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Black History
Activities
Elementary | Middle | High | AllElementary School
Baobab: The Tree of LifeAge/Grade Level or Audience: Elementary school children, scouts, 4-H, or religious schools.
Description: Describe to students the importance of the baobab tree to Africans.
Procedure: Read aloud a book about the baobab or monkey-bread tree. Point out the difference between biological facts and legends about the tree. Emphasize these facts:
- The baobab is one of the world's oldest plants.
- It can live as long as a thousand years.
- It can grow sixty feet high, forty feet wide, and ten feet thick.
- It is sometimes called the upside-down tree because, when the leaves fall, its stunted limbs, protruding from a grotesquely thickened trunk, look like roots pointing at the sky.
- The baobab is a succulent plant so soft that a bullet can pass through it.
- Its spongy inner tissue stores water to help it survive drought.
- The tree produces a gourd-like fruit hanging from long twigs.
- The baobab's ability to adapt to changes in the environment accounts for its long life.
Sources:
Attenborough, David, Atlas of the Living World, Houghton Mifflin, 1989.
Bash, Barbara, Tree of Life: The World of the African Baobab, Little, Brown, 1989.
Cochrane, Jennifer, Trees of the Tropics, Steck-Vaughn, 1990.
Hunter, Bobbi Dooley, The Legend of the African Bao-Bab Tree, Africa World Press, 1995.
Alternative Applications: Explain why Africans revere the gnarled baobab and its role in the African ecosystem. Mention these facts:
- The baobab is a nesting place for birds, such as the yellow-collared lovebird, mosque swallow, orange-billed parrot, lilac-breasted roller, redheaded buffalo weaver, honey guide bird, pygmy falcon, superb starling, and yellow-billed hornbill.
- Insects make their homes in the bark, limbs, and leaves of the baobab.
- Bats pollinate the baobab's flowers.
- Natives pick the leaves and cook them like spinach.
- Elephants eat the smooth, glossy purplish-gray bark.
- Waxy flowers turn into firm-shelled fruit, which can be cracked and eaten.
- Parts of the tree are used for soap, weaving, drinks, fertilizer, packaging, drinking cups, musical instruments, rope, and candy.
- The spongy wood is light enough to make fishing floats, canoes, and housing material.
- As a medicine, the baobab is used to boost the immune system and to curre sores, malaria, dysentery, fever, earache, and kidney infection.
- The acid in the baobab nut is used to curdle milk or harden rubber.
- A burning solution of baobab pulp rids animals of insect pests.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Kindergarten or elementary school geography classes.
Description: Organize games of bean bag toss on an oversized map of Africa.
Procedure: Outline a color-coded map of Africa approximately eight feet long on an asphalt or concrete playground. Color code the countries with chalk or paint. To protect the map from rain damage, spray with a fixative, such as polyurethane or water seal. This game could also be drawn on a tarp or piece of canvas and rolled up for storage, then played in a gymnasium, hallway, community center, church activities room, or neighborhood street festival.
Vary rules with each use. Have students toss bean bags onto the map or play variations of hopscotch. For example:
- Score points only for bags that land on a particular country or island, such as Benin, Comoros, Principe, Sao Tomé, or Mali. The smaller the country or island, the greater the number of points.
- Have students name the country they are aiming for before tossing bean bags. If they are successful, they win points.
- Have students continue tossing so long as they hit the countries they name beforehand. When the bean bag lands on another country, the turn passes to another player.
- Have students hop on one foot onto a series of countries without touching borders. In order to win points, they must call out the name of the country they land on.
- Have students name the capital of the nation they land on.
Sources:
Computer software such as Data Disc International's World Data or MECC's World Geography.
Adams, W. M., The Physical Geography of Africa, Oxford University Press, 1996.
Africa: A Lonely Planet Shoestring Guide, Lonely Planet, 1995.
Africa Inspirer (CD-ROM), Tom Snyder Productions.
"Africa Online," http://www.africaonline.com.
Binns, Tony, The People and Environment in Africa, John Wiley and Sons, 1995.
Chadwick, Douglas H., "A Place for Parks in the New South Africa," National Geographic, July 1996, 2-41.
Collins Nations of the World Atlas, HarperCollins, 1996.
Demko, George J., Why in the World Adventures in Geography, Anchor Books, 1992.
Halliburton, Warren J., and Kathilyn Solomon Probosz, African Landscapes, Crestwood House, 1993.
Hammond New Century World Atlas, Hammond, 1996.
Jeunesse, Gallimard, Atlas of Countries, Cartwheel Books, 1996.
Labi, Esther, Pockets World Atlas, Dorling Kindersley, 1995.
