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=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 12:37:25 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Bill Gaudelli
Subject: feature length films
I would like to discuss the effectiveness of teaching African-American
history in a secondary/middle context through the use of feature length
films, such as Amistad. What strategies would you suggest for using such a
film, if at all, in a this context while maintaining historical accuracy.
Is such an approach adivisable? How might it be supported with documents,
historical narratives, etc.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 12:54:14 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: "ROY E. FINKENBINE"
Subject: USING JOURNALS
I'm giving a presentation on Nov. 3 to Detroit-area history instructors on
using student journals in teaching African American history -- which I do in
my classes to elicit both reactions and to structure critical thinking based
on primary sources in my reader SOURCES OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN PAST.
I'd appreciate hearing what others do with student journals (or in teaching
with primary sources) in African American history courses.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 14:40:12 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Ellen Noonan
Subject: Opening Statement from James O. Horton
Dear Talking History Forum subscribers,
After three decades of teaching African American history and issues related
to race in America I am still sometimes taken off-guard by my students.
Even at the beginning of the 21st century, they are often surprised,
fascinated, even shocked, when we discuss the history of African Americans.
Sometimes outraged, they demand to know why they haven't heard this story
before. Why did their textbook minimize or ignore the dramatic tales of
the black experience? Why has no one told this story, they too often ask?
It is true that for most of the county's history, general American history
textbooks and courses have paid little attention to this aspect of American
history, save for a few references to slavery usually discussed in
connection with the period just before the Civil War. But, as I try to
explain in some detail, it is not true that the story of black America has
not been told. Black people told their own stories again and again during
their time in America. For the past three hundred years, they told it in
oral testimony, in written petitions to the government, in autobiographical
narratives, in poetry and song, in dance and religious ceremonies. A flood
of slave narratives telling the stories of those who had experienced the
inhumanity of slavery were published in the early and mid-nineteenth
century. They became powerful weapons for the fight against during the
decades before the Civil War.
During the decades at the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th
century, in scholarly histories, novels, and personal accounts black people
continued telling the stories of racial injustice and of America's great
transgressions against its own sacred principles set forth in its founding
documents. Although in many black educational institutions students learned
this history, and a few radical white historians joined black scholars in
publishing on the subject, in almost none of the nation 's white schools
were these stories told. After the nation's struggle against racism abroad
in Nazi Germany and its Cold War competition for the loyalty of emerging
black African nations, it became increasingly difficult for white America
to remain deaf to African American history. The modern civil rights
movement brought historical race issues front and center in a history
profession not always anxious to deal with these most contentious aspects
of the American past. By the late 1960s, in response to volatile national
politics, a changing racial consciousness and student demand, black history
made its way into curricula at some of the nation's most prestigious white
educational institutions. By the late 20th century the historical
significance of race is acknowledged in almost all good history teaching
and writing, although even now the African American experience is sometimes
an add-on to the main story of the nation, changing slightly, if at all,
America's central historical narrative.
Herein lies the major challenge for teaching African American history in
the 21st century. Students still do not understand how long the African
American story has been told, they often wonder aloud about why it has not
been included in the main story of the nation, and they sometimes question,
albeit by implication, the legitimacy of the black experience. I have
found that students taking black history are far more likely to become
personally involved in the course than is true for those taking the general
American history survey for example. Teachers must be ready to deal with
emotional as well as intellectual reactions of black student and white
students and of reactions generated by the discussion of extremely
sensitive issues in an interracial classroom. In these settings it is
absolutely clear just how much history matters.
To start off this discussion of the teaching of black history I offer a few
of the questions that I often get from students and the general public as
they attempt to understand the meaning and complexity of the subject.
Sometimes I think that the most difficult aspect of African American
history for non-specialists to understand is its complexity. That
historians are dealing with the complexity of the historical experiences of
African Americans is, I think, an encouraging sign of the maturation our
understanding. This maturity is, in part a result of the cross
pollenization of social history, and the study of race, gender, ethnicity
and class that it has encouraged during the last generation. Some examples
of the kinds of questions that demand that we acknowledge the complexity of
the subject are:
1. Did Africans sell their own people into slavery?
2. Wasn't there slavery in Africa long before the growth of American
slavery?
3. Why were there not more slave rebellions in North America?
4. Were there black slaveholders in the United States before the Civil
War?
5. What did slavery have to do with the causes of the Civil War? Wasn't
the
war about regional economic differences and states' rights?
6. Has there ever been a time when blacks and whites have been able to
work
together successfully for progressive causes?
All of these questions have been asked in my classroom. Formulating
answers has forced me to deal directly with the complexity of African and
American American society, culture, and history and to discuss the legacy
of racial formation in America that helps to explain the assumptions
implicit in these questions. We might begin our on-line conversation by
reflecting on those implications and their relevance for contemporary
discussions of the most racially charged issues of our time. Issues like
reparations, affirmative action, the meaning of the Confederate flag and
the celebration of Confederate heroes and the continued and growing racial
tensions in modern America are those that still define the most disturbing
conflicts in our society. Since these issues pose particular difficulties
for those teaching in the public secondary and elementary schools, our
conversation should include the special circumstances of public school
teachers.
Lastly, since public history has become increasingly more central in
teaching Americans about their past, we might also consider the difficulty
of including the racial history of America in presentations at historic
houses, national parks, museums and historical theme parks. Historians who
teach outside of the relatively protected shelter of the academy are well
aware of the dangers of dealing with the volatile issue of race. I hope we
can discuss ways that those who teach history in the academy can cooperate
to a greater extent with those who teach where most people learn about
history, in the places of the public presentations of America's past.
I welcome your responses to this opening statement.
James Horton
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:05:19 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: John Stoner
Subject: Re: Opening Statement from James O. Horton
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Hi everyone.
While I hope that this isn't perceived to be off-topic, I've been learning quite
a bit this semester about how to integrate narratives of black Americans with
general governmental policy toward Africa. I'm teaching a course titled rather
vaguely the U.S. in Africa. In addition to desiring that students gain a basic
familiarity with the development of strategic/economic/political interests in
Africa (which mostly although not exclusively occured in the post-World War II
period) I am also committed to including African-American perspectives on Africa
as well.
Thus in the pre-1940 period, we have examined Liberia, South Africa, and
Ethiopia as countries of particular interest to both white and black Americans.
I've employed Bell Wiley's book Slaves No More, using excerpts to capture a
glimpse into personal experience, expectation, and anticipation for the future
in Liberia. For Ethiopia, I collected articles, editorials, and political
cartoons from the Amsterdam News and the Pittsburgh Courier to give students
perspective on what African Americans had been exposed to during the
Italo-Ethiopian conflict. Similarly, they have read selections of W.E.B. Du
Bois, Marcus Garvey, and others. We are dealing with World War II and they will
have Ralph Bunche, George Padmore, and other sources (brief).
I'm struck again by the complexity of attempting to unpack many of the issues
surrounding perceptions of Africa, etc. My students generally know little about
either African or African-American history. The critical questions in a course
which is not specifically devoted to African-American history (but certainly
inextricably intwined with it) is how best to balance the need for background
without disrupting your other goals. The case study approach I am using permits
me to focus in individual class meetings on African Americans and then shift
topically for the next class. Its not perfect, but it helps.
In terms of the questions posed, my concern is that the debate, scholarly or
otherwise, over the issue of the slave trade has been used too often for
unfortunate goals and I've personally tried to limit the negative impact that
such debates inevitably make possible. My general approach is to not skirt what
we accept to be "truths" (although that is not unproblematic itself) but to use
those questions to examine social, economic, and political dynamics in African
cultures which, thankfully, only add to our deeper understanding of the world.
John Stoner
Ellen Noonan wrote:
> Dear Talking History Forum subscribers,
>
> After three decades of teaching African American history and issues related
> to race in America I am still sometimes taken off-guard by my students.
> Even at the beginning of the 21st century, they are often surprised,
> fascinated, even shocked, when we discuss the history of African Americans.
> Sometimes outraged, they demand to know why they haven't heard this story
> before. Why did their textbook minimize or ignore the dramatic tales of
> the black experience? Why has no one told this story, they too often ask?
>
> It is true that for most of the county's history, general American history
> textbooks and courses have paid little attention to this aspect of American
> history, save for a few references to slavery usually discussed in
> connection with the period just before the Civil War. But, as I try to
> explain in some detail, it is not true that the story of black America has
> not been told. Black people told their own stories again and again during
> their time in America. For the past three hundred years, they told it in
> oral testimony, in written petitions to the government, in autobiographical
> narratives, in poetry and song, in dance and religious ceremonies. A flood
> of slave narratives telling the stories of those who had experienced the
> inhumanity of slavery were published in the early and mid-nineteenth
> century. They became powerful weapons for the fight against during the
> decades before the Civil War.
>
> During the decades at the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th
> century, in scholarly histories, novels, and personal accounts black people
> continued telling the stories of racial injustice and of America's great
> transgressions against its own sacred principles set forth in its founding
> documents. Although in many black educational institutions students learned
> this history, and a few radical white historians joined black scholars in
> publishing on the subject, in almost none of the nation 's white schools
> were these stories told. After the nation's struggle against racism abroad
> in Nazi Germany and its Cold War competition for the loyalty of emerging
> black African nations, it became increasingly difficult for white America
> to remain deaf to African American history. The modern civil rights
> movement brought historical race issues front and center in a history
> profession not always anxious to deal with these most contentious aspects
> of the American past. By the late 1960s, in response to volatile national
> politics, a changing racial consciousness and student demand, black history
> made its way into curricula at some of the nation's most prestigious white
> educational institutions. By the late 20th century the historical
> significance of race is acknowledged in almost all good history teaching
> and writing, although even now the African American experience is sometimes
> an add-on to the main story of the nation, changing slightly, if at all,
> America's central historical narrative.
>
> Herein lies the major challenge for teaching African American history in
> the 21st century. Students still do not understand how long the African
> American story has been told, they often wonder aloud about why it has not
> been included in the main story of the nation, and they sometimes question,
> albeit by implication, the legitimacy of the black experience. I have
> found that students taking black history are far more likely to become
> personally involved in the course than is true for those taking the general
> American history survey for example. Teachers must be ready to deal with
> emotional as well as intellectual reactions of black student and white
> students and of reactions generated by the discussion of extremely
> sensitive issues in an interracial classroom. In these settings it is
> absolutely clear just how much history matters.
>
> To start off this discussion of the teaching of black history I offer a few
> of the questions that I often get from students and the general public as
> they attempt to understand the meaning and complexity of the subject.
> Sometimes I think that the most difficult aspect of African American
> history for non-specialists to understand is its complexity. That
> historians are dealing with the complexity of the historical experiences of
> African Americans is, I think, an encouraging sign of the maturation our
> understanding. This maturity is, in part a result of the cross
> pollenization of social history, and the study of race, gender, ethnicity
> and class that it has encouraged during the last generation. Some examples
> of the kinds of questions that demand that we acknowledge the complexity of
> the subject are:
>
> 1. Did Africans sell their own people into slavery?
> 2. Wasn't there slavery in Africa long before the growth of American
> slavery?
> 3. Why were there not more slave rebellions in North America?
> 4. Were there black slaveholders in the United States before the Civil
> War?
> 5. What did slavery have to do with the causes of the Civil War? Wasn't
> the
> war about regional economic differences and states' rights?
> 6. Has there ever been a time when blacks and whites have been able to
> work
> together successfully for progressive causes?
>
> All of these questions have been asked in my classroom. Formulating
> answers has forced me to deal directly with the complexity of African and
> American American society, culture, and history and to discuss the legacy
> of racial formation in America that helps to explain the assumptions
> implicit in these questions. We might begin our on-line conversation by
> reflecting on those implications and their relevance for contemporary
> discussions of the most racially charged issues of our time. Issues like
> reparations, affirmative action, the meaning of the Confederate flag and
> the celebration of Confederate heroes and the continued and growing racial
> tensions in modern America are those that still define the most disturbing
> conflicts in our society. Since these issues pose particular difficulties
> for those teaching in the public secondary and elementary schools, our
> conversation should include the special circumstances of public school
> teachers.
>
> Lastly, since public history has become increasingly more central in
> teaching Americans about their past, we might also consider the difficulty
> of including the racial history of America in presentations at historic
> houses, national parks, museums and historical theme parks. Historians who
> teach outside of the relatively protected shelter of the academy are well
> aware of the dangers of dealing with the volatile issue of race. I hope we
> can discuss ways that those who teach history in the academy can cooperate
> to a greater extent with those who teach where most people learn about
> history, in the places of the public presentations of America's past.
>
> I welcome your responses to this opening statement.
>
> James Horton
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hi everyone.
While I hope that this isn't perceived to be off-topic, I've been learning
quite a bit this semester about how to integrate narratives of black Americans
with general governmental policy toward Africa. I'm teaching a course
titled rather vaguely the U.S. in Africa. In addition to desiring
that students gain a basic familiarity with the development of strategic/economic/political
interests in Africa (which mostly although not exclusively occured in the
post-World War II period) I am also committed to including African-American
perspectives on Africa as well.
Thus in the pre-1940 period, we have examined Liberia, South Africa,
and Ethiopia as countries of particular interest to both white and black
Americans. I've employed Bell Wiley's book Slaves No More,
using excerpts to capture a glimpse into personal experience, expectation,
and anticipation for the future in Liberia. For Ethiopia, I collected
articles, editorials, and political cartoons from the Amsterdam News
and the Pittsburgh Courier to give students perspective on what
African Americans had been exposed to during the Italo-Ethiopian conflict.
Similarly, they have read selections of W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey,
and others. We are dealing with World War II and they will have Ralph
Bunche, George Padmore, and other sources (brief).
I'm struck again by the complexity of attempting to unpack many of the
issues surrounding perceptions of Africa, etc. My students generally
know little about either African or African-American history. The
critical questions in a course which is not specifically devoted to African-American
history (but certainly inextricably intwined with it) is how best to balance
the need for background without disrupting your other goals. The
case study approach I am using permits me to focus in individual class
meetings on African Americans and then shift topically for the next class.
Its not perfect, but it helps.
In terms of the questions posed, my concern is that the debate, scholarly
or otherwise, over the issue of the slave trade has been used too often
for unfortunate goals and I've personally tried to limit the negative impact
that such debates inevitably make possible. My general approach is
to not skirt what we accept to be "truths" (although that is not unproblematic
itself) but to use those questions to examine social, economic, and political
dynamics in African cultures which, thankfully, only add to our deeper
understanding of the world.
John Stoner
Ellen Noonan wrote:
Dear Talking History Forum subscribers,
After three decades of teaching African American history and issues
related
to race in America I am still sometimes taken off-guard by my students.
Even at the beginning of the 21st century, they are often surprised,
fascinated, even shocked, when we discuss the history of African Americans.
Sometimes outraged, they demand to know why they haven't heard this
story
before. Why did their textbook minimize or ignore the dramatic
tales of
the black experience? Why has no one told this story, they too
often ask?
It is true that for most of the county's history, general American history
textbooks and courses have paid little attention to this aspect of
American
history, save for a few references to slavery usually discussed in
connection with the period just before the Civil War. But, as
I try to
explain in some detail, it is not true that the story of black America
has
not been told. Black people told their own stories again and
again during
their time in America. For the past three hundred years, they
told it in
oral testimony, in written petitions to the government, in autobiographical
narratives, in poetry and song, in dance and religious ceremonies.
A flood
of slave narratives telling the stories of those who had experienced
the
inhumanity of slavery were published in the early and mid-nineteenth
century. They became powerful weapons for the fight against during
the
decades before the Civil War.
