“That’s our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.”
Malcolm X, Speech at rally of Organization of Afro-American Unity, New York, N.Y., 28 June 1964
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, readings/research, united states history
Here, on a Wednesday morning, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Frederick Douglass. I don’t think this document requires much explanation or rationalization for use in your classroom.
If you find typos in this document, 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.
Thankfully, the literature on the Harlem Renaissance is deep and wide. That said, I highly recommend historian David Levering Lewis’s When Harlem Was in Vogue as one of the standouts of what is generally a distinguished body of literature. For a more general reference book, The Black New Yorkers (as well, presumably, as its companion volume, The Black Washingtonians, with which I am less familiar) is also excellent.
For my part, I offer this Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Harlem Renaissance, which is, as these things are, a short introduction to the topic.
If you find typos in this document, 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.
“Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Speech, Nashville Tennessee, 27 December 1962
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, readings/research, united states history
“American astronomer, compiler of almanacs, and inventor. He was born a free black in Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland, and owned a farm near Baltimore. He taught himself astronomy and mathematics and began astronomical calculations in 1773. He accurately predicted a solar eclipse in 1789. In 1790 he was appointed to the commission that surveyed the site for Washington, D.C. From 1791 to 1802 he published annual almanacs; he sent an early copy to Thomas Jefferson to counter a contention that blacks were intellectually inferior. He also wrote essays denouncing slavery and war.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged black history, numeracy, readings/research, science literacy, united states history
“A two-part essay by American writer James Baldwin. Variously employing biblical allusions, the rhapsodic rhetorical style of the black pulpit, as well as his own personal ‘witness’ Baldwin admonishes America to ‘end the racial nightmare.’ The first essay, ‘My Dungeon Shook,’ is a letter to his nephew James, on the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In ‘Down at the Cross,’ Baldwin describes growing up in Harlem, his experiences with the Nation of Islam, and offers a warning and a plea for white and black American to work together.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Is there ever a time when it isn’t appropriate to raise students’ consciousness about Racism? It remains a patent blot on the American consciousness and landscape, after all. I’d like to think that this Cultural Literacy worksheet on racism will shed some light on this grave problem, even if only briefly.
If you find typos in this document, 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.
“Around the age of 5, 6, or 7…. It comes off as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing Indians and, although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.”
James Baldwin, Speech at Cambridge Union, Cambridge, England, 17 February 1965
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Have you seen director Raoul Peck’s documentary about James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro yet? If not, I cannot recommend this film highly enough. I have always been a film buff, so I have greatly appreciated the arrival, in the last ten or fifteen years, of a bumper crop of engaged, talented documentarians. Indeed, most evenings I watch a documentary of some sort, so I like to think I know something about the form. If “I Am Not Your Negro” doesn’t represent formal perfection, then I don’t know what does.
Also, obviously, it showcases one of the most important public intellectuals and writers of my lifetime. I’ll simply say that The Fire Next Time was one of those books that radically altered the way I perceive the world, and I am grateful to it for that.
This week’s Text is a reading on James Baldwin with a comprehension sheet to accompany it. You might also find useful (and you can get lots more of these from the generous people at Education World) this Everyday Edit on the U.S.-Africa Capital Connection.
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.
“I am an invisible man…. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man prologue (1952)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged black history, fiction/literature, united states history
 | Klausbernd on Aestheticism |
 | A Measurement Conver… on An Elegantly Simple Cooking Co… |
| A Measurement Conver… on The Weekly Text, October 25, 2… |
 | markstextterminal on Cree |
 | panzer046a139293db on Cree |
You must be logged in to post a comment.