Alternative Applications: Extend the use of the oversized African map with a whole world map covering an entire asphalt or concrete playground. Organize a PTA committee or other volunteers to lay out continents and color code countries. Lead students in comparative studies of Africa with other nations. For example:
- Use small steps to measure the Nile, Niger, Limpopo, or Congo river. Compare the length with that of the Amazon, Yalu, or Missouri river.
- Blindfold players and have them hop to a stopping point on a continent, country, or island populated primarily by black people, such as Jamaica, Haiti, Zaire, Barbados, or Guiana.
- Estimate, then walk the distance from Africa west to Brazil and east to India. Contrast the difference in numbers of steps.
- Name the countries directly north of Africa and the languages spoken in each, such as French in France, Greek in Greece, Italian in Italy and Sicily, Turkish in Turkey, and Spanish in Spain.
- Play follow-the-leader by pretending to fly over the whole world. Name countries in each continent where you intend to land.
Originator: Gary Carey, teacher, editor, and writer, Lincoln, Nebraska.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Elementary school students.
Description: Create a variety of hand-lettered bookmarks featuring quotations by Martin Luther King, Jr., Maya Angelou, Jesse Jackson, Barbara Jordan, Sammy Davis, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Faye Wattleton, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and other black notables.
Procedure: Have students use yardsticks to mark large sheets of tagboard or construction paper in 1" x 5" rectangles and inscribe short, memorable quotations on each. Suggested lines include these by Martin Luther King, Jr.:
- Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
- Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time.
- He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
- Our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America.
- Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
After decorating with drawings, stickers, or pictures cut from magazines, have students coat the tagboard with sheets of clear stick-on plastic or laminate by machine. Cut the final page with scissors or paper cutter. Use bookmarks as banquet favors, rewards for reading or class attendance, and gifts to handicapped children and retirement home dwellers.
Sources:
Bell, Janet Cheatham, Famous Black Quotations and Some Not So Famous, Sabayt Publications, 1986.
King, Anita, ed., Quotations in Black, Greenwood Press, 1981.
Alternative Applications: Paperclip bookmark on a classroom clothesline made of twine. Or attach tassels to markers through a hole punched in one end and distribute as tray markers in hospitals, cafeterias, or restaurants.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Elementary, middle school, and high school history classes; historical societies; civic clubs.
Description: Generate capsule biographies of great African-American leaders.
Procedure: Have pairs of students pose as interviewers and great civil rights leaders, such as these:
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Compose question-and-answer sessions between pairs of participants. Concentrate on the theme of progress and liberation for black people.
Sources:
Films such as An Amazing Grace (1974), Eyes on the Prize (1986), and Malcolm X (1992).
"Civil Rights Heroes Who Were Killed in Fight to Help Blacks Gain Right to Vote," Jet, October 26, 1992, pp. 10-11, 16.
Hunter-Gault, Charlayne, In My Place, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992.
Lanker, Brian, I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, 1989.
Meriwether, Louise, Don't Ride the Bus on Monday: The Rosa Parks Story, Prentice-Hall, 1973.
Alternative Applications: Create a newspaper, creative writing magazine, or daily public address program featuring information about African-American freedom fighters. Over individual strength and power, emphasize the importance of education, beliefs, courage, determination, religious faith, cooperation, and nonviolent collective action, as demonstrated by Malcolm X, Faye Wattleton, Adam Clayton Powell, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Originator: Roberta Brown, teacher, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Kindergarten, elementary, and middle school science classes; scout troops; 4-H clubs.
Description: Display the names of African-American inventors alongside objects or drawings to illustrate their work.
Procedure: Arrange on a shelf or in a display case objects, drawings, or pictures cut from magazines representing the discoveries and designs of the following inventors, designers, and technologists:
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Sources:
Asante, Molefi K., Historical and Cultural Atlas of African Americans, Macmillan, 1991.
Haber, Louis, Black Pioneers of Science and Invention, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970, reprinted, 1992.
James, Portia P., The Real McCoy: African-American Invention and Innovation, 1619-1930, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
Klein, Aaron E., and Cynthia L. Klein, The Better Mousetrap: A Miscellany of Gadgets, Labor-saving Devices, and Inventions that Intrigue, Beaufort Books, 1982.
Logan, Rayford W., and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography, Norton, 1982.
Alternative Applications: Use inventors' names as subjects for individual written or oral reports or scientific studies of how mechanical devices work. Have students replicate the theory behind a particular device or treatment such as Charles Drew's blood bank, Otis Boykin's stimulator for an artificial heart, Louis Wright's neck brace, Garret Morgan's gas mask, or Percy Julian's glaucoma treatment as subjects for science fairs or computer drafting projects. Feature drawings and scientific explanations in a series of school, radio, television, or newspaper public address spots highlighting an inventor a day throughout Black History Month.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Elementary or middle school history classes.