During the decades at the end of the 19th century and throughout
the 20th
century, in scholarly histories, novels, and personal accounts black
people
continued telling the stories of racial injustice and of America's
great
transgressions against its own sacred principles set forth in its founding
documents. Although in many black educational institutions students
learned
this history, and a few radical white historians joined black scholars
in
publishing on the subject, in almost none of the nation 's white
schools
were these stories told. After the nation's struggle against
racism abroad
in Nazi Germany and its Cold War competition for the loyalty of emerging
black African nations, it became increasingly difficult for white America
to remain deaf to African American history. The modern civil
rights
movement brought historical race issues front and center in a history
profession not always anxious to deal with these most contentious aspects
of the American past. By the late 1960s, in response to volatile
national
politics, a changing racial consciousness and student demand, black
history
made its way into curricula at some of the nation's most prestigious
white
educational institutions. By the late 20th century the historical
significance of race is acknowledged in almost all good history teaching
and writing, although even now the African American experience is sometimes
an add-on to the main story of the nation, changing slightly, if at
all,
America's central historical narrative.
Herein lies the major challenge for teaching African American
history in
the 21st century. Students still do not understand how long the
African
American story has been told, they often wonder aloud about why it
has not
been included in the main story of the nation, and they sometimes question,
albeit by implication, the legitimacy of the black experience.
I have
found that students taking black history are far more likely to become
personally involved in the course than is true for those taking the
general
American history survey for example. Teachers must be ready to
deal with
emotional as well as intellectual reactions of black student and white
students and of reactions generated by the discussion of extremely
sensitive issues in an interracial classroom. In these settings
it is
absolutely clear just how much history matters.
To start off this discussion of the teaching of black history
I offer a few
of the questions that I often get from students and the general public
as
they attempt to understand the meaning and complexity of the subject.
Sometimes I think that the most difficult aspect of African American
history for non-specialists to understand is its complexity.
That
historians are dealing with the complexity of the historical experiences
of
African Americans is, I think, an encouraging sign of the maturation
our
understanding. This maturity is, in part a result of the cross
pollenization of social history, and the study of race, gender, ethnicity
and class that it has encouraged during the last generation.
Some examples
of the kinds of questions that demand that we acknowledge the complexity
of
the subject are:
1. Did Africans sell their own people into slavery?
2. Wasn't there slavery in Africa long before the growth
of American
slavery?
3. Why were there not more slave rebellions in North America?
4. Were there black slaveholders in the United States before
the Civil
War?
5. What did slavery have to do with the causes of the Civil
War? Wasn't
the
war about regional economic differences and states' rights?
6. Has there ever been a time when blacks and whites have
been able to
work
together successfully for progressive causes?
All of these questions have been asked in my classroom.
Formulating
answers has forced me to deal directly with the complexity of African
and
American American society, culture, and history and to discuss the
legacy
of racial formation in America that helps to explain the assumptions
implicit in these questions. We might begin our on-line conversation
by
reflecting on those implications and their relevance for contemporary
discussions of the most racially charged issues of our time.
Issues like
reparations, affirmative action, the meaning of the Confederate flag
and
the celebration of Confederate heroes and the continued and growing
racial
tensions in modern America are those that still define the most disturbing
conflicts in our society. Since these issues pose particular difficulties
for those teaching in the public secondary and elementary schools,
our
conversation should include the special circumstances of public school
teachers.
Lastly, since public history has become increasingly more central
in
teaching Americans about their past, we might also consider the difficulty
of including the racial history of America in presentations at historic
houses, national parks, museums and historical theme parks. Historians
who
teach outside of the relatively protected shelter of the academy are
well
aware of the dangers of dealing with the volatile issue of race.
I hope we
can discuss ways that those who teach history in the academy can cooperate
to a greater extent with those who teach where most people learn about
history, in the places of the public presentations of America's past.
I welcome your responses to this opening statement.
James Horton
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=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:17:13 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Mackenzie McLean
Subject: Re: feature length films
Personally, I feel that using a film such as Amistad, or even Glory, help to
fill the gap left by not including African American studies in general
American History classes. Films like these focus on the African American
experience during different points in history. And Terri Rumler says, "I do
think it is an excellent way of portraying the events that
occurred......BUT......I just don't know about the amount of blood, guts and
gore. I appreciate the impact of these films and how well they are made
(especially by directors such as Spielberg), but I feel that there should be
some level of appropriateness either to the grade level or subject area. I
personally don't even watch fake scary movies, let alone movies that have
some bit of truth.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:28:56 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Mackenzie McLean
Subject: Histories of other ethnicities
I am curious how someone would respond to a student complaining that there
is no class based specifically on their ethnicity while there are classes
based on African-Americans and women.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:19:32 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: "Kristin Pariso, Michelle Burke, Rob Jordan"
Subject: Separate Curriculum
Why should African America history be segregated into its own course at most
universities and high schools? Shouldn't it be a more regular part of
American history since it was such an important part of America's evolution?
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:21:40 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Terri Rumler
Subject: Student Acceptance
I am interested in finding out how well African-American students accept an
African-American History Course. Do they take the course because they think
it will be easy for them or because they are truly interested in the
subject.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:21:51 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Brandee Sullivan
Subject: Authentic African American History
In studying very few aspects of history that includes African Americans, how
do evaluate the validity of those stories in a historical context? Why are
the only African Americans that are included in American history those such
as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and those involved during the Civil
War Era?
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 15:21:26 -0700
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: judy adnum
Subject: Re: feature length films
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Bill,
Films like this are well supported by the Foxtel web
site - History Channel. There are not only very
specific questions for a range of abilities but also
many diferent teachiong activities and specific
questions on the role of the director in his portrayal
of the period in question. My students love this site
and we use many of the teaching activities to enhance
films within our classroom in Australia
Judy Adnum
--- Bill Gaudelli wrote:
> I would like to discuss the effectiveness of
> teaching African-American
> history in a secondary/middle context through the
> use of feature length
> films, such as Amistad. What strategies would you
> suggest for using such a
> film, if at all, in a this context while maintaining
> historical accuracy.
> Is such an approach adivisable? How might it be
> supported with documents,
> historical narratives, etc.
=====
Judy Adnum.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
http://photos.yahoo.com/
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:26:31 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Mackenzie McLean
Subject: Non-African-American teachers teaching African American History
I'm interested in finding out how accepting students in an African-American
History class are to a Non-African American teacher teaching the subject.
Just because a teacher isn't African-American doesn't mean that they are not
qualified to teach the course, but do the students always understand that?
I am also curious how teachers have handled this problem in the past.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:26:38 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Santiago
Subject: Re: feature length films
In her book "The world they made together," Sobel argues that both blacks
and whites did benefit from their relationship in the Old South. How can a
slave, a human being deprived of his freedom, enjoy any benefits?
Dominic Campeau & David Santiago
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:28:37 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Hector Rodriguez
Subject: Reparations to Africa for white exploitation of af. citizens
Isn't the common thread between those victims of past exploitative acts
that the victims are either alive today or have sons or daughters who are
alive? Thus, why should we have the burden of reparations for the
atrocious acts of our ancestors?
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:30:47 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Andrew Biggar
Subject: African-Americans Reparations
What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards reparations
to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a debate
of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class classroom. My
goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from both sides
of the arguement?
Andrew
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:40:48 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Santiago & Dominic Campeau
Subject: Any benefits for slaves?
In her book"The world they made together," Sobel argues that both blacks
and whites did benefit from their relationship in the Old South. How can a
slave, a human being deprived of his freedom, enjoy any benefits?
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:37:00 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Andrew Biggar
Subject: Re: feature length films
I think that they are a very good tool because they give a visual to
students that have become very visual. They rarely are able to "get the
image" through reading a selection that a movie is able to portray. I also
believe that movies give a sense of what it was like to actually live in
that time period and the "blood, guts, etc." is neccessary because THAT was
what it meant to live in that time period. To say that during the civil
war two armies met and clashed and so and so won does not give the impact
that watching Glory or Gettysburg would give on the realities of the civil
war era warfare!
Andrew
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:38:12 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Landon Shephard
Subject: To test or not to test...
How would you suggest assessing students learning/ understanding after the
students have watched a movie such as Amistad? Are traditional means of
testing practical in this situation? Or can a good class discussion be
considered as an assessment?
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:38:18 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Mackenzie McLean
Subject: Re: Separate Curriculum
Part of the reason that African Americans have their own course is that
"they" are trying to get more in depth in the subject. There are also
seperate classes about Asian History, Women's History, and different eras.
In high schools, African American history is an elective. It is not
required. By offering this class as an elective, the schools are trying to
make up for the fact that African Americans are largely neglected by
traditional history text books and classes.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:44:17 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Jeff Silvaroli
Subject: retrobution to past slave family members
do the nations of the world need to give monetary retrobutions to past slave
family members to mend their wounds?
eg. jewish, american indians
if so what nations should pay for these retrobution
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 19:12:45 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Hanson
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
In-Reply-To:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Andrew: Are you serious? I have not heard of this argument. Reparations
for what? Unpaid wages and compensation for abuse during the period of
slavery?
Reparations for survivors of the Japanese-American relocation camps made
sense because the payment was made to persons still living who had been
interned. But there are no living former slaves nor children of former
slaves. To pay the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. of slaves with
21st century appropriations seems kind of ridiculous to me. First I assume
the person would have to document that he/she is the descendant of slaves
(most but not all African-Americans can rightly make that claim). Then
there is the question of how much compensation is due. And there is the
matter of who should pay for this? Descendants of slaveholders or
everyone? Most Americans in the 18th and 19th century did not own slaves.
And the ancestors of many 21st century Americans did not come to America
until long after long slavery was abolished; are they still liable, through
the taxing and spending authority of Congress, for slaveholders'
moral/financial debts? Most of all, there is the question of how far we
carry this out (over how many years and generations)?
Without question, 20th and 21st century black Americans have suffered in
many ways because of discrimination rooted in the slave system, but to
answer your question, personally I could not entertain the notion of such a
debate as a serious exercise in the classroom (or elsewhere).
P.S. Reparations for segregation and discrimination would make more sense,
to the extent that the victims are still living, but if we go down that
road, where does it end?
David
At 06:30 PM 10/02/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards reparations
>to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
>classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a debate
>of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class classroom. My
>goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from both sides
>of the arguement?
>
>Andrew
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 19:27:17 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Hanson
Subject: Re: Non-African-American teachers teaching African American
History
In-Reply-To:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
You raise a good question. Back in the 1970s I taught an African-American
History course at a large midwestern university, and I am a "Non-African
American." It did not make me especially uncomfortable but I did wonder if
it made it harder for me to understand and explain the African-American
experience, and harder for African American students to accept my
interpretations as valid. Obviously, you don't have to be a WWII veteran
to teach a course on WWII, and the same principle should apply, but does
it? Good question.
D. Hanson
At 06:26 PM 10/02/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>I'm interested in finding out how accepting students in an African-American
>History class are to a Non-African American teacher teaching the subject.
>Just because a teacher isn't African-American doesn't mean that they are not
>qualified to teach the course, but do the students always understand that?
>I am also curious how teachers have handled this problem in the past.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 19:18:34 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Hanson
Subject: Re: Any benefits for slaves?
In-Reply-To:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
D. Santiago:
Some historians have made a case that slaves had certain material benefits,
which of course they did, but you are quite right that those sparse
benefits pale next to the countless abuses. As Frederick Douglass wisely
asked, how many defenders of slavery would want to be slaves themselves?
D. Hanson
At 06:40 PM 10/02/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>In her book"The world they made together," Sobel argues that both blacks
>and whites did benefit from their relationship in the Old South. How can a
>slave, a human being deprived of his freedom, enjoy any benefits?
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 18:35:30 -0500
Reply-To: Peter_Cole@ccmail.wiu.edu
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Peter Cole
Subject: Re: Reparations to Africa for white exploitation of af. citi
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Obviously, this subject is complex but let me add two thoughts for starters.
1. Reparations should not be considered as a way for white Americans to be rid
of the guilt of slavery. Rather, reparations should be considered as fair
compensation for the approximately 250 years of FREE labor provided by African
and African American slaves. Put in those terms, I think the argument for
reparations seems more reasonable. The well-known phrase/concept of "forty
acres and a mule" comes directly from the notion that former slaves believed
that they deserved compensation for their toil. Since they did not receive it,
why not their ancestors?
2. For those who do not believe that we should be held responsible for the acts
of previous generations, we must ask ourselves if we continue to benefit from
the system our ancestors installed. Specifically, do all people in the U.S.
start out, at birth, on a level playing field (as equality of opportunity, I
believe, is considered one of the cherished ideals of American society)?
Assuming the answer is no--and if you do think that all Americans have equal
opportunities, then that topic must be addressed first--then why not? Well, one
answer is race. That is, how do white people, today, benefit from being white?
How have their wealth, schools, job opportunities, political power, etc. been
enhanced as a result of simply being born white? The short answer is that
anyone who happens to be considered white in America benefits right now in all
sorts of ways and that is due to the long history of racism in America, dating
back to the time of slavery. Since blacks, by definition, can't be white, steps
must be taken to create a level playing field in a society that allegedly is
dedicated to that notion. Affirmative action is one, quite minor, way of
rectifying past wrongs; reparations would be another, obviously more significant
tactic.
Peter Cole
Western Illinois University
_______________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Reparations to Africa for white exploitation of af. citizens
From: "African-American History Forum" at internet
Date: 10/2/00 5:28 PM
Isn't the common thread between those victims of past exploitative acts
that the victims are either alive today or have sons or daughters who are
alive? Thus, why should we have the burden of reparations for the
atrocious acts of our ancestors?
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=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 20:49:48 EDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: "Anthony A. Lee"
Subject: Re: Separate Curriculum
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Greetings to all!
In response to the rather naive question concerning why themes of
African-American history are not simply integrated into general courses on
American history, making courses in African-American history unnecessary.
The simple and obvious answer is that (white) students and parents won't
stand for it.
At the community college level, I once taught a course in U.S. history
and devoted about 20% or 25% of the reading and the course to racial
issues--which I think constitute a very major them in American history. (So
much so that you really cannot understand U.S. history at all without
grasping the history of race in America.) Well, that was the last time that
happened. Some to the students complained to the Administration that I was
spending too much time on black history, and I was never asked to teach that
course again.
So, please, folks. Let's be realistic. The only way that
African-American history is going to be taught with the attention it deserves
is in a course by that name--one that students who feel that this history has
no value to them can safely avoid.
Regards,
Anthony A. Lee
El Camino College (not the college refered to above)
Torrance, California
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 21:37:32 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Hanson
Subject: Re: Separate Curriculum
In-Reply-To: <18.307adb8.270a872c@aol.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Greetings.
Personally, I think characterizing questions and comments submitted to the
forum as "naive" is tantamount to doing likewise to students in the
classroom. It does not encourage participation. Having said that, I agree
with Professor Anthony Lee's response... to a point. To me it is not an
either/or matter. We need to do a better job of providing more than just
token coverage in new additions of textbooks along with minor updates in
our lectures, assignments and tests. There also is a legitimate and
important place for women's history, African-American history, and numerous
other "special interest" courses. The problem with the latter is it only
touches a relatively small number of students. So we need to keep working
on the former.
Dave Hanson
Virginia Western Community College
At 08:49 PM 10/02/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Greetings to all!
> In response to the rather naive question concerning why themes of
>African-American history are not simply integrated into general courses on
>American history, making courses in African-American history unnecessary.
>The simple and obvious answer is that (white) students and parents won't
>stand for it.
> At the community college level, I once taught a course in U.S. history
>and devoted about 20% or 25% of the reading and the course to racial
>issues--which I think constitute a very major them in American history. (So
>much so that you really cannot understand U.S. history at all without
>grasping the history of race in America.) Well, that was the last time that
>happened. Some to the students complained to the Administration that I was
>spending too much time on black history, and I was never asked to teach that
>course again.
