The Association for the Study of African American Life and History has set the 2021 Black History Month theme as The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity. In going through the school’s collection, I thought it would be interesting to share four of the Lower School assemblies, as they each present information about African American culture and history to the school family. The videos will be featured each Friday, with more of an explanation of the event.
February 5: The McIntosh County Shouters at the 1999 Black History Month Special Assembly, held in the Hamilton Room of Love Hall on February 5, 1999.
February 12: Ms. Christine King Farris reads aloud from her book, My Brother Martin, and shares stories of her childhood on Friday, February 11, 2005, as the guest speaker during the 2005 Black History Month programs.
February 19: The Young Audiences Arts for Learning organization performed “Bridges That Brought Us Together and Across” on February 27, 2001 as part of the Black History Month programs that year.
February 26: We will finish out the month with the first grade performance of the Class of 2007 on February 28, 1996. It was a devotional to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The first grade teachers were Mrs. Boggs and Ms. Ownings. The video also highlights a program performed by the newly formed Diversity Awareness Club.
Bridges That Brought Us Together and Across
In 2001, the Young Audiences organization came to the Hamilton Room in Love Hall to present an engaging and informative presentation that highlighted African Americans who made contributions to history. The performers used a mixture of both spoken words and traditional songs to inform the audience. The duo was introduced by Mr. Lee Friedman, Elementary School Principal, and Ms. Oveta Anderson, math resource teacher for grades 1-4, and faculty advisor for the high school’s Diversity Awareness Club.
The program begins with the topic of slavery, and how Africans were enslaved and brought to the Americas against their will. One of the many tasks they had to perform was the back-breaking work of picking cotton, and how they planned to escape to freedom. Some of the escaped slaves headed west, such as Mary Fields (also known as Stagecoach Mary or Black Mary). Also in the “wild wild west” were the famous cowboy Bill Pickett, as well as Mary Ellen Pleasant, known as the “mother of the California Civil Rights movement.” Nat Love was another notable African-American cowboy, a former slave whose exploits out west after the Civil War made him famous. Buffalo soldiers, named so by the Native Americans, were African-American soldiers who served on the western frontier after the Civil War.
There are also many examples of African-Americans in important roles in wars. In 1770, Crispus Attucks was the first colonist to be killed in the American Revolution at the Boston Massacre. On December 25, 1776, when George Washington crossed the Delaware, a soldier named Oliver Cromwell rode with him. On June 17, 1775, a soldier named Salem Poor was one of three dozen African Americans who fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Barzillai Lew was a soldier and a musician who served during the French and Indian War. In addition, there were over 200,000 African American soldiers in the Union Army and the Union Navy.
On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all of the slaves, although many did not find out until days, weeks, months, or even years later. In the 1800s, the Jim Crow laws were implemented, legalizing segregation. The Jim Crow laws stood on the books until 1954. Because of these laws, many traveled from the south to the larger cities during the Great Migration from 1915-1940. There were more job opportunities, better schools, and an increased quality of life than there was in the south at that time.
The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s in New York was considered to be a golden age in African American culture. The Harlem neighborhood was a cultural mecca, with writers, artists, and musicians in residence. Singers such as Ethel Waters, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Florence Mills; musicians such as W. C. Handy, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway; writers such as James Weldon Johnson (who with his brother wrote “Lift Every Voice and Sing”) and Langston Hughes; poets such as Claude McKay; actors such as Paul Robeson; choreographers and dancers such as Katherine Dunham.
The Civil Rights period from 1954-1968 included sit-ins, boycotts, freedom rides, and marches. The Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case in 1954 ruled that the classrooms could not be segregated. From December 1955 to December 1956 was the Montgomery Alabama Bus Boycott. In 1956, Alabama outlawed the NAACP organization. In 1960, sit-ins were organized all over the south, aiming to end segregation in eating areas in restaurants and cafeterias. In June 1963, civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated, and in August 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. marches on Washington, D.C. In September 1963, four young girls were killed in a bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1964 were race riots in larger cities in the north, and in that same year, Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1965, thousands of people marched for five days from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand their voting rights. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
In the 1970s, there were prominent business leaders such as George E. Johnson, Jr., Joseph W. Goodloe, A. G. Gaston, and John H. Johnson. In government, leaders included Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, Maynard Jackson, and Shirley Chisholm. Prominent figures in literature and performing arts include writers Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, and Nikki Giovanni, as well as choreographers/dancers such as Alvin Ailey and Arthur Mitchell; actors such as James Earl Jones and Cleavon Little, and actress Diahann Carroll. In sports, athletes such as Hank Aaron, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Robert Lee Elder, and Carl Lewis earned their place in history.
One request we have from readers is to help us identify the performers from Young Audiences. The audio near the beginning of the video is hard to hear, so any assistance would be appreciated.
The School Archivist 