Description: Organize a thinking game to expand student awareness of racism.
Procedure: Have students name specific changes in United States and world history that would have differed if major events had been altered. For example, what if:
- African explorers had discovered America
- Mennonite and Quaker activists had succeeded in ending slaving in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century
- the first colonial slaves seized control of New England
- Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, and Cherokee joined with slaves to overpower European settlers in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida
- Frederick Douglass had become President of the United States or a cabinet member under Abraham Lincoln
- Nelson Mandela had been martyred
- trade embargoes had ended Apartheid
- black athletes had been barred from Olympic participation in 1992
- Clarence Thomas's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court had been defeated
- Barbara Jordan had been elected Bill Clinton's vice president
- Jesse Jackson had led a United Nations team in eradicating famine in Somalia or Haiti
- Colin Powell had run for president against Bill Clinton
Sources:
Indexes such as Infotrac and Newsbank; periodicals such as Jet, Ebony, Emerge, Life, Newsweek, U S. News and World Report, Forbes, and Black Business; Internet Sources, particularly "Africa Online."
Asante, Molefi K., and Mark T. Mattson, Historical and Cultural Atlas of Africans, Macmillan, 1991.
Bache, Ellyn, The Activist's Daughter, Spinsters Ink, 1997.
Chiasson, Lloyd, ed., The Press on Trial: Crimes and Trials as Media Events, Greenwood, 1997.
Hill, Anita, Speaking Truth to Power, Doubleday, 1997.
Hornsby, Alton, Chronology of African-American History, 2nd edition Gale, 1997.
Alternative Applications: Assign students to compose a news item, tableau, interview, Website, short story, play, poem, hymn, song, movie, or dance expressing a rewritten historical event from the black point of view. For instance:
- Anita Hill's testimony before the Senate committee
- composition of "Dixie"
- Denzel Washington's role in the film Malcolm X
- establishment of a holiday honoring Christopher Columbus
- Gettysburg Address
- Jefferson Memorial
- John Newton's composition of "Amazing Grace"
- Lincoln-Douglas debates
- O. J. Simpson trial
- unveiling of the Vietnam Memorial
- Virginia Reel
- William Styron's publication of The Confessions of Nat Turner
Middle School
African CardsAge/Grade Level or Audience: Elementary or middle school art classes.
Description: Redesign a deck of playing cards on African or African American themes.
Procedure: Discuss with students the medieval European history of ordinary playing cards. Divide them into groups to replace the joker, ace, king, queen, jack, spade, heart, diamond, club, and numbers with African motifs found on Maasai, Egyptian, Zulu, Berber, Moorish, Yoruba, or Ethiopian pottery, screens, jewelry, architecture, artifacts, face painting, body tattoos, headdresses, and costumes. Select a special group to redesign the card backs for the entire pack. Suggest a map, musical instrument, profile, or flag as a unifying motif. Use the colors of Africa: red, green, yellow, black, and white.
Sources:
Beckvermit, John J., African Art Playing Card Deck, 3rd edition, U.S. Games, 1995.
Dacey, Donna, "Crafts of Many Cultures: Three Seasonal Art Projects with Global Appeal," Instructor, November-December 1991, 30-33.
Mabunda, L. Mpho, ed., The African American Almanac, 7th edition, Gale, 1997.
Müller, Claudia, The Costume Timeline: 5000 Years of Fashion History, Thames and Hudson, 1993.
Sanders, Marlita, "Dollmaking: The Celebration of a Culture," School Arts, January 1992, 27.
"Tanzania," http://www.africa.com/~venture/wildfron/wildanz.htm.
Alternative Applications: Have students extend the project to redesign these and other cultural symbols arising from sources other than Africa:
- Bayeux Tapestry
- Caribbean batik
- coins
- family crest
- I Ching cards
- Mayan calendar
- royal coat of arms
- stamps
- state seal
- tapestries
- Tarot cards
Stress important moments in black history, such as the arrival of the first slave ship to New World shores, first Juneteenth celebration, Emancipation Proclamation, or creation of the Freedman's Bureau.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school and high school business or economics class.
Description: Assemble an international money chart explaining the types of currency used in African countries.
Procedure: Assign students to work in pairs to create a money chart for Africa listing country, names of larger and smaller denominations of currency, and their international symbols. Obtain samples of the currencies from banks to affix to the chart. For instance:
| Country | Currency | Symbol |
|---|---|---|
| Ethiopia | birr, cents | E$ or EB |
| Benin | franc, centimes | Fr or F |
| Lesotho | lot, licente | — |
| Malawi | kwacha, tambala | K |
| South Africa | riyal, qursh, halala | R or SR |
| Zaire | zaire, makuta | Z |
Have students extend the chart to include other countries where the population is largely black, especially Haiti and Jamaica. Explain why travelers to these places would want to know the exchange rate before they left the United States.