> So, please, folks. Let's be realistic. The only way that
>African-American history is going to be taught with the attention it deserves
>is in a course by that name--one that students who feel that this history has
>no value to them can safely avoid.
>
>Regards,
>Anthony A. Lee
>El Camino College (not the college refered to above)
>Torrance, California
>
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 23:18:05 -0700
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: judy adnum
Subject: Re: Separate Curriculum
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Hi,
But what IS History? It most certainly can't be taught
in a compartmentalised way. To my way of thinking this
is like examining one piece of a jigsaw puzzle rather
than all of the pieces that make up the whole. If one
of the points of history is to learn from the past and
about the past, it is our responsibility to teach it
all - not the cosmetics of it. If parts of human
nature are ugly, then these facts should be taught. It
was mentioned that the white students and parents
wouldn't stand for it in the course. What a sad
indictment - especially in the country that prides
itself on being the greatest democracy in the world. I
am most certainly not criticising your content or
methods - nor am I in a position to, however to me
teaching history is teaching the 'warts and all'. If
this is how it was and we are this way as a result of
the past, students should know. It ties in with the
whole Civics issue. How can we be fair citizens unless
we know where we came from and the true makeup of our
past?
Judy Adnum
--- David Hanson wrote:
> Greetings.
> Personally, I think characterizing questions and
> comments submitted to the
> forum as "naive" is tantamount to doing likewise to
> students in the
> classroom. It does not encourage participation.
> Having said that, I agree
> with Professor Anthony Lee's response... to a point.
> To me it is not an
> either/or matter. We need to do a better job of
> providing more than just
> token coverage in new additions of textbooks along
> with minor updates in
> our lectures, assignments and tests. There also is
> a legitimate and
> important place for women's history,
> African-American history, and numerous
> other "special interest" courses. The problem with
> the latter is it only
> touches a relatively small number of students. So
> we need to keep working
> on the former.
>
> Dave Hanson
> Virginia Western Community College
>
> At 08:49 PM 10/02/2000 -0400, you wrote:
> >Greetings to all!
> > In response to the rather naive question
> concerning why themes of
> >African-American history are not simply integrated
> into general courses on
> >American history, making courses in
> African-American history unnecessary.
> >The simple and obvious answer is that (white)
> students and parents won't
> >stand for it.
> > At the community college level, I once taught
> a course in U.S. history
> >and devoted about 20% or 25% of the reading and the
> course to racial
> >issues--which I think constitute a very major them
> in American history. (So
> >much so that you really cannot understand U.S.
> history at all without
> >grasping the history of race in America.) Well,
> that was the last time that
> >happened. Some to the students complained to the
> Administration that I was
> >spending too much time on black history, and I was
> never asked to teach that
> >course again.
> > So, please, folks. Let's be realistic. The
> only way that
> >African-American history is going to be taught with
> the attention it deserves
> >is in a course by that name--one that students who
> feel that this history has
> >no value to them can safely avoid.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Anthony A. Lee
> >El Camino College (not the college refered to
> above)
> >Torrance, California
> >
=====
Judy Adnum.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
http://photos.yahoo.com/
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 08:35:18 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: John Stoner
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
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Andrew,
One basic place to start for a brief description of the various attempts to
secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and
History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly covers many of the
different campaigns at various points throughout American history, from forty
acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over parts of the
South to black Americans to contemporary measures before Congress.
I think its important to note several things in discussing reparations. First
and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations were paid to,
admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei Japanese-Americans
interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions, if not tens of
billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if memory serves.
Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people and others
including Native Americans for the ways in which the government has been
complicit in various acts of oppression.
To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about logistical issues as
well. The primary ones are as follows:
1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all African Americans today are
descended from slaves held in the United States. You start to have issues of
ancestry, etc.
2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide how much to
appropriate?
3) Who pays for it?
4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish some sort of
pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous peoples to
request repatriation of their original ancestral lands, etc.
There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of taking the
form of individual remuneration, should take the form of community empowerment
grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
Hope this helps.
John Stoner
Andrew Biggar wrote:
> What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards reparations
> to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
> classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a debate
> of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class classroom. My
> goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from both sides
> of the arguement?
>
> Andrew
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=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 08:43:50 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: John Stoner
Subject: Re: Separate Curriculum
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I think both groups of respondents raise valid issues. For those of us
for whom teaching electives is an option, electives offer an opportunity
to venture much more deeply into the topic which you are studying. At
the same time, a valid argument can be made, as Judy does, that its
important when teaching survey courses to try and ensure that students
get a broader picture of the American experience. In my book, this
means on all topics, whether they be my personal favorites or things
which I simply perceive to be of importance. To teach a survey
responsibly, you have to include as much as possible those folks who
participated in the process--that means racial and ethnic minorities,
men and women, white and black, worker and owner, etc.
John Stoner
judy adnum wrote:
> Hi,
>
> But what IS History? It most certainly can't be taught
> in a compartmentalised way. To my way of thinking this
> is like examining one piece of a jigsaw puzzle rather
> than all of the pieces that make up the whole. If one
> of the points of history is to learn from the past and
> about the past, it is our responsibility to teach it
> all - not the cosmetics of it. If parts of human
> nature are ugly, then these facts should be taught. It
> was mentioned that the white students and parents
> wouldn't stand for it in the course. What a sad
> indictment - especially in the country that prides
> itself on being the greatest democracy in the world. I
> am most certainly not criticising your content or
> methods - nor am I in a position to, however to me
> teaching history is teaching the 'warts and all'. If
> this is how it was and we are this way as a result of
> the past, students should know. It ties in with the
> whole Civics issue. How can we be fair citizens unless
> we know where we came from and the true makeup of our
> past?
> Judy Adnum
> --- David Hanson wrote:
> > Greetings.
> > Personally, I think characterizing questions and
> > comments submitted to the
> > forum as "naive" is tantamount to doing likewise to
> > students in the
> > classroom. It does not encourage participation.
> > Having said that, I agree
> > with Professor Anthony Lee's response... to a point.
> > To me it is not an
> > either/or matter. We need to do a better job of
> > providing more than just
> > token coverage in new additions of textbooks along
> > with minor updates in
> > our lectures, assignments and tests. There also is
> > a legitimate and
> > important place for women's history,
> > African-American history, and numerous
> > other "special interest" courses. The problem with
> > the latter is it only
> > touches a relatively small number of students. So
> > we need to keep working
> > on the former.
> >
> > Dave Hanson
> > Virginia Western Community College
> >
> > At 08:49 PM 10/02/2000 -0400, you wrote:
> > >Greetings to all!
> > > In response to the rather naive question
> > concerning why themes of
> > >African-American history are not simply integrated
> > into general courses on
> > >American history, making courses in
> > African-American history unnecessary.
> > >The simple and obvious answer is that (white)
> > students and parents won't
> > >stand for it.
> > > At the community college level, I once taught
> > a course in U.S. history
> > >and devoted about 20% or 25% of the reading and the
> > course to racial
> > >issues--which I think constitute a very major them
> > in American history. (So
> > >much so that you really cannot understand U.S.
> > history at all without
> > >grasping the history of race in America.) Well,
> > that was the last time that
> > >happened. Some to the students complained to the
> > Administration that I was
> > >spending too much time on black history, and I was
> > never asked to teach that
> > >course again.
> > > So, please, folks. Let's be realistic. The
> > only way that
> > >African-American history is going to be taught with
> > the attention it deserves
> > >is in a course by that name--one that students who
> > feel that this history has
> > >no value to them can safely avoid.
> > >
> > >Regards,
> > >Anthony A. Lee
> > >El Camino College (not the college refered to
> > above)
> > >Torrance, California
> > >
>
> =====
> Judy Adnum.
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
> http://photos.yahoo.com/
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=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 09:36:50 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Elizabeth Pleck
Subject: When We Were Kings
I show this film in the US survey class. What do you think is the point
students should get from this film about African American consciousness re
Mobutu and about the development of black nationalism at that time?
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 12:07:24 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: William Gaudelli
Subject: Re: Histories of other ethnicities
An interesting question. I think you address that by not presenting
phenomenon as unique to a group, but as examples of human behavior. In
this universal sense, the ethnic identity that an event happens to be
associated with is of secondary importance and human rights is of
primary importance, thus establishing a universal character to your
inquiry.
********************************
Bill Gaudelli, Ed.D.
wgaudell@mail.ucf.edu
Assistant Professor
University of Central Florida
College of Education
PO Box 161250
Orlando, FL 32816
(407) 823-0215
"We will change American education
only insofar as we make all our schools
educationally inspiring and intellectually
challenging for teachers."
Deborah Meier, 1995
>>> mlm82132@PEGASUS.CC.UCF.EDU 10/02/00 06:28PM >>>
I am curious how someone would respond to a student complaining that
there
is no class based specifically on their ethnicity while there are
classes
based on African-Americans and women.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 12:21:49 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: William Gaudelli
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Perhaps reparations can be "paid" in an institutional manner (as Mazrui =
has argued) by incorporating African states into the power structure of =
the UN (e.g., permanent security council seat) or in a symbolic sense, as =
Clinton gestured on his visit to Uganda in '98 (albeit a somewhat feeble =
effort that did not make a great deal of sense geographically) by =
commemorating and recognizing the human tragedy that was the Atlantic =
slave trade. =20
Bill
>>> jstoner@SKIDMORE.EDU 10/03/00 08:35AM >>>
Andrew,
One basic place to start for a brief description of the various attempts =
to
secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture =
and
History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly covers many of =
the
different campaigns at various points throughout American history, from =
forty
acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over parts of =
the
South to black Americans to contemporary measures before Congress.
I think its important to note several things in discussing reparations. =
First
and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations were paid =
to,
admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei Japanese-Americans
interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions, if not tens of
billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if memory serves.
Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people and others
including Native Americans for the ways in which the government has been
complicit in various acts of oppression.
To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about logistical issues =
as
well. The primary ones are as follows:
1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all African Americans today =
are
descended from slaves held in the United States. You start to have issues =
of
ancestry, etc.
2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide how much to
appropriate?
3) Who pays for it?
4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish some sort of
pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous peoples to
request repatriation of their original ancestral lands, etc.
There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of taking =
the
form of individual remuneration, should take the form of community =
empowerment
grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
Hope this helps.
John Stoner
Andrew Biggar wrote:
> What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards reparation=
s
> to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
> classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a =
debate
> of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class classroom. =
My
> goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from both =
sides
> of the arguement?
>
> Andrew
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 16:48:52 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Gretchen Pikus
Subject: Re: Separate Curriculum
MIME-Version: 1.0
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In response to Mr. Lee - I suppose this is a college approach... however very
dangerous to public education - for students to feel this history is of "no value
to them and they can safely avoid" is to contribute to the lack of knowledge of
minorities.
My eye opening came by attending a traditional African American college
(due to finances and location) and getting an excellent view of what it is like
to be the minority. This affected my teaching of American History..... the
Civil Rights movement, given less than a chapter in most texts, while wars take
2-3 chapters. As public educators, it is demanding for us to survey our
curriculum and balance in order not to present the white mens' wars curriculum
as History.
"Anthony A. Lee" wrote:
> Greetings to all!
> In response to the rather naive question concerning why themes of
> African-American history are not simply integrated into general courses on
> American history, making courses in African-American history unnecessary.
> The simple and obvious answer is that (white) students and parents won't
> stand for it.
> At the community college level, I once taught a course in U.S. history
> and devoted about 20% or 25% of the reading and the course to racial
> issues--which I think constitute a very major them in American history. (So
> much so that you really cannot understand U.S. history at all without
> grasping the history of race in America.) Well, that was the last time that
> happened. Some to the students complained to the Administration that I was
> spending too much time on black history, and I was never asked to teach that
> course again.
> So, please, folks. Let's be realistic. The only way that
> African-American history is going to be taught with the attention it deserves
> is in a course by that name--one that students who feel that this history has
> no value to them can safely avoid.
>
> Regards,
> Anthony A. Lee
> El Camino College (not the college refered to above)
> Torrance, California
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=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 06:28:12 -0700
Reply-To: holton@gwu.edu
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Jim Holton
Subject: Courses on ethnicity
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
on 10/2/2000 6:28 PM, Mackenzie McLean at
mlm82132@PEGASUS.CC.UCF.EDU wrote:
> I am curious how someone would respond to a student
complaining that there
> is no class based specifically on their ethnicity
while there are classes
> based on African-Americans and women.
There's never been a need to highlight their
ethnicity because it's the dominant one. Until quite
recently, American history has been taught from the
perspective of white males driving progress and
everyone else just along for the ride. Given the
importance and prevalence of African Americans in US
history, it seems somewhat fair to teach a separate
course on African American history. African Americans
are a group that cannot be fully assimilated (along
with Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans, whose
history seems to be coming into its own). I am not
arguing the need for segregation...I'm saying that
skin color has been used to exclude African Americans.
Other groups--Irish, Italians, e.g.--can "become
white" and hence assimilated in a sense that African
Americans can't.
For a long time, white people have skated along
without race. As the saying goes, "White people are
without race, men are without gender." One historian
refers to this as the "view from nowhere." When we
talk of race troubles, race riots, or racial issues we
almost always mean _Other_ races, not white. It's a
paradox that now may whites and males feel excluded
following decades of exclusivity.
Of course, all this raises the issue of identity
history. It's been a complaint of many that historians
have Balkanized our identity as Americans into many
contradictory and conflicting identities. This raises
the issue: was it ever our job to write metanarratives
that justify a common national identity? And by
downplaying the role of ethnicity/race/gender, are we
excluding some very valuable points of discussion?
--
James V. Holton
Ph.D. Candidate in History
George Washington University
holton@gwu.edu
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
http://photos.yahoo.com/
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 06:30:08 -0700
Reply-To: holton@gwu.edu
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Jim Holton
Subject: Blacks and whites
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
African-American History Forum
on 10/2/2000 6:40 PM, David Santiago & Dominic Campeau
at chicago141@HOTMAIL.COM wrote:
> In her book"The world they made together," Sobel
argues that both blacks
> and whites did benefit from their relationship in
the Old South. How can a
> slave, a human being deprived of his freedom, enjoy
any benefits?
You could make a case that black slaves had some
agency in their lives and weren't 100% passive victms.
Slavery was a social system, no matter how warped it
may seem to our modernist mentalities, so we should
associate it with the traits of a concentration camp.
--
James V. Holton
Ph.D. Candidate in History
George Washington University
holton@gwu.edu
__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
http://photos.yahoo.com/
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:07:48 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: "Weitzel, Ronald"
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
Often the argument against reparations centers on the idea that white people
alive today had nothing to do with slavery and therefore have no obligation
to make reparations. I believe a better argument is that the nation--
America, the national state-- sanctioned slavery and that therefore the
nation must accept responsibility and all that goes with it. In my view
reparations would have been due to the Japanese-American community
regardless of whether there were any survivors of the internment camps
simply because that group was wrongfully denied its constitutional
protections. Similarly the African-American community was denied its
constitutional protections because of its group identification. That
community is entitled to reparations no less than the Japanese-Americans.
> ----------
> From: William Gaudelli[SMTP:wgaudell@MAIL.UCF.EDU]
> Reply To: African-American History Forum
> Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 12:21 PM
> To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
>
> Perhaps reparations can be "paid" in an institutional manner (as Mazrui
> has argued) by incorporating African states into the power structure of
> the UN (e.g., permanent security council seat) or in a symbolic sense, as
> Clinton gestured on his visit to Uganda in '98 (albeit a somewhat feeble
> effort that did not make a great deal of sense geographically) by
> commemorating and recognizing the human tragedy that was the Atlantic
> slave trade.
