Times of Arturo Schomburg, by Vanessa Valdes or Arturo Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector by Elinor Des Verney Sinette. I read the latter
One thing that I did pick up on at the lecture and in Ms Sinette’s book, however, was the existence of this article from the man himself. This is a PDF of an article “Arthur” (one thing I learned about Schomburg is that very little is known about him, including which given version of his given name he was using at any time) Schomburg wrote on Black History, “The Negro Digs Up His History.” Nota bene, please, that I have only posted the reading; next year at this time (I already have the basic structure assembled) you’ll find a fully realized lesson plan to accompany this article.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life.”
Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.
“C(yril) L(ionel) R(obert) James: (1901-1989) Trinidadian writer and political activist. As a young man he moved to Britain, where his first work, The Life of Captain Cipriani, was published in 1929. His study of Toussaint-Louverture, The Black Jacobins (1938) was a seminal work. During his first stay in the U.S. (1938-53), he became friends with Paul Robeson. Eventually deported to Britain because of his Marxism and labor activism, James wrote on cricket for the Guardian. His Beyond the Boundary (1963) mixes autobiography with commentary on politics and sports. He returned the to the U.S. in 1970 but eventually settled permanently in Britain.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“The Black child acquires two fundamental attitudes or beliefs as a result of his experiencing the British school system: a low self-image, and consequently low expectations in life. These are obtained through streaming, banding, bussing, ESN [Educationally Sub-Normal] schools, racist news media, and a white middle-class curriculum; by totally ignoring the Black child’s language, history, culture, identity. Through the choice of teaching materials, the society emphasizes who and what it thinks is important—and by implication, by omission, who and what it thinks is unimportant, infinitesimal, irrelevant. Through the belittling, ignoring, or denying of a person’s identity, one can destroy perhaps the most important aspect of a person’s personality—his sense of identity, of who he is. Without this, he will get nowhere.”
Excerpted from: Coard, Bernard. How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-Normal in the British School System: 50th Anniversary Expanded Fifth Edition. Kingston, Jamaica: McDermott Publishing, 2021.
“My father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I’m going to stay right here and have a part of it, just like you. And no fascist-minded people like you will drive me from it. Is that clear?”
Paul Robeson, Testimony before House Un-American Activities Committee.
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, social-emotional learning, united states history
“Teddy Wilson (originally Theodore Shaw) (1912-1986) U.S. pianist and bandleader, the principal pianist of the swing era. Born in Austin, Texas, he began recording as the leader of small groups in 1935. These recordings, which featured Billie Holiday, are classics of small-group swing. Wilson joined Benny Goodman’s trio in 1936. After 1940 he worked primarily as a leader of small groups or as a solo pianist, showcasing his tasteful and refined amalgam of the styles of Fats Waller, Earl Hines, and Art Tatum.”
Excerpted from: Macey, David. The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory. New York: Penguin, 2001.
Posted in Independent Practice, Quotes, Reference
Tagged black history, music, readings/research, united states history
“If you teach the Negro that he has accomplished as much good as any other race he will aspire to equality and justice without regard to race. Such an effort would upset the program of the oppressor in Africa and America. Play up before the Negro, then, his crimes and shortcomings. Let him learn and admire the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin and the Teuton. Lead the Negro to detest the man of African blood—to hate himself. The oppressor may then conquer, exploit, oppress and even annihilate the Negro by segregation without fear or trembling. With the truth hidden there will be little expression of thought to the contrary.
The American Negro has taken over an abundance of information which others have made accessible to the oppressed, but he has not yet learned to think and plan for himself as others do for themselves. Well might this race be referred to as the most docile and tractable people on earth. This merely means that when the oppressors once start the large majority of the race in the direction of serving the purposes of their traducers, the task becomes so easy in the years following that they have little trouble with the masses thus controlled. It is a most satisfactory system, and it has become so popular that European nations of foresight are sending some of their brightest minds to the United States to observe the Negro in ‘inaction’ in order to learn how to deal likewise with Negroes in their colonies. What the Negro in America has become satisfied with will be accepted as the measure or what should be allotted him elsewhere. Certain Europeans consider the ‘solution to the race problem in the United States’ one of our great achievements.”
Excerpted/Adapted from: Woodson, Carter G. The Mis-education of the Negro. Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books, 2018.
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