Sources:
Full service banks, foreign embassies, books on currency or international banking.
Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1993.
Alternative Applications: Have students create a flexible, applicable Afro-centric monetary system for an evolving black nation. Include sketches of paper currency and coins, denominations, metals, and weight. Decorate with drawings of notables and famous events connected with the history of the country. Stress prominent female figures.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Elementary, middle school, and high school journalism, language, social studies, and writing classes.
Description: Create an "Africa in the News" bulletin board.
Procedure: Have students comb the popular press for items about Africa. Group together stories on similar topics, such as these:
- the spread of AIDS
- refugee relief efforts
- Nelson Mandela's speeches and public appearances
- literature and music by African artists
- South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission testimony
- African cooking, fashion, and hair styles
- new markets for African products, for instance woven goods and foods
- visits by world leaders and entertainers to Africa
- attempts to rescue endangered African species, such as the elephant and mountain gorilla
Have students compare articles from different sources.
Sources:
Time, Newsweek, Ebony, Jet, Emerge, Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, USA Today, and other newspapers and magazines.
Alternative Applications: Have students submit letters to the editor, political cartoons and comic strips, columns, mock interviews, feature articles, fashion sketches, recipes, children's page quizzes and games, and editorials in response to news from Africa or the Caribbean.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Elementary or middle school music classes; music societies.
Description: Acquaint participants with the African system of arranging songs into antiphonal chants.
Procedure: Hand out song sheets which depict the separation of lines into those sung by the cantor or leader and the reply of the assembly or chorus. For example:
Go Down Moses cantor: When Israel was in Egypt's land, chorus: Let my people go. cantor: Oppress'd so hard they could not stand, chorus: Let my people go. cantor: Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt Ian' Tell ole Pharaoh, chorus: Let my people go!
I Ain't Gwine Study War No More cantor: Gwine to lay down my burden, chorus: Down by the riverside, Down by the riverside, Down by the riverside. cantor: Gwine to lay down my burden, chorus: Down by the riverside. Ain't gonna study war no more.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot cantor: I looked over Jordan and what did I see, chorus: Comin' fo' to carry me home. cantor: A band of angels comin' after me, chorus: Comin' fo' to carry me home. cantor: If you get there before I do, chorus: Comin' fo' to carry me home. cantor: Tell all my friends I'm comin' too, chorus: Comin' fo' to carry me home.
Brother Rabbit cantor: Brother rabbit, brother rabbit your ears mighty long, chorus: Yes, brother possum, I b'lieve they're put on wrong, however, unison: Ev'ry little soul must shine, shine, Ev'ry little soul must shine, Rise and shine, rise and shine, rise and shine.
Wade in the Water cantor: See that ban' all dress'd in white? chorus: It look lak the childr'n of the Israelite. cantor: See that ban' all dress'd in red? chorus: It look lak the ban' that Moses led. unison: Wade in de water Wade in de water, Wade in de water. God's a-gonna trouble de water.
I'm Gonna Sing cantor: Oh, I'm a-gonna sing, chorus: Gonna sing, gonna sing, Gonna sing all along the way. cantor: One day you'll hear the trumpet sound chorus: Gonna sing all along the way. cantor: The trumpet sound the world around chorus: Gonna sing all along the way. cantor: Oh, Jordan's stream is wide and cold, chorus: Gonna sing all along the way. cantor: It chills the body but not the soul, chorus: Gonna sing all along the way.
Sources:
Videos or audio cassettes of the films Glory (1990) and the nine-part PBS series, The Civil War (1990).
Heilbut, Anthony, Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, Limelight Editions, 1997.
Merlis, Bob, and Davin Seay, Heart and Soul: A Celebration of Black Music: Style in America 1930-1975, Stewart, Tabooli and Chang, 1997.
Silverman, Jerry, Spirituals, Chelsea House, 1995.
Southern, Eileen, Music of Black America: A History, W. W. Norton & Co., 1997.
Spencer, Jon Michael, Protest and Praise: Sacred Music of Black Religion, Fortress Press, 1997.
Spirituals We Play and Sing, Bks. 1 and 2, Lillenas, 1993.
Alternative Applications: Lead a discussion of the interplay between a cantor or spokesperson and an assembly. Play a recording or videotape of these examples:
- storytelling by Mary Carter Smith, Linda Goss, Rex Ellis, Gladys Coggswell, or Doug and Frankie Quimby
- Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech"
- speeches by Jesse Jackson and Barbara Jordan
Discuss how antiphony affects American assemblies where black people follow African patterns by replying to the cantor's statements.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Elementary and middle school geography and history classes.
Description: Study the extensive history of the Nile.