> Bill
>
> >>> jstoner@SKIDMORE.EDU 10/03/00 08:35AM >>>
> Andrew,
>
> One basic place to start for a brief description of the various attempts
> to
> secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture
> and
> History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly covers many of
> the
> different campaigns at various points throughout American history, from
> forty
> acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over parts of
> the
> South to black Americans to contemporary measures before Congress.
>
> I think its important to note several things in discussing reparations.
> First
> and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations were paid
> to,
> admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei Japanese-Americans
> interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions, if not tens of
> billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if memory serves.
> Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people and others
> including Native Americans for the ways in which the government has been
> complicit in various acts of oppression.
>
> To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about logistical issues
> as
> well. The primary ones are as follows:
> 1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all African Americans today
> are
> descended from slaves held in the United States. You start to have issues
> of
> ancestry, etc.
> 2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide how much to
> appropriate?
> 3) Who pays for it?
> 4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish some sort of
> pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous peoples to
> request repatriation of their original ancestral lands, etc.
>
> There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of taking
> the
> form of individual remuneration, should take the form of community
> empowerment
> grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> John Stoner
>
> Andrew Biggar wrote:
>
> > What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards
> reparations
> > to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
> > classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a
> debate
> > of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class classroom.
> My
> > goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from both
> sides
> > of the arguement?
> >
> > Andrew
>
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 14:46:37 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Lois Leveen
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
It can be difficult for students to see how discrimination in one generation
shapes life for another generation, particularly in economic terms. One
approach is to start with something a bit more recent than slavery: the
Federal Housing Authority policies of the post World War II era. The
assistance in buying homes moved many American families into the "middle
class," enabling them to establish personal assets that were later passed on
through inheritance to their children and grandchildren. The FHA openly
discriminated against people of color, denying them these benefits.
Although the amount of money saved/inherited might not have been large (in
the tens of thousands of dollars), this "stake" could greatly effect the
economic circumstances of the next generation. Students may see the
connection between home ownership and economic advancement more readily, and
you can use that awareness to make them think about how deprivations during
slavery (enforced by the economic discrimination and even lynching of the
post Civil War era) have hurt African Americans in the long run. The FHA
example can also help with the "but my grandparents immigrated long after
slavery ended" argument, by making students realize that de jure
discrimination lasted well into the 20th century, and opening up a
discussion of how de facto discrimination remains today.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 18:57:09 GMT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: jeff silvaroli
Subject: Re: response to your answers
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
I appreciate your responses, but as a nation who was not a united union
until after the Civil War, why should America of today be ask to pay
reperations to a people it help free from slavery? The nation--America, the
nationsl state-- never sanctioned slavery as a whole.
>From: "Weitzel, Ronald"
>Reply-To: African-American History Forum
>
>To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
>Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:07:48 -0400
>
>Often the argument against reparations centers on the idea that white
>people
>alive today had nothing to do with slavery and therefore have no obligation
>to make reparations. I believe a better argument is that the nation--
>America, the national state-- sanctioned slavery and that therefore the
>nation must accept responsibility and all that goes with it. In my view
>reparations would have been due to the Japanese-American community
>regardless of whether there were any survivors of the internment camps
>simply because that group was wrongfully denied its constitutional
>protections. Similarly the African-American community was denied its
>constitutional protections because of its group identification. That
>community is entitled to reparations no less than the Japanese-Americans.
> > ----------
> > From: William Gaudelli[SMTP:wgaudell@MAIL.UCF.EDU]
> > Reply To: African-American History Forum
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 12:21 PM
> > To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> > Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
> >
> > Perhaps reparations can be "paid" in an institutional manner (as Mazrui
> > has argued) by incorporating African states into the power structure of
> > the UN (e.g., permanent security council seat) or in a symbolic sense,
>as
> > Clinton gestured on his visit to Uganda in '98 (albeit a somewhat
>feeble
> > effort that did not make a great deal of sense geographically) by
> > commemorating and recognizing the human tragedy that was the Atlantic
> > slave trade.
> > Bill
> >
> > >>> jstoner@SKIDMORE.EDU 10/03/00 08:35AM >>>
> > Andrew,
> >
> > One basic place to start for a brief description of the various attempts
> > to
> > secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture
> > and
> > History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly covers many of
> > the
> > different campaigns at various points throughout American history, from
> > forty
> > acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over parts of
> > the
> > South to black Americans to contemporary measures before Congress.
> >
> > I think its important to note several things in discussing reparations.
> > First
> > and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations were paid
> > to,
> > admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei Japanese-Americans
> > interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions, if not tens of
> > billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if memory
>serves.
> > Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people and
>others
> > including Native Americans for the ways in which the government has been
> > complicit in various acts of oppression.
> >
> > To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about logistical
>issues
> > as
> > well. The primary ones are as follows:
> > 1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all African Americans
>today
> > are
> > descended from slaves held in the United States. You start to have
>issues
> > of
> > ancestry, etc.
> > 2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide how much to
> > appropriate?
> > 3) Who pays for it?
> > 4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish some sort of
> > pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous peoples
>to
> > request repatriation of their original ancestral lands, etc.
> >
> > There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of taking
> > the
> > form of individual remuneration, should take the form of community
> > empowerment
> > grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> >
> > John Stoner
> >
> > Andrew Biggar wrote:
> >
> > > What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards
> > reparations
> > > to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
> > > classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a
> > debate
> > > of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class
>classroom.
> > My
> > > goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from both
> > sides
> > > of the arguement?
> > >
> > > Andrew
> >
_________________________________________________________________________
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=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 14:51:12 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Lois Leveen
Subject: Re: Non-African-American teachers teaching African American
History
Most students of color are very glad to see issues of race and racism
addressed in meaningful ways. I teach about race all the time, and although
students may be initially curious (even skeptical) about whether I can deal
with the material well, once they see that I am knowledgeable and that I'm
interested in helping them think critically rather than telling them what to
think, they respond very positively. I also bring my race into the
conversation, which I think helps to keep me seem from being high handed or
like another well meaning liberal who doesn't quite get it. I talk about
how being white shapes my experience, about what my interactions with people
of color have taught me, etc. as I model for students ways to interrogate
what race "means" in America.
Intellectual honesty and a willingness to learn from your students goes a
long way.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 19:04:12 GMT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: jeff silvaroli
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
I greatly appreciate your response. This will help me understand the racism
that went on in our country after the Civil War ended. I am aware of
racism, but with your reply i see how the gov't affected the growth of
african americans after ww2.
>From: Lois Leveen
>Reply-To: African-American History Forum
>
>To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
>Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 14:46:37 -0400
>
>It can be difficult for students to see how discrimination in one
>generation
>shapes life for another generation, particularly in economic terms. One
>approach is to start with something a bit more recent than slavery: the
>Federal Housing Authority policies of the post World War II era. The
>assistance in buying homes moved many American families into the "middle
>class," enabling them to establish personal assets that were later passed
>on
>through inheritance to their children and grandchildren. The FHA openly
>discriminated against people of color, denying them these benefits.
>Although the amount of money saved/inherited might not have been large (in
>the tens of thousands of dollars), this "stake" could greatly effect the
>economic circumstances of the next generation. Students may see the
>connection between home ownership and economic advancement more readily,
>and
>you can use that awareness to make them think about how deprivations during
>slavery (enforced by the economic discrimination and even lynching of the
>post Civil War era) have hurt African Americans in the long run. The FHA
>example can also help with the "but my grandparents immigrated long after
>slavery ended" argument, by making students realize that de jure
>discrimination lasted well into the 20th century, and opening up a
>discussion of how de facto discrimination remains today.
_________________________________________________________________________
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Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 15:11:11 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: aacp
Subject: Teaching with Film!
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Feature films are a major part of our popular culture and are significant for
understanding how today's students, and the public generally, are informed
about the past. I have not used feature films in my university classes,
although I once built an entire course around the TV film presentation of
ROOTS. That film worked very well as a lightening rod for class discussions on
slavery, race, gender and the 19th century South generally. I would imagine
that using films such as AMISTAD would also be useful in generating
discussion. I would be careful, however, to make sure that students understood
that film is seldom an accurate presentation of history.
Obviously, issues of technology and the film maker's contemporary
society as a context for the interpretation of history are also critically
important and can be useful teaching tools. Using film in conjunction with
primary sources as well as interpretive lectures that analyzed the making of
the film and its message to a contemporary audience would, I think, be
essential to good teaching.
There are a number of good teachable films that are available through
the History Channel and PBS. I have worked on a few like "John Brown's Holy
War," "Duke Ellington's Washington," "Africans in America" and a new one
coming out this fall on PBS, "New England's Civil War." There is an
interesting DVD version of "Glory" in which they allowed me to say some things
about the black soldiers and their service. Lastly, some folks might be
interesting in the History Channel show that I do each Sunday at 10:30AM
(eastern time)"The History Center." It is a talk show focusing on the
historical context of contemporary issues. We sometimes get into some
interesting exchanges on subjects like the death penalty, the memory of the
Civil War and the Confederate flag, or the civil right movement. Teachers may
need to do a good deal of interpreting for their students, especially young
students, but they should find it useful.
Jim Horton
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 12:41:54 PDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Lois Leveen
Subject: Re: response to your answers
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/enriched
Without the money derived from an economy deeply implicated in slavery, there is
no way the colonists could have undertaken a successful war against the British.
Indeed, the protection of slavery in the Constitution evidnences how deeply
implicated the United States as a nation was in slavery.
You might want to check some historical facts, as for example the United States
has been a "united union" by its own description and actions since the late 18th
century.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 15:43:05 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: aacp
Subject: Re: The advantages of whiteness: a context for affirmative action.
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Sometimes we forget that racism works to the great advantage of some. This
puts the discussion about affirmative action in a interesting light. There
has always been affirmative action for a few power groups of people who have
had it for so long that they have come to see it as an earned right. If you
are interested in a very good book that discusses this issue you might take a
look at _Possessive investment in whiteness : how white people profit from
identity politics_ by George Lipsitz.
Jim Horton
>===== Original Message From African-American History Forum
=====
>I appreciate your responses, but as a nation who was not a united union
>until after the Civil War, why should America of today be ask to pay
>reperations to a people it help free from slavery? The nation--America, the
>nationsl state-- never sanctioned slavery as a whole.
>
>>From: "Weitzel, Ronald"
>>Reply-To: African-American History Forum
>>
>>To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>>Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
>>Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:07:48 -0400
>>
>>Often the argument against reparations centers on the idea that white
>>people
>>alive today had nothing to do with slavery and therefore have no obligation
>>to make reparations. I believe a better argument is that the nation--
>>America, the national state-- sanctioned slavery and that therefore the
>>nation must accept responsibility and all that goes with it. In my view
>>reparations would have been due to the Japanese-American community
>>regardless of whether there were any survivors of the internment camps
>>simply because that group was wrongfully denied its constitutional
>>protections. Similarly the African-American community was denied its
>>constitutional protections because of its group identification. That
>>community is entitled to reparations no less than the Japanese-Americans.
>> > ----------
>> > From: William Gaudelli[SMTP:wgaudell@MAIL.UCF.EDU]
>> > Reply To: African-American History Forum
>> > Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 12:21 PM
>> > To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>> > Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
>> >
>> > Perhaps reparations can be "paid" in an institutional manner (as Mazrui
>> > has argued) by incorporating African states into the power structure of
>> > the UN (e.g., permanent security council seat) or in a symbolic sense,
>>as
>> > Clinton gestured on his visit to Uganda in '98 (albeit a somewhat
>>feeble
>> > effort that did not make a great deal of sense geographically) by
>> > commemorating and recognizing the human tragedy that was the Atlantic
>> > slave trade.
>> > Bill
>> >
>> > >>> jstoner@SKIDMORE.EDU 10/03/00 08:35AM >>>
>> > Andrew,
>> >
>> > One basic place to start for a brief description of the various attempts
>> > to
>> > secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture
>> > and
>> > History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly covers many of
>> > the
>> > different campaigns at various points throughout American history, from
>> > forty
>> > acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over parts of
>> > the
>> > South to black Americans to contemporary measures before Congress.
>> >
>> > I think its important to note several things in discussing reparations.
>> > First
>> > and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations were paid
>> > to,
>> > admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei Japanese-Americans
>> > interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions, if not tens of
>> > billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if memory
>>serves.
>> > Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people and
>>others
>> > including Native Americans for the ways in which the government has been
>> > complicit in various acts of oppression.
>> >
>> > To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about logistical
>>issues
>> > as
>> > well. The primary ones are as follows:
>> > 1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all African Americans
>>today
>> > are
>> > descended from slaves held in the United States. You start to have
>>issues
>> > of
>> > ancestry, etc.
>> > 2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide how much to
>> > appropriate?
>> > 3) Who pays for it?
>> > 4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish some sort of
>> > pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous peoples
>>to
>> > request repatriation of their original ancestral lands, etc.
>> >
>> > There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of taking
>> > the
>> > form of individual remuneration, should take the form of community
>> > empowerment
>> > grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
>> >
>> > Hope this helps.
>> >
>> > John Stoner
>> >
>> > Andrew Biggar wrote:
>> >
>> > > What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards
>> > reparations
>> > > to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
>> > > classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a
>> > debate
>> > > of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class
>>classroom.
>> > My
>> > > goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from both
>> > sides
>> > > of the arguement?
>> > >
>> > > Andrew
>> >
>
>_________________________________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
>
>Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
>http://profiles.msn.com.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 16:33:06 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: aacp
Subject: Re: Non-African-American teachers teaching African American
History
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
The most important answer to the question of who can teach African American
history is, those who have the knowledge, who have done the research, who have
done the deep thinking and who understand the complexity of the field, and of
the people involved. Anyone who has seriously studied black history is well
aware of the difficulty of the subject, and of the fact that it is as
demanding as any other field -- perhaps more demanding than most. One needs
more than personal experience to understand the historical issues involved.
It is no less complex than studying American history, and as most of us
realize, some of the most important interpretive work in American history has
been done by non-Americans. Surely a non-American brings a different
perspective to the work, but that is in part what makes that perspective so
valuable. Different eyes sometimes make for a clearer vision. Never did I
learn more about American or African American history than when I taught in
Germany in the late 1980s. The questions and interpretations offered by
colleagues and students there, helped me to see things in these fields in
important new ways. Everyone brings their own special background to their
teaching and scholarship. It is very likely that when I teach black history,
the perspective is that of a black kid from inner city 1960s Newark. And
probably that is more than a bit different from the perspective of a black
person who grew up in the Delta of Mississippi or my own relatives growing up
in eastern North Carolina. Yet, each is useful and each is valuable for
understanding the complexity of black people, and American people, and those
who are both. As a student, the only professor I ever had in the African
American survey course was a white Georgian from Macon. I do not teach about
race the same way he did, but I have always been grateful for all that I
learned about race in his classes. He was, and is, a accomplished scholar of
the African American experience.
Jim Horton
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 14:57:18 -0700
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: judy adnum
Subject: Re: Non-African-American teachers teaching African American
History
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Perhaps the answer to the issue of "who teaches this
best" is not so much the background of the teacher,
but the materials introduced into the classroom. If
lessons are student centred rather than teacher
monopolised then the learner is able to make up their
own minds in terms of what they interpret from, say,
primary sources. If sources are taken in to the
classroom and a question is posed, for example, "What
effect did the Jim Crow Laws have on the
Afro-Americans' relationships with White Americans in
the early 20th Century?", rather than a narrative, an
inquiry based approach would best suit.
--- aacp wrote:
> The most important answer to the question of who can
> teach African American
> history is, those who have the knowledge, who have
> done the research, who have
> done the deep thinking and who understand the
> complexity of the field, and of
> the people involved. Anyone who has seriously
> studied black history is well
> aware of the difficulty of the subject, and of the
> fact that it is as
> demanding as any other field -- perhaps more
> demanding than most. One needs
> more than personal experience to understand the
> historical issues involved.
> It is no less complex than studying American
> history, and as most of us
> realize, some of the most important interpretive
> work in American history has
> been done by non-Americans. Surely a non-American
> brings a different
> perspective to the work, but that is in part what
> makes that perspective so
> valuable. Different eyes sometimes make for a
> clearer vision. Never did I
> learn more about American or African American
> history than when I taught in
> Germany in the late 1980s. The questions and
> interpretations offered by
> colleagues and students there, helped me to see
> things in these fields in
> important new ways. Everyone brings their own
> special background to their
> teaching and scholarship. It is very likely that
> when I teach black history,
> the perspective is that of a black kid from inner
> city 1960s Newark. And
> probably that is more than a bit different from the
> perspective of a black
> person who grew up in the Delta of Mississippi or my
> own relatives growing up
> in eastern North Carolina. Yet, each is useful and
> each is valuable for
> understanding the complexity of black people, and
> American people, and those
> who are both. As a student, the only professor I
> ever had in the African
> American survey course was a white Georgian from
> Macon. I do not teach about
> race the same way he did, but I have always been
> grateful for all that I
> learned about race in his classes. He was, and is,
> a accomplished scholar of
> the African American experience.
>
> Jim Horton
=====
Judy Adnum.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
http://photos.yahoo.com/
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 18:47:34 EDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: PTMQ7@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Non-African-American teachers teaching African American
History
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Approximately 90% of the K-12 teachers in the country are white, while 36% or
more of the the school population are students of color. As professionals
we have an obligation, a duty, to be best prepared, and committed to teaching
African-American history. In order to be best prepared we have to not only
know the material, but understand the complexities of race and racism as an
institutional force in our nation. Most of our students have little
knowledge of this so we must first try to teach the sociology that separates
us along race, class, and gender lines. Once the students internalize the
social patterns they are more likely to understand their personal feelings on
the issues and begin to engage in meaningful dialogue. By using slave
narratives, music, speeches, petitions and other primary documents the
history becomes more personal and all of the students become more involved.
I belive that, as white teachers, we must confront our own personal biases,
recognize our privileges, but also realize that it is our place to talk about
issues of race, culture, gender and all other issues to make our classes
palce of inclusive history.
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 23:24:29 EDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: MurphyMo@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Separate Curriculum
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
I try to be as inclusive as possible about African American history in my
high school American History course. This is especially important to my
students population, 20% of whom are African Americans.
I also have a 10% Hispanic (many born in Mexico) and 8% Asian (many born in
Asia). Our history book is new and has references about different ethnic
groups but I try to get more information from other sources. My view and that
of my administration is that diversity in our school is one of our blessings
and we should celebrate and share our cultures with one another.
African American history is the easiest for me to find as there are many
excellent African American history scholars and books and people of African
heritage have lived in our country from its earliest days.
It is harder to obtain information on recent immigrant groups who have not
lived here as long. Plus just as Africans as a group of immigrants are often
lumped together so are Mexican Americans with Latinos or all Asians.
Europeans have been differentiated by historians to a greater extent.
Although I try my best to show a broad picture, I do not have time to go into
depth as American History here begins first semester in 1492 and there are
only two semesters to get "everything in."
So if an African American student wants to know more about their heritage, as
many of ours do, they take African American History for a semester. Their
parents cannot relate a lot of information to their children as this
information was not available to them. Their families may have a limited
knowledge of their African heritage other than they are descendants of slaves.
The Mexican Americans and Asians continue to have their parents and extended
family as cultural links. They were never separated from their culture as
their families came here by choice or due to economic necessity but their
ties to their ethnic background has never been broken.
Maureen Murphy
Hoover High School
Des Moines, Iowa
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 00:15:37 EDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Funmi Kennedy
Subject: Re: response to your answers
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
In the constitution African Americans were listed as 3/5 of a human being.
Snice this has never been corrected I do believe the whole nation sactioned
the act of enslaving people. If you read the constitution carefully you will
see there was sections which can be construed as the first fugitive slave
law. Can you please tell me which state did not endorse slavery? Pennsylvania
was the first state to abolish the act and if you utilize the method they
laid out people would still have been enslved after the civil war was
completed.
As to reperations there was a special order 15 issued during the time of
civil war which set aside certain properties in the southern areas for
African Americans. This order has never been recinded and there have not been
a law to change this. As soon as I retire I plan to take the time and file
for the past rent due on the property which is owned to me and my family.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 06:39:56 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: "Weitzel, Ronald"
Subject: Re: response to your answers
In response to one of the responses, the United States did sanction slavery
as a whole. Slavery was not prohibited in the Constitution, constitutional
restrictions on slavery were rejected by the Philadelphia convention, the
institution was enshrined in the three fifths compromise and in the fugitive
slave provisions contained in Article IV Sec. 2 of the Constitution as
adopted by the convention.
> ----------
> From: jeff silvaroli[SMTP:siv2j@HOTMAIL.COM]
> Reply To: African-American History Forum
> Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 2:57 PM
> To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: response to your answers
>
> I appreciate your responses, but as a nation who was not a united union
> until after the Civil War, why should America of today be ask to pay
> reperations to a people it help free from slavery? The nation--America,
> the
> nationsl state-- never sanctioned slavery as a whole.
>
> >From: "Weitzel, Ronald"
> >Reply-To: African-American History Forum
> >
> >To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> >Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
> >Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:07:48 -0400
> >
> >Often the argument against reparations centers on the idea that white
> >people
> >alive today had nothing to do with slavery and therefore have no
> obligation
> >to make reparations. I believe a better argument is that the nation--
> >America, the national state-- sanctioned slavery and that therefore the
> >nation must accept responsibility and all that goes with it. In my view
> >reparations would have been due to the Japanese-American community
> >regardless of whether there were any survivors of the internment camps
> >simply because that group was wrongfully denied its constitutional
> >protections. Similarly the African-American community was denied its
> >constitutional protections because of its group identification. That
> >community is entitled to reparations no less than the Japanese-Americans.
> > > ----------
> > > From: William Gaudelli[SMTP:wgaudell@MAIL.UCF.EDU]
> > > Reply To: African-American History Forum
> > > Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 12:21 PM
> > > To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> > > Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
> > >
> > > Perhaps reparations can be "paid" in an institutional manner (as
> Mazrui
> > > has argued) by incorporating African states into the power structure
> of
> > > the UN (e.g., permanent security council seat) or in a symbolic sense,
> >as
> > > Clinton gestured on his visit to Uganda in '98 (albeit a somewhat
> >feeble
> > > effort that did not make a great deal of sense geographically) by
> > > commemorating and recognizing the human tragedy that was the Atlantic
> > > slave trade.
> > > Bill
> > >
> > > >>> jstoner@SKIDMORE.EDU 10/03/00 08:35AM >>>
> > > Andrew,
> > >
> > > One basic place to start for a brief description of the various
> attempts
> > > to
> > > secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American
> Culture
> > > and
> > > History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly covers many
> of
> > > the
> > > different campaigns at various points throughout American history,
> from
> > > forty
> > > acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over parts
> of
> > > the
> > > South to black Americans to contemporary measures before Congress.
> > >
> > > I think its important to note several things in discussing
> reparations.
> > > First
> > > and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations were
> paid
> > > to,
> > > admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei
> Japanese-Americans
> > > interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions, if not tens
> of
> > > billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if memory
> >serves.
> > > Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people and
> >others
> > > including Native Americans for the ways in which the government has
> been
> > > complicit in various acts of oppression.
> > >
> > > To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about logistical
> >issues
> > > as
> > > well. The primary ones are as follows:
> > > 1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all African Americans
> >today
> > > are
> > > descended from slaves held in the United States. You start to have
> >issues
> > > of
> > > ancestry, etc.
> > > 2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide how much to
> > > appropriate?
> > > 3) Who pays for it?
> > > 4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish some sort of
> > > pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous peoples
> >to
> > > request repatriation of their original ancestral lands, etc.
> > >
> > > There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of
> taking
> > > the
> > > form of individual remuneration, should take the form of community
> > > empowerment
> > > grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
> > >
> > > Hope this helps.
> > >
> > > John Stoner
> > >
> > > Andrew Biggar wrote:
> > >
> > > > What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards
> > > reparations
> > > > to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
> > > > classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a
> > > debate
> > > > of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class
> >classroom.
> > > My
> > > > goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from
> both
> > > sides
> > > > of the arguement?
> > > >
> > > > Andrew
> > >
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
>
> Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
> http://profiles.msn.com.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 13:01:29 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Hanson
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
In-Reply-To: <0D00D65118A3D211B4750008C7A4A7E80464BD1E@hrm03.house.gov>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; types="text/plain,text/html";
boundary="=====================_12300635==_.ALT"
--=====================_12300635==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Bill Gaudelli (below) expressed a reasoned, dispassionate and learned opinion,
but personally I do not think it is a logical one. Moreover, it has no legal
basis, and it is politically implausible (thus, merely an academic/ rhetorical
exercise).
The differences between compensation to the victims themselves (as in the case
of surviving Nisei), and payment to descendants several generations removed,
are obvious and cannot be dismissed as insignificant.
In my opinion, it is implausible to suggest that the federal government
(ultimately the American people) should be held responsible now, by way of
financial restitution to people living today, for something bad that was done
legally and constitutionally long ago. It we were to entertain such logic,
where would it lead... and end? Are "Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy"
due compensation for their losses in the civil war? On a less grand scale,
the
descendants of Bart Sacco? History is full of "wrongs" that cannot be
righted
with cash payments.
Dave Hanson
Professor of History
Virginia Western
Roanoke VA
At 01:07 PM 10/04/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Often the argument against reparations centers on the idea that white people
>alive today had nothing to do with slavery and therefore have no obligation
>to make reparations. I believe a better argument is that the nation--
>America, the national state-- sanctioned slavery and that therefore the
>nation must accept responsibility and all that goes with it. In my view
>reparations would have been due to the Japanese-American community
>regardless of whether there were any survivors of the internment camps
>simply because that group was wrongfully denied its constitutional
>protections. Similarly the African-American community was denied its
>constitutional protections because of its group identification. That
>community is entitled to reparations no less than the Japanese-Americans.
>> ----------
>> From: William Gaudelli[SMTP:wgaudell@MAIL.UCF.EDU]
>> Reply To: African-American History Forum
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 12:21 PM
>> To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>> Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
>>
>> Perhaps reparations can be "paid" in an institutional manner (as Mazrui
>> has argued) by incorporating African states into the power structure of
>> the UN (e.g., permanent security council seat) or in a symbolic sense, as
>> Clinton gestured on his visit to Uganda in '98 (albeit a somewhat feeble
>> effort that did not make a great deal of sense geographically) by
>> commemorating and recognizing the human tragedy that was the Atlantic
>> slave trade.
>> Bill
>>
>> >>> jstoner@SKIDMORE.EDU 10/03/00 08:35AM >>>
>> Andrew,
>>
>> One basic place to start for a brief description of the various attempts
>> to
>> secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture
>> and
>> History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly covers many of
>> the
>> different campaigns at various points throughout American history, from
>> forty
>> acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over parts of
>> the
>> South to black Americans to contemporary measures before Congress.
>>
>> I think its important to note several things in discussing reparations.
>> First
>> and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations were paid
>> to,
>> admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei Japanese-Americans
>> interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions, if not tens of
>> billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if memory serves.
>> Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people and others
>> including Native Americans for the ways in which the government has been
>> complicit in various acts of oppression.
>>
>> To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about logistical issues
>> as
>> well. The primary ones are as follows:
>> 1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all African Americans today
>> are
>> descended from slaves held in the United States. You start to have issues
>> of
>> ancestry, etc.
>> 2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide how much to
>> appropriate?
>> 3) Who pays for it?
>> 4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish some sort of
>> pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous peoples to
>> request repatriation of their original ancestral lands, etc.
>>
>> There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of taking
>> the
>> form of individual remuneration, should take the form of community
>> empowerment
>> grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
>>
>> Hope this helps.
>>
>> John Stoner
>>
>> Andrew Biggar wrote:
>>
>> > What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards
>> reparations
>> > to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
>> > classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a
>> debate
>> > of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class classroom.
>> My
>> > goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from both
>> sides
>> > of the arguement?
>> >
>> > Andrew
>>
>
--=====================_12300635==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
Bill Gaudelli (below) expressed a reasoned, dispassionate and learned
opinion, but personally I do not think it is a logical one.
Moreover, it has no legal basis, and it is politically implausible (thus,
merely an academic/ rhetorical exercise).
The differences between compensation to the victims themselves (as in the
case of surviving Nisei), and payment to descendants several generations
removed, are obvious and cannot be dismissed as insignificant.
In my opinion, it is implausible to suggest that the federal government
(ultimately the American people) should be held responsible now,
by way of financial restitution to people living today, for
something bad that was done legally and constitutionally long
ago. It we were to entertain such logic, where would it lead...
and end? Are "Sons and Daughters of the
Confederacy" due compensation for their losses in the civil
war? On a less grand scale, the descendants of Bart
Sacco? History is full of "wrongs" that cannot be
righted with cash payments.
Dave Hanson
Professor of History
Virginia Western
Roanoke VA
At 01:07 PM 10/04/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Often the argument against reparations centers on the idea that white
people
>alive today had nothing to do with slavery and therefore have no
obligation
>to make reparations. I believe a better argument is that the
nation--
>America, the national state-- sanctioned slavery and that therefore
the
>nation must accept responsibility and all that goes with it. In
my view
>reparations would have been due to the Japanese-American
community
>regardless of whether there were any survivors of the internment
camps
>simply because that group was wrongfully denied its
constitutional
>protections. Similarly the African-American community was
denied its
>constitutional protections because of its group identification.
That
>community is entitled to reparations no less than the
Japanese-Americans.
>> ----------
>> From: William
Gaudelli[SMTP:wgaudell@MAIL.UCF.EDU]
>> Reply To: African-American History
Forum
>> Sent: Tuesday,
October 03, 2000 12:21 PM
>> To:
AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>> Subject: Re: African-Americans
Reparations
>>
>> Perhaps reparations can be "paid" in an institutional
manner (as Mazrui
>> has argued) by incorporating African states into the power
structure of
>> the UN (e.g., permanent security council seat) or in a symbolic
sense, as
>> Clinton gestured on his visit to Uganda in '98 (albeit a
somewhat feeble
>> effort that did not make a great deal of sense geographically)
by
>> commemorating and recognizing the human tragedy that was the
Atlantic
>> slave trade.
>> Bill
>>
>> >>> jstoner@SKIDMORE.EDU 10/03/00 08:35AM
>>>
>> Andrew,
>>
>> One basic place to start for a brief description of the various
attempts
>> to
>> secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American
Culture
>> and
>> History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly
covers many of
>> the
>> different campaigns at various points throughout American
history, from
>> forty
>> acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over
parts of
>> the
>> South to black Americans to contemporary measures before
Congress.
>>
>> I think its important to note several things in discussing
reparations.
>> First
>> and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations
were paid
>> to,
>> admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei
Japanese-Americans
>> interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions,
if not tens of
>> billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if
memory serves.
>> Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people
and others
>> including Native Americans for the ways in which the government
has been
>> complicit in various acts of oppression.