Procedure: Assist students in preparing a history database, scroll, or time line of the Nile River. Include mention of earliest inhabitants, the builders of the pyramids and sphinx; colonial explorations; the removal of Abu Simbel to accommodate the building of the Aswan Dam; and more recent developments, such as the earthquake of October 1992, which destroyed much of Cairo. Have groups of students contribute segments to the overall study of the Nile, then bind the finished reports into a single scrapbook about the river's rich history.
Sources:
Brown, Leslie, Africa: A Natural History, Random House, 1965.
"Journey up the Nile," National Geographic, May 1985.
Murphy, E. Jefferson, Understanding Africa, Crowell, 1978.
Murray, Jocelyn, ed., Cultural Atlas of Africa, Facts on File, 1989.
Alternative Applications: Discuss how western fiction and nonfiction writers celebrate the Nile in their works, including William Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra and the explorer Richard Francis Burton in Goa, and the Blue Mountains and First Footsteps in East Africa.
High School
African ArcheologyAge/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school or high school history classes.
Description: Create a time line of events from ancient African cultures.
Procedure: Introduce early African civilizations and have groups of students gather facts about such African achievements and civilizations as these:
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Place their findings chronologically alongside these worldwide artistic and architectural accomplishments:
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Sources:
"African Documents," http://www.cwis.org/africa.html.
"Africa Online," http://africaonline.com.
Elleh, Nnamdi, African Architecture Evolution and Transformation, McGraw-Hill, 1996.
Gaines, Ernest J., Timetables of History, Random House, 1996.
Harley, Sharon, Timetables of African-American History: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in African-American History, Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Jackson, John G., Introduction to African Civilizations, Citadel Press, 1994.
Saccardi, Marianne, Art in Story: Teaching Art History to Elementary School Children, Linnet Books, 1997.
Trager, James, The People's Chronology, revised edition, Henry Holt, 1996.
Viney, Graham, Historic Houses of South Africa, Abbeville Press, 1997.
Alternative Applications: Have students create a hall display by placing dated information on a long horizontal scroll and illustrating these and other architectural designs:
- beehive style
- cone-topped buildings
- fortress-temple
- Moorish
- mosque
- mound
- post and lintel
- pueblo
- pyramid
- ziggurat
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school and high school history and journalism classes; civic groups; museums; libraries.
Description: Name prestigious awards given to black people.
Procedure: Make a bulletin board display listing important honors and awards given to black achievers such as these:
- Dominique Dawes's Olympic medals in gymnastics
- Ralph Ellison's receipt of the Harold Washington Award
- Multiracial Tiger Woods's victory in the Masters' Tournament
- Lorna Simpson's solo photographic exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art
- Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts's receipt of the Croix de Guerre during World War I
- Hattie McDaniel's Academy Award for best supporting actress in Gone with the Wind
- Bill Cosby's election to the Television Hall of Fame
- Gwendolyn Brooks's Guggenheim Fellowship and appointment as Illinois's poet laureate
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu, and Ralph Bunche's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize
- Alice Childress and Leontyne Price's Coretta Scott King Awards for young adult literature
- Al Jarreau's Grammy for pop-jazz music
- Katherine Dunham's receipt of the Albert Schweitzer Music Award
- Alain Locke's acceptance as a Rhodes Scholar
- Lorraine Hansberry, Lena Horne, and Ruth Brown's Tony awards
- Vanessa Williams and Suzette Charles's Miss America title
- Receipt of the Jim Thorpe Award by football star Gale Sayers, tennis player Arthur Ashe, baseball player Ernie Banks, basketball stars Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and boxers Floyd Patterson, Michael Spinks, Muhammad Ali, Kenny Norris, and Archie Moore
- Chanda Rubin and Althea Gibson's tennis championships at Wimbledon
- Alice Coachman, Florence Griffith Joyner, and Wilma Rudolph's Olympic gold medals
- Paul Robeson's Donaldson Award for his 1944 performance in Shakespeare's Othello
- Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Medgar Evers Community Service Award
- Clara Hale's Truman Award
- Duke Ellington and Marian Anderson's Presidential Medals of Freedom
- Maya Angelou and Judith Jamison's Candace Awards
- Charles Gordone, Scott Joplin, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou's receipt of Pulitzer Prizes
- Maya Angelou's being asked to write a poem to recite at President Bill Clinton's inauguration
- Augusta Savage's commission for a sculpture for the 1939 New York World's Fair
- Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, and W. E. B. DuBois's admittance to the National Institute of Arts and Letters
- Architect Paul R. Williams's receipt of the Beaux Arts Medal
- Clarice D. Reid's receipt of the Public Health Service Superior Service Award
- Cicely Tyson, Oprah Winfrey, and Suzanne de Passe's NAACP Image Awards
- The Spingarn Medal, awarded to Marian Anderson, George Washington Carver, Jackie Robinson, Ernest E. Just, Louis T. Wright, Gordon Parks, James Weldon Johnson, Daisy Bates, Charles Young, Carl Murphy, Mary Bethune, Charles W. Chestnutt, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Aretha Franklin's twenty-one gold records
Sources:
Infotrac, Newsbank, and other on-line databases and microfilm reference sources.
Current Biography, H.W. Wilson, various years.
Phelps, Shirelle, ed., Contemporary Black Biography, Gale, various volumes.
Phelps, Shirelle, ed., Who's Who among African Americans Americans, 10th ed., Gale, 1997.
Smith, Jessie Carney, ed., Notable Black American Women, Books 1 & 2, Gale, 1992 and 1996.
Terry, Ted, American Black History: Reference Manual, Myles Publishing, 1991.
Van de Sande, Wendy, ed., Black Americans Information Directory, 3rd ed., Gale, 1993.
Alternative Applications: Have history classes propose black leaders for awards, particularly for people who may have been passed over, such as heroes of the Persian Gulf War, spokespersons for AIDS research and prevention, peacekeepers, religious leaders, architects, philanthropists, or noteworthy volunteers.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: High school or college biology life science classes.
Description: Organize a study of diseases caused by fungi, protozoa, spirochetes, bacteria, and viruses carried by such organisms as the snail, rat, tsetse blood fluke, tick, louse, flea, sandfly, blackfly, and Aedes aegypti, Aedes africanus, and anopheles mosquito.
Procedure: Lead students in a study of the tropical organisms responsible these ills:
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Show on maps the yellow fever belt of Africa and the malaria belt of Haiti, Dominican Republic, Africa, and other parts of the world. Create a time line of the resurgence and eradication of major diseases through organism control. Feature these data:
- A crippled Egyptian mummy dating to 3700 B.C. may be the world's oldest evidence of polio.
- During the fifth century B.C., Hippocrates classified varieties of malaria.
- Smallpox ravaged north Africa in A.D. 647.
- european explorers brought malaria to the Western Hemisphere in the fifteenth century.
- In the 1630s, Spanish missionaries discovered that quinine, extracted from the cinchona tree, prevented malaria.
- The Dutch first infected South Africans with smallpox in 1713.
- In 1734, John Atkins described the neurological symptoms of sleeping sickness.
- From 1764 to 1778, yellow fever surfaced in Sierra Leone and Senegal.
- The importation of African slaves to Cuba in 1803 brought sleeping sickness to the Caribbean.
- In 1822, Fever J. Campbell reported that Rhodesians inoculated healthy people with smallpox to weaken the disease.
- In the 1820s, African slaves carried yellow fever to American port cities.
- Dengue from Africa first attacked the Caribbean and coastal U.S. in 1827.
- In 1852, Bilharz discovered the microbe which causes schistosomiasis.
- In 1872, Armauer G. Hansen discovered the bacteria that cause leprosy or Hansen's disease.
- In 1880, Charles Laveran discovered that protozoa infested the blood of Algerian malaria victims.
- In the 1880s, David Bruce studied the organisms which cause tetanus, sleeping sickness, and nagana.
- From 1881 to 1882, cholera swept through Egypt.
- In 1884, Loffler isolated the diphtheria microbe.
- In 1885, Pfeiffer isolated the bacteria which cause typhus and typhoid fever.
- Nigerians first suffered sleeping sickness in 1890.
- In the 1890s, Juan Finlay hypothesized that the Aedes aegypti mosquito spread yellow fever.
- In 1898, Ronald Ross of Great Britain connected the bite of female Anopheles mosquito with transmission of malaria. That same year, Italians Amico Bignami, Giuseppe Bastianelli, and Giovanni Battista Grassi made detailed studies of how the disease develops in the human body.
- Plague invaded South Africa in 1899.
- By 1900, Dr. Walter Reed proved Juan Finlay's ideas by isolating the virus that causes yellow fever.
- In 1905, William Gorgas initiated a program of insecticide spray and draining of standing pools of water to control mosquitoes.
- From 1912 to 1946, plague killed seventy percent of the residents of French West Africa.
- A London commission studied the eradication of sleeping sickness in 1925.
- From 1925 to 1936, hygienists attempted to eradicate hookworm among South African miners.
- The mortality rate for diphtheria in Egypt in 1932 was over 45 percent.
- In 1939, Paul Miller, a Swiss chemist, created DDT to control the mosquitoes that carry malaria.
- In 1940, a yellow fever epidemic afflicted the Nuba Mountains of the Sudan.
- During World War II, more effective malaria treatments replaced quinine.
- In 1947, cholera again swept Egypt.