>>
>> To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about
logistical issues
>> as
>> well. The primary ones are as follows:
>> 1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all
African Americans today
>> are
>> descended from slaves held in the United States. You start
to have issues
>> of
>> ancestry, etc.
>> 2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide
how much to
>> appropriate?
>> 3) Who pays for it?
>> 4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish
some sort of
>> pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous
peoples to
>> request repatriation of their original ancestral lands,
etc.
>>
>> There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of
taking
>> the
>> form of individual remuneration, should take the form of
community
>> empowerment
>> grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
>>
>> Hope this helps.
>>
>> John Stoner
>>
>> Andrew Biggar wrote:
>>
>> > What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend
towards
>> reparations
>> > to the African-Americans and how should I approach this
debate in my
>> > classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about
how I can run a
>> debate
>> > of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper
class classroom.
>> My
>> > goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue
from both
>> sides
>> > of the arguement?
>> >
>> > Andrew
>>
>
--=====================_12300635==_.ALT--
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 13:05:47 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Hanson
Subject: Re: Non-African-American teachers teaching African American
History
In-Reply-To:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Nice response, Lois! Thanks for sharing it.
Dave Hanson
Virginia Western
At 02:51 PM 10/04/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Most students of color are very glad to see issues of race and racism
>addressed in meaningful ways. I teach about race all the time, and although
>students may be initially curious (even skeptical) about whether I can deal
>with the material well, once they see that I am knowledgeable and that I'm
>interested in helping them think critically rather than telling them what to
>think, they respond very positively. I also bring my race into the
>conversation, which I think helps to keep me seem from being high handed or
>like another well meaning liberal who doesn't quite get it. I talk about
>how being white shapes my experience, about what my interactions with people
>of color have taught me, etc. as I model for students ways to interrogate
>what race "means" in America.
>
>Intellectual honesty and a willingness to learn from your students goes a
>long way.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 13:04:56 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: William Gaudelli
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Just a note to clarify, I did not advocate cash payments for reparations =
(that was the comment to which I was reacting).
>>> dhanson@VW.CC.VA.US 10/05/00 01:01PM >>>
Bill Gaudelli (below) expressed a reasoned, dispassionate and learned =
opinion,
but personally I do not think it is a logical one. Moreover, it has no =
legal
basis, and it is politically implausible (thus, merely an academic/ =
rhetorical
exercise).
The differences between compensation to the victims themselves (as in the =
case
of surviving Nisei), and payment to descendants several generations =
removed,
are obvious and cannot be dismissed as insignificant.
In my opinion, it is implausible to suggest that the federal government
(ultimately the American people) should be held responsible now, by way of
financial restitution to people living today, for something bad that was =
done
legally and constitutionally long ago. It we were to entertain such =
logic,
where would it lead... and end? Are "Sons and Daughters of the Confederac=
y"
due compensation for their losses in the civil war? On a less grand =
scale,
the
descendants of Bart Sacco? History is full of "wrongs" that cannot be
righted
with cash payments.
Dave Hanson
Professor of History
Virginia Western
Roanoke VA
At 01:07 PM 10/04/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Often the argument against reparations centers on the idea that white =
people
>alive today had nothing to do with slavery and therefore have no =
obligation
>to make reparations. I believe a better argument is that the nation--
>America, the national state-- sanctioned slavery and that therefore the
>nation must accept responsibility and all that goes with it. In my view
>reparations would have been due to the Japanese-American community
>regardless of whether there were any survivors of the internment camps
>simply because that group was wrongfully denied its constitutional
>protections. Similarly the African-American community was denied its
>constitutional protections because of its group identification. That
>community is entitled to reparations no less than the Japanese-Americans.
>> ----------
>> From: William Gaudelli[SMTP:wgaudell@MAIL.UCF.EDU]=20
>> Reply To: African-American History Forum
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 12:21 PM
>> To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU=20
>> Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
>>
>> Perhaps reparations can be "paid" in an institutional manner (as Mazrui
>> has argued) by incorporating African states into the power structure of
>> the UN (e.g., permanent security council seat) or in a symbolic sense, =
as
>> Clinton gestured on his visit to Uganda in '98 (albeit a somewhat =
feeble
>> effort that did not make a great deal of sense geographically) by
>> commemorating and recognizing the human tragedy that was the Atlantic
>> slave trade.
>> Bill
>>
>> >>> jstoner@SKIDMORE.EDU 10/03/00 08:35AM >>>
>> Andrew,
>>
>> One basic place to start for a brief description of the various =
attempts
>> to
>> secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American =
Culture
>> and
>> History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly covers many of
>> the
>> different campaigns at various points throughout American history, from
>> forty
>> acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over parts of
>> the
>> South to black Americans to contemporary measures before Congress.
>>
>> I think its important to note several things in discussing reparations.
>> First
>> and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations were paid
>> to,
>> admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei Japanese-Americans
>> interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions, if not tens =
of
>> billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if memory =
serves.
>> Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people and =
others
>> including Native Americans for the ways in which the government has =
been
>> complicit in various acts of oppression.
>>
>> To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about logistical =
issues
>> as
>> well. The primary ones are as follows:
>> 1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all African Americans =
today
>> are
>> descended from slaves held in the United States. You start to have =
issues
>> of
>> ancestry, etc.
>> 2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide how much to
>> appropriate?
>> 3) Who pays for it?
>> 4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish some sort of
>> pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous peoples =
to
>> request repatriation of their original ancestral lands, etc.
>>
>> There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of taking
>> the
>> form of individual remuneration, should take the form of community
>> empowerment
>> grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
>>
>> Hope this helps.
>>
>> John Stoner
>>
>> Andrew Biggar wrote:
>>
>> > What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards
>> reparations
>> > to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in my
>> > classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run a
>> debate
>> > of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class =
classroom.
>> My
>> > goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from both
>> sides
>> > of the arguement?
>> >
>> > Andrew
>>
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 13:20:20 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Hanson
Subject: Re: response to your answers
In-Reply-To: <18.321db3f.270d5a69@aol.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Good luck collecting.
Seriously, no question about it--not everyone supported slavery at any time
from colonial America through emancipation, but certainly the nation as a
whole was responsible for its existence and constitutional/legal
sanctioning. But as a matter of public policy, can we erase the stain of
this historical abomination with cash payments today? I think not.
Respectfully,
Dave Hanson
Virginia Western
At 12:15 AM 10/05/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>In the constitution African Americans were listed as 3/5 of a human being.
>Snice this has never been corrected I do believe the whole nation sactioned
>the act of enslaving people. If you read the constitution carefully you will
>see there was sections which can be construed as the first fugitive slave
>law. Can you please tell me which state did not endorse slavery? Pennsylvania
>was the first state to abolish the act and if you utilize the method they
>laid out people would still have been enslved after the civil war was
>completed.
>
>As to reperations there was a special order 15 issued during the time of
>civil war which set aside certain properties in the southern areas for
>African Americans. This order has never been recinded and there have not been
>a law to change this. As soon as I retire I plan to take the time and file
>for the past rent due on the property which is owned to me and my family.
>
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 13:10:42 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Guocun Yang
Subject: Re: Separate Curriculum
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
The African American experience should be an integral part and is treated as such
in my American history courses, which are at a community college. About a quarter
of the reading on early America is on black history. For me, it has not been a
problem at all. However, African American history forms such an important part of
American story that only separate courses can cover it more adequately. For this
reason, I am going to offer (already approved) African American history I and II,
parallel to U.S. I and U.S. II in periodization. The unknown for me is whether
the classes will be filled as my general courses are, although both white and
non-white students have shown interest. It may be that only those who see value
in such a course will take it. That is fine. Meeting with a small interested
group is more desirable than having a half-interested class.
A separate course makes sense in terms of need and demand.
Guocun Yang, Ph.D.
Manchester Community College
Connecticut
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 13:51:56 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Guocun Yang
Subject: Re: response to your answers
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
In the U.S. constitution, the 3/5 formula reflected the judgment of the delegates
at the Philadelphia convection that slave workers were 40% less productive than
white workers, not that an African American was 60% human and 40% chattel. This
compromise also meant the sanction of racial slavery in the constitution.
Guocun Yang
Manchester Community College
Funmi Kennedy wrote:
> In the constitution African Americans were listed as 3/5 of a human being.
> Snice this has never been corrected I do believe the whole nation sactioned
> the act of enslaving people. If you read the constitution carefully you will
> see there was sections which can be construed as the first fugitive slave
> law. Can you please tell me which state did not endorse slavery? Pennsylvania
> was the first state to abolish the act and if you utilize the method they
> laid out people would still have been enslved after the civil war was
> completed.
>
> As to reperations there was a special order 15 issued during the time of
> civil war which set aside certain properties in the southern areas for
> African Americans. This order has never been recinded and there have not been
> a law to change this. As soon as I retire I plan to take the time and file
> for the past rent due on the property which is owned to me and my family.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 14:41:11 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Hanson
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Often the argument against reparations centers on the idea that white people
>alive today had nothing to do with slavery and therefore have no obligation
>to make reparations. I believe a better argument is that the nation--
>America, the national state-- sanctioned slavery and that therefore the
>nation must accept responsibility and all that goes with it. In my view
>reparations would have been due to the Japanese-American community
>regardless of whether there were any survivors of the internment camps
>simply because that group was wrongfully denied its constitutional
>protections. Similarly the African-American community was denied its
>constitutional protections because of its group identification. That
>community is entitled to reparations no less than the Japanese-Americans.
In comparing the enslavement of African-Americans with the internment of
Nisei, the writer above states that "the African-American community was
denied its constitutional protections because of its group identification."
Obviously slavery was morally wrong but nonetheless constitutional during
the period of its existence. At the time, slaves had few if any
constitutional protections.
Similarly, the Nisei internment was ruled constitutional, and the Korematsu
decision has never been reversed. Restitution for the Nisei internment was
a political (and morally correct) decision. So the question of restitution
to the descendants of slaves is a political matter, not a matter of
compensation for violation of African-Americans' constitutional rights via
enslavement.
There is a clear and vast difference between "compensation" to surviving
Nisei who lost their property, and "restitution" to the descendants of
slaves. Japanese-Americans (and other minority groups) have suffered from
discrimination before and after the internment during World War II, but
that is another matter and it had nothing to do with the political decision
to compensate Nisei for their relocation and internment.
Dave Hanson
Professor of History
Virginia Western
Roanoke VA
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 19:32:26 GMT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: jeff silvaroli
Subject: Re: response to your answers
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
thank you for your info. all of it helps me better understand and become a
better person
>From: "Weitzel, Ronald"
>Reply-To: African-American History Forum
>
>To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: Re: response to your answers
>Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 06:39:56 -0400
>
>In response to one of the responses, the United States did sanction slavery
>as a whole. Slavery was not prohibited in the Constitution, constitutional
>restrictions on slavery were rejected by the Philadelphia convention, the
>institution was enshrined in the three fifths compromise and in the
>fugitive
>slave provisions contained in Article IV Sec. 2 of the Constitution as
>adopted by the convention.
>
> > ----------
> > From: jeff silvaroli[SMTP:siv2j@HOTMAIL.COM]
> > Reply To: African-American History Forum
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 2:57 PM
> > To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> > Subject: Re: response to your answers
> >
> > I appreciate your responses, but as a nation who was not a united union
> > until after the Civil War, why should America of today be ask to pay
> > reperations to a people it help free from slavery? The nation--America,
> > the
> > nationsl state-- never sanctioned slavery as a whole.
> >
> > >From: "Weitzel, Ronald"
> > >Reply-To: African-American History Forum
> > >
> > >To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> > >Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
> > >Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 13:07:48 -0400
> > >
> > >Often the argument against reparations centers on the idea that white
> > >people
> > >alive today had nothing to do with slavery and therefore have no
> > obligation
> > >to make reparations. I believe a better argument is that the nation--
> > >America, the national state-- sanctioned slavery and that therefore the
> > >nation must accept responsibility and all that goes with it. In my
>view
> > >reparations would have been due to the Japanese-American community
> > >regardless of whether there were any survivors of the internment camps
> > >simply because that group was wrongfully denied its constitutional
> > >protections. Similarly the African-American community was denied its
> > >constitutional protections because of its group identification. That
> > >community is entitled to reparations no less than the
>Japanese-Americans.
> > > > ----------
> > > > From: William Gaudelli[SMTP:wgaudell@MAIL.UCF.EDU]
> > > > Reply To: African-American History Forum
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 12:21 PM
> > > > To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> > > > Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
> > > >
> > > > Perhaps reparations can be "paid" in an institutional manner (as
> > Mazrui
> > > > has argued) by incorporating African states into the power structure
> > of
> > > > the UN (e.g., permanent security council seat) or in a symbolic
>sense,
> > >as
> > > > Clinton gestured on his visit to Uganda in '98 (albeit a somewhat
> > >feeble
> > > > effort that did not make a great deal of sense geographically) by
> > > > commemorating and recognizing the human tragedy that was the
>Atlantic
> > > > slave trade.
> > > > Bill
> > > >
> > > > >>> jstoner@SKIDMORE.EDU 10/03/00 08:35AM >>>
> > > > Andrew,
> > > >
> > > > One basic place to start for a brief description of the various
> > attempts
> > > > to
> > > > secure reparations would be the Encyclopedia of African-American
> > Culture
> > > > and
> > > > History. I recall that the entry on reparations briefly covers many
> > of
> > > > the
> > > > different campaigns at various points throughout American history,
> > from
> > > > forty
> > > > acres and a mule to the Communists' 1928 proposal to turn over parts
> > of
> > > > the
> > > > South to black Americans to contemporary measures before Congress.
> > > >
> > > > I think its important to note several things in discussing
> > reparations.
> > > > First
> > > > and foremost, this is not an unheard of practice--reparations were
> > paid
> > > > to,
> > > > admittedly a much smaller group, the issei and nisei
> > Japanese-Americans
> > > > interned during World War II. Germany has paid billions, if not
>tens
> > of
> > > > billions of dollars in reparations to Jews and/or Israel if memory
> > >serves.
> > > > Certainly, there have been public apologies to Hawaiian people and
> > >others
> > > > including Native Americans for the ways in which the government has
> > been
> > > > complicit in various acts of oppression.
> > > >
> > > > To balance that, however, one has to ask questions about logistical
> > >issues
> > > > as
> > > > well. The primary ones are as follows:
> > > > 1) How do you decide who gets the money? Not all African Americans
> > >today
> > > > are
> > > > descended from slaves held in the United States. You start to have
> > >issues
> > > > of
> > > > ancestry, etc.
> > > > 2) If money is one part of reparations, how do you decide how much
>to
> > > > appropriate?
> > > > 3) Who pays for it?
> > > > 4) What might the repercussions be? If you establish some sort of
> > > > pseudo-legal precedent, does this open the door for indigenous
>peoples
> > >to
> > > > request repatriation of their original ancestral lands, etc.
> > > >
> > > > There certainly have been arguments that reparations, instead of
> > taking
> > > > the
> > > > form of individual remuneration, should take the form of community
> > > > empowerment
> > > > grants and the like, which raise other interesting issues.
> > > >
> > > > Hope this helps.
> > > >
> > > > John Stoner
> > > >
> > > > Andrew Biggar wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > What do the readers of this forum feel about the trend towards
> > > > reparations
> > > > > to the African-Americans and how should I approach this debate in
>my
> > > > > classroom? (I teach high school)... Any ideas about how I can run
>a
> > > > debate
> > > > > of this nature in my predominately white, middle/upper class
> > >classroom.
> > > > My
> > > > > goal would be for them to get an understanding of the issue from
> > both
> > > > sides
> > > > > of the arguement?
> > > > >
> > > > > Andrew
> > > >
> >
> >
>_________________________________________________________________________
> > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at
>http://www.hotmail.com.