- By 1948, sleeping sickness was virtually eradicated in the Congo.
- In 1954, yellow fever beset Trinidad.
- In 1955, the World Health Organization (WHO) attempted to conquer malaria by spraying DDT over areas infested with mosquitoes.
- In 1959, yellow fever returned to Trinidad. Also, rifampicin is discovered as a treatment for leprosy.
- In 1961, a severe yellow fever epidemic hit Ethiopia.
- In 1965, the Rockefeller Foundation signed an agreement with the government of St. Lucia to study the control of schistosomiasis by treating the sick and eradicating the disease-bearing snail.
- An outbreak of cholera in 1971 ravaged seventeen African countries.
- In 1980, researchers studied an anti-malaria vaccine.
- By 1984, WHO declared the St. Lucia method of schistosomiasis control a success.
- In the mid-1990s, Dr. Jill Seaman fought a deadly epidemic of kala-azar or visceral leishmaniasis in remote sections of the Sudan.
- Zaire reported an Ebola outbreak in 1995.
- Throughout 1996, the Ebola virus threatened Gabon.
Sources:
"CDC Travel Information," http://www.cdc.gov/travel.
Close, William T., Ebola, Ivy Books, 1995.
Dowell, William, "Rescue in Sudan," Time, Special Issue, Fall 1997, 78-82.
Hover, G. Henry, Ebola Factor, Pentland Press, 1996.
Alternative Applications: Make a similar study of Africa's most dangerous insects and reptiles, particularly the locust, scorpion, crocodile, cobra, viper, and black mamba. Determine the effects of their poisons on humans, impairment to systems, how victims are treated, and their chances of surviving attack. Note modern chemicals that ward off insects and protect swimmers from crocodiles.
Experiencing the Underground Railroad
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Middle school, high school, and college language and drama classes; religious schools.
Description: Present a pantomime of slaves escaping to the North.
Procedure: Explain to the group that a network of 3,200 people formed the Underground Railroad, which, from 1830 to 1860, led 2,500 slaves per year toward safety. Many died along the way from hunger, cold, wounds, falls, or drowning; some were recaptured and returned to slavery. Many more built new lives for themselves in free states or Canada. For the pantomine, let students select a role to dramatize, for example, bystander, farmer, doctor, minister, leader, parent, aged slave, child, patroller, slave catcher, sheriff, Quaker or Mennonite abolitionist, station master, conductor, or plantation owner. Enact the following scenes:
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Sources:
Cheek, William F., Black Resistance before the Civil War, Glencoe Press, 1970.
Evitts, William J., Captive Bodies, Free Spirits: The Story of Southern Slavery, Messner, 1985.
Himes, Chester, The Third Generation, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1989.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852, reprinted, Norton, 1993.
Alternative Applications: Have students compose dialogue to accompany emotional moments such as these:
- parting from old friends and family
- trusting an agent of the Underground Railroad
- risking whippings and brandings for trying to escape
- reaching a safe house
- hearing dogs approach
- fighting off snakes, insects, alligators, and other animals
- getting lost
- reaching a free state
- searching for missing family members
Age/Grade Level or Audience: High school or college literature, history, or sociology classes.
Description: Chart the seasons from the Maasai point of view.
Procedure: Have participants volunteer to submit information about various aspects of Maasai life as it reflects the seasons. Include the following details:
- acquiring firewood for July and August, the cold months
- anticipating May's short rains
- dressing meat for cooking
- drinking blood when milk is scarce
- feasting during initiation ceremonies
- going on retreat to garner strength for battle
- making useful items from horn, hides, and gourds
- moving herds to available water
- pasturing, branding, and tending cattle, goats, and sheep
- preparing to hunt game
- repairing fences and kraals or compounds
- repairing huts with dung after the November rainy season
- storing water for the May to October dry season
- watching for predators and rustlers
Sources:
Anderson, David M., Maasai People of Cattle, Chronicle Books, 1995.
Bentsen, Cheryl, Maasai Days, Anchor Books, 1991.
Hetfield, Jamie, Maasai of East Africa, Rosen Group, 1996.
"Kenya Web-People and Culture," http://www.kenyaweb.com.
Zeleza, Tiyambr, Maasai, Rosen Group, 1994.
Alternative Applications: Join with several partners to write a poem or song defining the periods of time that comprise the Maasai seasons. Alter tone and images to indicate hope and thanks to the gods for plenty of grass and rain. Chant your poem to the accompaniment of drum, flute, shekere, finger cymbals, scrapers, or thumb piano.
All
An African Window GardenAge/Grade Level or Audience: Kindergarten and elementary school science classes; religious schools; 4-H clubs; Brownie and Cub Scouts; retirement homes; classes for the handicapped.
Description: Start a window garden of African plants.