> >
> > Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
> > http://profiles.msn.com.
> >
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.
=========================================================================
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 23:50:08 EDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Funmi Kennedy
Subject: Re: response to your answers
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
No the stain can never be erased. This is shown in the conversation of
teaching African American History as a seperate subject from American
History. There is no apology or excuses for students learning the history of
European Male Americans as American History and I believe until we can make
American History reflective of the combined experiences of all its ethinic
groups we are still in a sad state of affairs.
I am neither a professor or a teacher in the formal system yet my house is
always full of students both on the college and high school level looking for
information. Wanting to discuss not only the African American experience but
the Latino experience, the Native American experience and other things. I
refer students to books, websites, and other referal sources before we
discuss anything because I don't want them to echo my thoughts but I rather
them to be able to be thinkers and researchers so they can discuss thier
conclusions.
I seldom discuss movies such as Glory or Aminstad because I rather have them
read primary sources on theses events before we discuss what the movies
portray. The funny thing is after they look into the other resources on these
topics they never refer to the movie again even though they discuss the
topics.
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 07:25:35 -0400
Reply-To: "E. I. Walch"
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: "E. I. Walch"
Organization: Read/Write/Now
Subject: Willie Lynch
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_001D_01C02F66.9E3AD7C0"
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Last year, I took my Adult Literacy students to an exhibit and lecture =
about the Underground Railroad in our home town. It was presented by our =
(local) African & African-American Historical Museum. The person giving =
the lecture handed out an article from a magazine that gave a =
transcription of the "Willie Lynch Speech."=20
The article had a big impact on the students, and a team of us (students =
and teachers) went off to do research about the speech. We came up with =
a lot of contradictory information. Most academic sources suggested that =
the speech is an urban myth - created in the 1980s possibly by Minister =
Farrakan.=20
Does anyone on this list have any information about this speech and its =
phenomenom - the "Willie Lynch Syndrome" - that is when black people =
turn against each other instead of presenting a unified front. Any =
citations would be really appreciated.
Erica Walch
Read/Write/Now=20
Adult Learning Center
Springfield, MA
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Last year, I took my Adult Literacy =
students to an=20
exhibit and lecture about the Underground Railroad in our home town. It =
was=20
presented by our (local) African & African-American Historical =
Museum.=20
The person giving the lecture handed out an article from a magazine that =
gave a=20
transcription of the "Willie Lynch Speech."
The article had a big impact on the =
students, and a=20
team of us (students and teachers) went off to do research about the =
speech. We=20
came up with a lot of contradictory information. Most academic sources =
suggested=20
that the speech is an urban myth - created in the 1980s possibly by =
Minister=20
Farrakan.
Does anyone on this list have any =
information about=20
this speech and its phenomenom - the "Willie Lynch Syndrome" - that =
is when=20
black people turn against each other instead of presenting a unified =
front. Any=20
citations would be really appreciated.
Erica Walch
Read/Write/Now
Adult Learning Center
Springfield, =
MA
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Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 08:42:56 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: dujak2
Subject: Re: response to your answers
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I Strongly agree with you David,
Somehow I don't want our nation to clear their the record of slavery and the
treatment of my people with a PAID IN FULL check. We (all of us) must
continue to remember the institution of slavery for better or worse.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Hanson"
To:
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 1:20 PM
Subject: Re: response to your answers
> Good luck collecting.
>
> Seriously, no question about it--not everyone supported slavery at any
time
> from colonial America through emancipation, but certainly the nation as a
> whole was responsible for its existence and constitutional/legal
> sanctioning. But as a matter of public policy, can we erase the stain of
> this historical abomination with cash payments today? I think not.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Dave Hanson
> Virginia Western
>
> At 12:15 AM 10/05/2000 -0400, you wrote:
> >In the constitution African Americans were listed as 3/5 of a human
being.
> >Snice this has never been corrected I do believe the whole nation
sactioned
> >the act of enslaving people. If you read the constitution carefully you
will
> >see there was sections which can be construed as the first fugitive slave
> >law. Can you please tell me which state did not endorse slavery?
Pennsylvania
> >was the first state to abolish the act and if you utilize the method they
> >laid out people would still have been enslved after the civil war was
> >completed.
> >
> >As to reperations there was a special order 15 issued during the time of
> >civil war which set aside certain properties in the southern areas for
> >African Americans. This order has never been recinded and there have not
been
> >a law to change this. As soon as I retire I plan to take the time and
file
> >for the past rent due on the property which is owned to me and my family.
> >
=========================================================================
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 16:40:59 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: "Noonan, Ellen"
Subject: Re: Willie Lynch
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There was a long discussion on the H-Net list "H-Afro Am" a while back about
the Willie Lynch speech. You should check the archives for that list
(located at http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~afro-am/
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: aacp
Subject: Re: Non-African-American teachers teaching African American
History
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>===== Original Message From African-American History Forum
=====
>You raise a good question. Back in the 1970s I taught an African-American
>History course at a large midwestern university, and I am a "Non-African
>American." It did not make me especially uncomfortable but I did wonder if
>it made it harder for me to understand and explain the African-American
>experience, and harder for African American students to accept my
>interpretations as valid. Obviously, you don't have to be a WWII veteran
>to teach a course on WWII, and the same principle should apply, but does
>it? Good question.
>
>D. Hanson
>
>At 06:26 PM 10/02/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>>I'm interested in finding out how accepting students in an African-American
>>History class are to a Non-African American teacher teaching the subject.
>>Just because a teacher isn't African-American doesn't mean that they are not
>>qualified to teach the course, but do the students always understand that?
>>I am also curious how teachers have handled this problem in the past.
I have two examples that may help work toward hadling this problem. While I
was a graduate student in a Black Studies program, there was a white professor
hired to teach in the department whose field of specialization was slavery in
the US. Students complained almost from the beginning about a white instructor
teaching about slavery, in a Black Studies department of all places, they
argued. However, there were also stronger complaints that pointed to the
course material and to the professor's performance in class (a lack of
willingness or ability to address, tactfully, questions about Willie Lynch,
for example, or to convey a more sweeping sense race and sexual politics)
suggesting that the instructor simply did not have a firm grasp of the
centrality of race in slavery. The black students were particularly
dissatisfied.
However, as an undergraduate, there was a young Indian professor from South
Africa who taught in the Africana Studies department. Now, while we are able
to recognize the relative proximity of experiences between South African
Indians and the black Africans there (as did many of the students), he was
still recieved with skepticism. But the professor, extremely articulate and
well-versed in the various courses he taught on black intellectual history,
introduction to black studies, and race and political economy is Africa,
demonstrated to his students almost immediately that he held a full mastery of
his topics along with a sensitivity to many of the issues that any of these
courses (and the topics therein) may raise for black students in particular.
The point is, any professor who intends to stand before a class, especially a
black history class, must command both a firm knowledge of the field about
which he os she will profess, as well as a grasp of the meaning of the
material to the students. Because, as I have observed, black history and
black studies courses tend to register a disproportionately large number of
black students; so, while one is there to instruct them in a particular body
of knowledge, one must also be prepared to wade through leagues of questions
and complications that knowledge may bring for those students, and for the
entire class body. Design ways to find out early on what the class means to
your students, regardless of their race. That way, you may be able to
actually structure certain portions of your course to dig deeply into the
issues that are meaningful to your students, so that their concerns may be
addressed both openly and intellectually, and their particular issues can be
harnessed to help drive the class (this is not to suggest relinquishing
control of your class to your students, but merely to tactfully "out" their
concerns and place them on a plane that is advantegeous rather than harmful
to the class dynamic). You will find that these concerns can become very
useful tools in deconstructing the actual material of the course; be prepared
then to offer them materials and ideas that will push them to think critically
about the issues they raise.
The race of the instructor does not have to impare the progress of a black
history class if the professor knows his or material well, and is also aware
that they simply may not understand what the material means for all their
black students (and that, because there is no one "Black Experience", not all
students will receive the material or the professor in the same way).
-Christopher M. Johnson, George Washington University
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 15:26:21 EDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Cbgord@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: African-Americans Reparations
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Something I have used to try to impress upon students the long-term impact of
slavery and Reconstruction is a speech by Randall Robinson on the subject of
U.S. trade policy with Africa. He provides some extremely cogent history on
racism and slavery and clearly describes how the failure of Reconstruction to
deliver land to most freed slaves meant that future generations of African
Americans were denied the inheritance that land and any wealth that would
have been derived from it., He compares that to all of the white
homesteaders who did get land and passed it down and even to the huge gifts
of land given to the big railroad companies and frequency spectrum given to
broadcast corporations in the thirties and more recently with the passage of
the 1996 Telecommunications bill. And he points out how all of these
giveaways are not recognized for what they are and the impact they continue
to have, but that any attempt to redress such inequities, such as affirmative
action, is denigrated as a "handout."
You can listen to the speech by Robinson by going to
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn980804.html
At the top of the page it will say "August 4, 1998 on Democracy Now!" Then
scroll down to "Story: AFRICA EXPERT DISCUSSES U.S. POLICY." Click on that
story and, if you have RealPlayer (if you don't, clicking on the story will
get you a question about whether you'd like to download it for free
immediately, which I recommend you do) You can then record the speech onto
an audio tape or download it and play it later from your computer.
By the way, Democracy Now is a fantastic program produced at WBAI in New York
City and syndicated on other Pacifica stations. If you go to its website,
you can get all kinds of great programs from its archive. It's at
http://www.democracynow.org/
Craig Gordon, Fremont High, Oakland California
In a message dated 10/4/00 11:54:41 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
lois.leveen@REED.EDU writes:
<< It can be difficult for students to see how discrimination in one
generation
shapes life for another generation, particularly in economic terms. One
approach is to start with something a bit more recent than slavery: the
Federal Housing Authority policies of the post World War II era. The
assistance in buying homes moved many American families into the "middle
class," enabling them to establish personal assets that were later passed on
through inheritance to their children and grandchildren. The FHA openly
discriminated against people of color, denying them these benefits.
Although the amount of money saved/inherited might not have been large (in
the tens of thousands of dollars), this "stake" could greatly effect the
economic circumstances of the next generation. Students may see the
connection between home ownership and economic advancement more readily, and
you can use that awareness to make them think about how deprivations during
slavery (enforced by the economic discrimination and even lynching of the
post Civil War era) have hurt African Americans in the long run. The FHA
example can also help with the "but my grandparents immigrated long after
slavery ended" argument, by making students realize that de jure
discrimination lasted well into the 20th century, and opening up a
discussion of how de facto discrimination remains today. >>
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 16:32:55 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Emma Garrett
Subject: Re: Non-African-American teachers teaching African American
History
As a recently graduated high school student, I appreciate the
acknowledgment of K-12 teachers responsibility to understanding the force
of race in institutions in our country. However, I disagree that students
have little knowledge of this. Most African-American students have
experienced this racism and heard about it from their parents throughout
their lives, many times the culprit being their own K-12 schools. I agree
that the teaching of the sociology of race differences is important for
students to be able to explore their own views on racial subjects, but the
problem is that students perceive the white teacher teaching African-
American history as a representative of school systems that they have
perceived as racist. Many of these history classes seem to be offered as a
token of inclusion to keep African-American students from accusing school
system's of racism. I think that the only way to change these opinions is
not only to explain to students the sociological background of racism, but
also its background in educational systems and relating their experiences
of racism to the teacher's own biases.
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 16:59:55 EDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: "Anthony A. Lee"
Subject: Re: Willie Lynch
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Thanks very much for the reference to the H-AfrAm logs where the Willie Lynch
letter/speech is discussed in the archives
(http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~afro-am/). The reading was helpful.
I have had students come to me over the past few years with copies of
this speech (sometimes letter), but I never took the time to pursue the
matter. It looked (just on casual reading) like a fictional document. But I
didn't realize that there was any scholarly debate concerning it.
Having looked at the website, it seems obvious to me that this document
is simply an amateurish forgery that has been widely accepted within the
black community as an historical document. I am surprised that there has not
been more discussion of it among African-American scholars--both its status
as an obvious hoax, and its significance in engaging the attention of a large
number of black students.
I am also surprised that, even in the H-AfrAm discussion, scholars were
so timid about the evidence that this is a twentieth century document, not
one produced in the seventeenth century. I was certainly convinced by the
mostly circumstancial arguments set forth in the letters that are on the
website (from 1998) from the two history professors, Dr. Sheppard and Dr.
Pierson. But, beyond that, I did a little quick research of my own just
using a dictionary. The English vocabulary that is used in the speech did
not even exist in the eighteenth century, and it could not have been a part
of any speech given at that time. I simply checked the date of first use of
some words used in the speech as it was reproduced on one of the internet
links. Words like "foolproof" (1902) and "refuel" (1811), and others. After
ten minutes of research it was clear this this piece had to have been written
in the twentieth century.
So, now I am wondering what all the timidity is about. Is this just a
reluctance to tangle with African-American popular culture? Does this
"speech" have some important promoters? or what? Somebody enlighten me.
Regards,
Anthony A. Lee
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 22:49:15 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: aacp
Subject: Re: Separate Curriculum
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Dear Maureen Murphy,
I really appreciate how little time you have to cover so much ground in
American history. Classroom teaching is often a matter of making choices that
we would rather not have to make. Yet, African American history is not
something to be added on to American history, it is integral to American
history. For example, the profit from the 18th century slave trade provided
much of the capital that made 19th century American industrialization
possible. Thus, a class on the slave trade can also be a class on the opening
of the industrial revolution in the U.S. Cotton, the chief slave grown crop
of the 19th century was the most valuable American export by 1815 and by 1840
it was more valuable than everything else the nation exported combined. By
1860, the total worth of slave property in the U.S. was greater than the
combined worth of all the railroads, all the banks and all the factories
combined. Thus, a class about slavery can also be a class about American 19th
century economics. If fact, a discussion of 19th century without a discussion
of slavery is incomplete to say the very least.
I would say similar things about politics since slavery was one of the chief
political issues, directly or indirectly for most of the pre-Civil War period.
The same thing can be said of the 20th century. Race is central to the
formation of the American culture and one cannot understand the basics of our
nation without understanding the role of race. Thus, African American history
is not something for black people alone to learn. It is an essential part of
the education for anyone who expects to understand America and its history.
The point is African American history happened in America, to Americans, and
formed a significant part of the foundation for understanding almost
everything, political, social, and economic, in America. I would argue that
we must find time to teach the central issues of American history in an
American history class. Race is indeed central.
Jim Horton
>===== Original Message From African-American History Forum
=====
>I try to be as inclusive as possible about African American history in my
>high school American History course. This is especially important to my
>students population, 20% of whom are African Americans.
>
>I also have a 10% Hispanic (many born in Mexico) and 8% Asian (many born in
>Asia). Our history book is new and has references about different ethnic
>groups but I try to get more information from other sources. My view and that
>of my administration is that diversity in our school is one of our blessings
>and we should celebrate and share our cultures with one another.
>
>African American history is the easiest for me to find as there are many
>excellent African American history scholars and books and people of African
>heritage have lived in our country from its earliest days.
>
> It is harder to obtain information on recent immigrant groups who have not
>lived here as long. Plus just as Africans as a group of immigrants are often
>lumped together so are Mexican Americans with Latinos or all Asians.
>Europeans have been differentiated by historians to a greater extent.
>
>Although I try my best to show a broad picture, I do not have time to go into
>depth as American History here begins first semester in 1492 and there are
>only two semesters to get "everything in."
>
>So if an African American student wants to know more about their heritage, as
>many of ours do, they take African American History for a semester. Their
>parents cannot relate a lot of information to their children as this
>information was not available to them. Their families may have a limited
>knowledge of their African heritage other than they are descendants of
slaves.
>
>The Mexican Americans and Asians continue to have their parents and extended
>family as cultural links. They were never separated from their culture as
>their families came here by choice or due to economic necessity but their
>ties to their ethnic background has never been broken.
>
>Maureen Murphy
>Hoover High School
>Des Moines, Iowa
=========================================================================
Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 23:29:24 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: aacp
Subject: The reparations discussion: a correction!
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The discussion on reparations is interesting but I wonder if the fact that the
nation as a whole benefited from the labor of slavery and the slave trade, and
that slavery was in fact national policy, protected by the Constitution, and
that wealth produced by individual slaves was inherited over generations and
passed down, not to the descendants of those slaves but to the descendants of
slaveholders is relevant to the argument? Might one argue that there are
debts long over due on that inheritance? Without agreeing on how such a debt
should be paid, can we agree that it exists?
One point of history:
The 3/5ths compromise in the Constitution had to do with representation in the
federal House of Representatives for slaveholding areas. It was not based on
as estimate of how much work slaves did as one person suggested. It was in
fact a political victory for the slaveholding regions which were allowed to
count all of their free population and 3/5ths of their non-free population as
the basis for the number of representations they received. This arrangement
enabled Thomas Jefferson to be elected President in 1800. This was a major
advantage for slave holders who could receive additional representation based
on the number of slaves they held.
One other thing. Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery and did so in
1777. Mass. Abolished slavery by state supreme court decision in 1783.
Jim Horton
=========================================================================
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 18:40:18 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
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aacp wrote:
> Dear Maureen Murphy,
>
> I really appreciate how little time you have to cover so much ground in
> American history. Classroom teaching is often a matter of making choices that
> we would rather not have to make. Yet, African American history is not
> something to be added on to American history, it is integral to American
> history. For example, the profit from the 18th century slave trade provided
> much of the capital that made 19th century American industrialization
> possible. Thus, a class on the slave trade can also be a class on the opening
> of the industrial revolution in the U.S. Cotton, the chief slave grown crop
> of the 19th century was the most valuable American export by 1815 and by 1840
> it was more valuable than everything else the nation exported combined. By
> 1860, the total worth of slave property in the U.S. was greater than the
> combined worth of all the railroads, all the banks and all the factories
> combined. Thus, a class about slavery can also be a class about American 19th
> century economics. If fact, a discussion of 19th century without a discussion
> of slavery is incomplete to say the very least.
>
> I would say similar things about politics since slavery was one of the chief
> political issues, directly or indirectly for most of the pre-Civil War period.
> The same thing can be said of the 20th century. Race is central to the
> formation of the American culture and one cannot understand the basics of our
> nation without understanding the role of race. Thus, African American history
> is not something for black people alone to learn. It is an essential part of
> the education for anyone who expects to understand America and its history.
>
> The point is African American history happened in America, to Americans, and
> formed a significant part of the foundation for understanding almost
> everything, political, social, and economic, in America. I would argue that
> we must find time to teach the central issues of American history in an
> American history class. Race is indeed central.
>
> Jim Horton
>
> >===== Original Message From African-American History Forum
> =====
> >I try to be as inclusive as possible about African American history in my
> >high school American History course. This is especially important to my
> >students population, 20% of whom are African Americans.
> >
> >I also have a 10% Hispanic (many born in Mexico) and 8% Asian (many born in
> >Asia). Our history book is new and has references about different ethnic
> >groups but I try to get more information from other sources. My view and that
> >of my administration is that diversity in our school is one of our blessings
> >and we should celebrate and share our cultures with one another.
> >
> >African American history is the easiest for me to find as there are many
> >excellent African American history scholars and books and people of African
> >heritage have lived in our country from its earliest days.
> >
> > It is harder to obtain information on recent immigrant groups who have not
> >lived here as long. Plus just as Africans as a group of immigrants are often
> >lumped together so are Mexican Americans with Latinos or all Asians.
> >Europeans have been differentiated by historians to a greater extent.
> >
> >Although I try my best to show a broad picture, I do not have time to go into
> >depth as American History here begins first semester in 1492 and there are
> >only two semesters to get "everything in."
> >
> >So if an African American student wants to know more about their heritage, as
> >many of ours do, they take African American History for a semester. Their
> >parents cannot relate a lot of information to their children as this
> >information was not available to them. Their families may have a limited
> >knowledge of their African heritage other than they are descendants of
> slaves.
> >
> >The Mexican Americans and Asians continue to have their parents and extended
> >family as cultural links. They were never separated from their culture as
> >their families came here by choice or due to economic necessity but their
> >ties to their ethnic background has never been broken.
> >
> >Maureen Murphy
> >Hoover High School
> >Des Moines, Iowa
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Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 07:25:16 -0700
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Dawn Cooper
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Please remove my name from your subscriber list.
Thank you
Dawn Cooper722@Yahoo.com
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - 35mm Quality Prints, Now Get 15 Free!
http://photos.yahoo.com/
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 10:51:16 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Guocun Yang
Subject: Re: The reparations discussion: a correction!
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Dr. Horton made an important addition to the 3/5th compromise. I would like to add
a little more. Indeed the South benefited from the deal particularly in light that
this formula was supposed to be applied in federal tax collection but little if
any such tax was actually collected by the federal government up to the abolition
of slavery.
Guocun Yang
>
>
> One point of history:
> The 3/5ths compromise in the Constitution had to do with representation in the
> federal House of Representatives for slaveholding areas. It was not based on
> as estimate of how much work slaves did as one person suggested. It was in
> fact a political victory for the slaveholding regions which were allowed to
> count all of their free population and 3/5ths of their non-free population as
> the basis for the number of representations they received. This arrangement
> enabled Thomas Jefferson to be elected President in 1800. This was a major
> advantage for slave holders who could receive additional representation based
> on the number of slaves they held.
>
> One other thing. Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery and did so in
> 1777. Mass. Abolished slavery by state supreme court decision in 1783.
>
> Jim Horton
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 16:36:43 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: aacp
Subject: Re: Histories of other ethnicities
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To those who ask about classes that focus on groups other than African
Americans and assume that they do not exist you might point out that they do
in many places and in great variety. Yet, there is an important point to
remember. African American studies is not the study of an ethnic group. On
the very large continent of Africa, six times the size of Europe and vastly
more ethnically, linguistically, religiously, and culturally complex, there
are enormous numbers of complex national and ethnic groups and combinations of
groups. The study of African America is not equivalent to the study of Irish
America or Italian America, although each can be a legitimate area of study.
That said, I draw your attention to the many ethnic studies programs and
individual courses that focus on specific ethnic groups in a variety of
universities all around the country. At the U. of Minnesota, for example,
courses discuss not only general groups like, HIST 3861. European American;
From Immigrants to Ethnics: 1790-1890 and HIST 3877. Asian American History,
1850-Present, but also more specific groups as is the case in SCAN 8975.
Scandinavian Immigrant Languages and Literatures. There are courses on
Italian Americans and Irish Americans at several schools and if you are
interested in Norwegian immigration-related classes, check out the web sites
below for information about Scandinavian departments.
http://www.montana.edu/sass/scandept.htm
http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/norwegian/nortana/programs.html
You can find more on the variety of the University of Minnesota's ethnic
studies offerings by contacting the:
Immigration History Research Center
University of Minnesota
311 Elmer L. Andersen Library
222 - 21st Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612-625-4800
ihrc@tc.umn.edu
Jim Horton
>===== Original Message From African-American History Forum
=====
>An interesting question. I think you address that by not presenting
>phenomenon as unique to a group, but as examples of human behavior. In
>this universal sense, the ethnic identity that an event happens to be
>associated with is of secondary importance and human rights is of
>primary importance, thus establishing a universal character to your
>inquiry.
>
>
>********************************
>Bill Gaudelli, Ed.D.
>wgaudell@mail.ucf.edu
>Assistant Professor
>University of Central Florida
>College of Education
>PO Box 161250
>Orlando, FL 32816
>(407) 823-0215
>"We will change American education
>only insofar as we make all our schools
>educationally inspiring and intellectually
>challenging for teachers."
>Deborah Meier, 1995
>
>>> mlm82132@PEGASUS.CC.UCF.EDU 10/02/00 06:28PM >>>
>I am curious how someone would respond to a student complaining that
>there
>is no class based specifically on their ethnicity while there are
>classes
>based on African-Americans and women.
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 17:27:49 EDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: landon shephard
Subject: Re: The reparations discussion: a correction!
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>From: aacp
>Reply-To: African-American History Forum
>
>To: AFRICAN-AMERICANFORUM@ASHP.LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>Subject: The reparations discussion: a correction!
>Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 23:29:24 -0400
>
>The discussion on reparations is interesting but I wonder if the fact that
>the
>nation as a whole benefited from the labor of slavery and the slave trade,
>and
>that slavery was in fact national policy, protected by the Constitution,
>and
>that wealth produced by individual slaves was inherited over generations
>and
>passed down, not to the descendants of those slaves but to the descendants
>of
>slaveholders is relevant to the argument? Might one argue that there are
>debts long over due on that inheritance? Without agreeing on how such a
>debt
>should be paid, can we agree that it exists?
>
>One point of history:
>The 3/5ths compromise in the Constitution had to do with representation in
>the
>federal House of Representatives for slaveholding areas. It was not based
>on
>as estimate of how much work slaves did as one person suggested. It was in
>fact a political victory for the slaveholding regions which were allowed to
>count all of their free population and 3/5ths of their non-free population
>as
>the basis for the number of representations they received. This
>arrangement
>enabled Thomas Jefferson to be elected President in 1800. This was a major
>advantage for slave holders who could receive additional representation
>based
>on the number of slaves they held.
>
>One other thing. Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery and did so
>in
>1777. Mass. Abolished slavery by state supreme court decision in 1783.
>
>Jim Horton
We must not forget why we are participating in this discussion. We are here
to share ideas on how to effectively teach African American History. We must
all remember that we have been brought together for the better of children,
society and the education system.
Historical accuracy is a must. I will be the first to admit that much of
my American History experience has been tainted with European-Anglo male
perspectives. Mostly from past text books. However, we also must not lose
sight of the discussion. What can we do now, to correct the biases and the
misunderstandings of American History. We are not here to clarify the
misunderstandings, but to discuss how we can become more effective.
How can I make myself a better social science teacher? How can I be sure to
give my students the resources they need to be skilled and active
participates in society? How can African American History be taught to
better our students? What has worked inside your classrooms that has made
African American History a valuable learning experience? We all have
valuable insight into these matters. I hope that we can focus on the concern
of the students and African American History.
landon shephard
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=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 17:30:59 EDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: "Anthony A. Lee"
Subject: Re: Willie Lynch Speech (sometimes Letter)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Thanks very much for the reference to the H-AfrAm logs where the Willie Lynch
letter/speech is discussed in the archives
(http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~afro-am/). The reading was helpful.
I have had students come to me over the past few years with copies of
this speech (sometimes letter) in various forms, but I never took the time to
pursue the matter. It looked (just on casual reading) like a fictional
document (all of them). But I didn't realize that there was any scholarly
debate concerning it.
Having looked at the website, it seems obvious to me that this version
(the short speechA) is simply an amateurish forgery that has been widely
accepted within the black community as an historical document. I am
surprised that there has not been more discussion of it among
African-American scholars--both its status as an obvious hoax, and its
significance in engaging the attention of a large number of black students.
I am also surprised that, even in the H-AfrAm discussion, scholars were
so timid about the evidence that this is a twentieth century document, not
one produced in the seventeenth century. I was certainly convinced by the
mostly circumstancial arguments set forth in the letters that are on the
website (from 1998) from the two history professors, Dr. Sheppard and Dr.
Pierson. But, beyond that, I did a little quick research of my own just
using a dictionary. The English vocabulary that is used in the speech did
not even exist in the eighteenth century, and it could not have been a part
of any speech given at that time. I simply checked the date of first use of
some words used in the speech as it was reproduced on one of the internet
links. Words like "foolproof" (1902) and "refuel" (1811), and others. After
ten minutes of research it was clear this this piece had to have been written
in the twentieth century.
So, now I am wondering what all the timidity is about. Is this just a
reluctance to tangle with African-American popular culture? Does this
"speech" have some important promoters? or what? Somebody enlighten me.
Regards,
Anthony A. Lee
=========================================================================
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 16:41:55 PDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Lois Leveen
Subject: Re: Willie Lynch
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/enriched
I think the speech offers a "smoking gun," seeming to provide tangible evidence
of what many suspect to be the case, and thus some folks are reluctant to have
it debunked. Moreover, allegations over who would have created the forgery and
why can be very, very messy.
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 09:11:58 PDT
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Lois Leveen
Subject: Re: The reparations discussion: a correction!
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
--- You wrote:
How can I make myself a better social science teacher? How can I =
be sure to
give my students the resources they need to be skilled and active
participates in society? How can African American History be taught =
to
better our students? What has worked inside your classrooms that =
has made
African American History a valuable learning experience? We all =
have
valuable insight into these matters. I hope that we can focus on =
the concern
of the students and African American History.
landon shephard
--- end of quote ---
I think the matter of reparations can teach very well, depending on =
the age of the students.
High school students should be able to research the arguments, even =
if only through the recent
book on the subject and the reviews/articles written in response to =
it. Even middle school students might stage a debate
about the idea of reparations (or at least make a list of the kind =
of evidence such debates would require, and the questions
they would want to pose to both sides before determining which view =
they support). Student could compare how=20
reparations for African Americans relate to
reparations for Japanese Americans or recent cases brought by =
Native Americans using old treaties for
legal claims. =20
The reparations issue brings attention to centuries long abuse and =
discrimination, and reveals how
that abuse and discrimination continues to disadvantage =
(economically and to some extent socially, educationally, etc.)
African Americans today. At the heart of the issue is the =
insistence that Americans face facts about our nation's
history and examine how to redress complex patterns of inequity and =
injustice. I can think of no better
lessons for your students.
Lois Leveen
Reed College
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 14:44:17 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: David Hanson
Subject: Re: The reparations discussion
In-Reply-To: <13331319@isis.reed.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Personally, as a historian, teacher and citizen, I respectfully disagree
with the position stated below. To me, seriously entertaining this "pie in
the sky" notion as a classroom debate may do more harm than good by raising
false expectations for the descendants of slaves and unnecessary ill will
for other (non-African American) groups. Of course, controversial topics
certainly can be the basis of thoughtful debate, but this issue seems
potentially divisive (and pointless). There are other, more productive,
ways to address the problem of race-based discrimination, both as a fact of
history and as a matter of public policy. Better to have a debate about
serious, practical options for bridging the gap, I think. But that's just
my opinion.
D. Hanson
Virginia Western
>I think the matter of reparations can teach very well, depending on the
age of the students.
>High school students should be able to research the arguments, even if
only through the recent
>book on the subject and the reviews/articles written in response to it.
Even middle school students might stage a debate
>about the idea of reparations (or at least make a list of the kind of
evidence such debates would require, and the questions
>they would want to pose to both sides before determining which view they
support). Student could compare how
>reparations for African Americans relate to
>reparations for Japanese Americans or recent cases brought by Native
Americans using old treaties for
>legal claims.
>
>The reparations issue brings attention to centuries long abuse and
discrimination, and reveals how
>that abuse and discrimination continues to disadvantage (economically and
to some extent socially, educationally, etc.)
>African Americans today. At the heart of the issue is the insistence that
Americans face facts about our nation's
>history and examine how to redress complex patterns of inequity and
injustice. I can think of no better
>lessons for your students.
>
>Lois Leveen
>Reed College
>
=========================================================================
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 17:14:03 -0400
Reply-To: African-American History Forum
Sender: African-American History Forum
From: Gretchen Pikus