Procedure: In a variety of pottery dishes, peat pots, or glass containers plant cuttings, slips, bulbs, or seeds of the following plants common to Africa:
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Sources:
Brown, Leslie, Africa: A Natural History, Random House, 1965.
Kingdon, Johnathan, Island Africa: The Evolution of AfricaÕs Rare Animals and Plants, Princeton University Press, 1989.
Alternative Applications: Create an African display with plants borrowed from local gardeners. Include massed sweet potato plants growing in water or dieffenbachia, fern, hibiscus, philodendron, aloe, or coffee plants. Add paper cutouts of butterflies, snakes, lizards, monkeys, and other animals native to Africa.
Age/Grade Level or Audience: Kindergarten through primary grades.
Description: Teach students to count from one to ten in Swahili.
Procedure: Present a brief description of Swahili, how old a language it is, where it is spoken, and who speaks it. Then repeat the first ten numbers in Swahili until students have them memorized.
- moja [mow'-jah]
- mbili [uhm'-bee'-lee]
- tatu [tah'-too]
- nne [uhn'-nay]
- tano [tah'-no]
- sita [see'-tah]
- saba [sah'-buh]
- nane [nah'-nay]
- tisa [tee'-suh]
- kumi [koo'-mee]
Refer to these numbers in future counting exercises.
Sources:
Haskins, Jim, Count Your Way through Africa, Carolrhoda Books, 1989.
Alternative Applications: Use each number alongside its pronunciation and a uniquely African representation of the meaning:
- one Mount Kilimanjaro or Niger River
- two wildebeest or gnus
- three ostriches or emus
- four yams or bowls of fufu
- five grass huts or village compounds
- six Ashanti drums or finger pianos
- seven diamonds or pyramids
- eight Maasai women or Mali children
- nine hyenas or hippos
- ten baobab trees or pyrethrum daisies
The Latest in Books by Black Authors
Age/Grade Level or Audience: All ages.
Description: Advertise current works by black authors.
Procedure: Create a bulletin board of book jackets of works by Caribbean, African, or African-American authors. Organize the display according to age and interest level. Feature a variety of books from reference and nonfiction to poetry, drama, novels, and short stories, for example:
- poems by Sapphire or by Nobel laureate Derek Wolcott
- Walter Mosley's mysteries
- The Norton Anthology of Literature
- Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
- Jackie Joyner-Kersee's autobiography, A Kind of Hope
- Terry McMillan's tales of modern black women and their relationships
- Cornel West's Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America
- Judith Hoffman Corwin's African Crafts
- Michael Eric Dyson's Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line
- Molefi K. Asante and Mark T. Mattson's Historical and Cultural Atlas of African Americans
- Toni Morrison's Paradise
Sources:
Collect book jackets from the technical services division of a city, county, or school library. For more information about books, consult the Perma-Bound Multicultural Catalog, Vandalia Road, Jacksonville, IL 62650; telephone: (800)637-6581.
Miller-Lachmann, Lyn, Our Family, Our Friends, Our World: An Annotated Guide to Significant Multicultural Books for Children and Teenagers, Bowker, 1992.
Alternative Applications: Encourage more readers to sample black authors. Use these methods:
- Distribute book lists by mail or at the checkout desk of the library.
- Share the information with the book editor of a local newspaper.
- Have the Friends of the Library include new book information in their newsletters.
- Include suggested titles that the library would like to purchase and which donors or support groups may supply as gifts or memorials.
- Hold a pre-holiday Afrocentric book fair.
- Make Afrocentric bookmarks to distribute free. List a book title on each one.
Description: Teach interested participants to make and play their own game of mankala, an amusement enjoyed throughout Africa.
Procedure: Using an egg carton, twelve small bowls, or saucers scooped out in sand, have players place four beans, seeds, or other colored markers in each cup.
- The first player empties one cup and sows the markers into each of the next four cups.
- The player then empties the fifth cup and drops the five markers in the next five cups. The player continues sowing seeds until reaching an empty cup to contain the last seed.
- The second player begins at any cup and duplicates the sowing system.
- Scoring awards a point for any player whose last seed falls in a cup containing three seeds. The player receives all four seeds.
- When only eight seeds remain, the next player claims them.
- The player with the most seeds wins.
Sources:
"The Arcade," Homefront, Winter 1997, 19.
"Mankala," http://www.elf.org.
Alternative Applications: Using desktop publishing software, create an illustrated guide to mankala. Begin with a storyboard and draw in each panel the steps to setting up a board and playing the game. Complete the project with a drawing of a game in progress on the cover. Bind finished introductions to mankala to distribute as giveaways at summer reading programs, religious camps, children's birthday parties, and events with door prizes.
© The Gale Group, Inc. 2001. All Rights Reserved.