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Jason Reynolds - Serving Young Readers with "Long Way Down" - The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Video Clip) | Comedy Central

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"Long Way Down" author Jason Reynolds describes his path to becoming a prolific writer and makes the case for expanding the literary canon to reach more kids.

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The Nightly Show - Marley Dias Talks #1000BlackGirlBooks

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Marley Dias chats about the overwhelming response to her diversity-oriented book drive for her New Jersey elementary school. Watch full episodes of The Nightly Show now -- no login required: http://www.cc.com/shows/the-nightly-show/full-episodes The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore airs weeknights at 11:30/10:30c on Comedy Central.

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Marley Dias interview on CBS This Morning

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Marley Dias interview on CBS This Morning

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Teen activist Marley Dias on her new mission for racial harmony

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March. Book one (March Trilogy-Graphic Novels, Book 1) (#0774QH4)by Lewis, John; illustrated by Powell, Nate

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March. Book one (March Trilogy-Graphic Novels, Book 1) (#0774QH4)by Lewis, John; illustrated by Powell, Nate

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Kirkus Reviews starred (July 15, 2013)

Eisner winner Powell's dramatic black-and-white graphic art ratchets up the intensity in this autobiographical opener by a major figure in the civil rights movement. In this first of a projected trilogy, Lewis, one of the original Freedom Riders and currently in his 13th term as a U.S. Representative, recalls his early years--from raising (and preaching to) chickens on an Alabama farm to meeting Martin Luther King Jr. and joining lunch-counter sit-ins in Nashville in 1960. The account flashes back and forth between a conversation with two young visitors in Lewis' congressional office just prior to Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration and events five or more decades ago. His education in nonviolence forms the central theme, and both in his frank, self-effacing accounts of rising tides of protest being met with increasingly violent responses and in Powell's dark, cinematically angled and sequenced panels, the heroism of those who sat and marched and bore the abuse comes through with vivid, inspiring clarity. The volume closes with the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (which Lewis went on to chair), and its publication is scheduled to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, at which Lewis preceded Dr. King on the podium: "Of everyone who spoke at the march, I'm the only one who's still around." A powerful tale of courage and principle igniting sweeping social change, told by a strong-minded, uniquely qualified eyewitness. (Graphic memoir. 11-15)

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Writer of TO BE A SLAVE.

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Through museum exhibits, memorial artwork and restored buildings and hundreds of first-person slave narratives, visitors to Whitney will gain a unique perspective on the lives of Louisiana's enslaved people.

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Whitney Plantation | Guided Tours of Whitney Plantation Museum

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Whitney Plantation is the only plantation museum in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on the lives of enslaved people. Visit Whitney's memorials and restored buildings to enter the world of Louisiana sugar plantation and to remember those who built and worked this property.

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Our mission is to promote a wider implementation of educational awareness programs regarding the African slave trade, slavery in America, and the many contributions Africans have made to American society.

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ASHP/CML challenges traditional ways that people learn about the past with its print, visual, and multimedia materials that explore the diverse social and cultural histories of the nation. Our professional development seminars help teachers use the latest scholarship, technology, a…

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Teachinghistory.org is designed to help K-12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) has created Teachinghistory.org with the goal of making history content, teaching strategies, resources, and research accessible.

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Introduction | Resource Bank Index | Teacher's Guide Contents | Youth Activity Guide | The TV Series and Beyond

Major funding for Africans in America is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

National sponsorship is provided by Bankers Trust, the Fannie Mae Foundation, and McDonald's.

Additional funding is provided by the Ford Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Stratford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers.

Major funding for the Africans in America Web site is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Africans in America Web site
is a production of WGBH Interactive for PBS Online.
© 1998 WGBH Educational Foundation.

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Introduction | Resource Bank Index | Teacher's Guide Contents | Youth Activity Guide | The TV Series and Beyond Major funding for Africans in America is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. National sponsorship is provided by Bankers Trust, the Fannie Mae Foundation, and McDonald's.

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The Indianapolis Public Library Digital Collections

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Indianapolis Public Library African American History Committee

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Watch Black Culture Connection videos on demand. Stream full episodes online.

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Special Display

February 1-28

Black Resistance

This small, curated display explores how African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression-in many forms-from America's earliest days into the 21st century. Items featured are from the Rare Book and Special Collections, Manuscript, and Prints and Photographs Divisions.

(Library of Congress)

Documentary Film and Discussion

February 8

Through the African American Lens: Afrofuturism: The Origin Story - A Smithsonian Channel Documentary

In support of NMAAHC's newest exhibition, Afrofuturism - A History of Black Futures, the public programs department will present the Afrofuturism: The Origin Story documentary produced by the Smithsonian Channel. This film features insights from renowned scholar and artist Ytasha Womack with Kevin Strait, NMAAHC curator of the Afrofuturism exhibition, and contributor to its companion collection of essays.

(National Museum of African American History and Culture)

Online Research Seminar

February 8

African Americans in Business: Doing Historical Company Research

Explore historical company research through the 2023 Black History Month theme of "Resistance," featuring historic Black barbers who resisted the status quo by supporting black education and civil rights movements. Led by Business Reference and Research Specialists, we plan on covering print and electronic sources - both free and subscription - as well as giving a few tips and tricks picked up over the years. This event will take place over Zoom. Online registration is free at the link above.

(Library of Congress)

Online Book Discussion

February 9

Art AfterWords: A Book Discussion

The National Portrait Gallery and the DC Public Library would like to invite you to a robust conversation about gender, social movements, and protest music. Join us as we analyze a portrait of human rights activist and musical artist Odetta and discuss the related Smithsonian Folkways Recording, "Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966" by various artists.

(National Portrait Gallery)

Online Event

February 23

Live! At the Library: African American Folk Music with Jake Blount

A powerfully gifted musician and a scholar of Black American music, Jake Blount speaks ardently about the African roots of the banjo and the subtle, yet profound ways African Americans have shaped and defined the categories of roots music and Americana. This event is free, but tickets are required. They are available via the link above.

(Library of Congress)

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February 1-28 Black Resistance This small, curated display explores how African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression-in many forms-from America's earliest days into the 21st century. Items featured are from the Rare Book and Special Collections, Manuscript, and Prints and Photographs Divisions.

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A slave mother's love in 56 carefully stitched words

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A slave mother's love in 56 carefully stitched words

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For about $300, a 9-year-old girl named Ashley was sold as a slave.

Her mother, Rose, remained a house slave at a mansion in South Carolina.

This was the 1850s, roughly a decade before Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, setting slaves free.

Before mother and daughter were separated, Rose gave Ashley a cotton sack. It contained a tattered dress, three handfuls of pecans and a lock of her hair. Rose told Ashley it was filled with love - always.

Ashley never saw her mom again, but she kept the sack. It was handed down through the generations, along with her story, to her granddaughter, Ruth Middleton.

Ruth, a single mom in Philadelphia, stitched her family story into the cloth sack in 1921.
She was sold at age 9 in South Carolina it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her It be filled with my LOVE always she never saw her again Ashley is my grandmother Ruth Middleton
Nearly 100 years later, the bag was found at a flea market in Tennessee. A woman bought it and donated it to Middleton Place, a famous plantation in South Carolina that refuses to shy away from its awful history.

Historians puzzled over the identities of Rose, Ashley and Ruth, where they came from and where their descendants ended up.

Mark Auslander, an associate professor of anthropology at Central Washington University, was among them.

"We have so many amazing oral stories that have come down in African-American history," Auslander said. "But it's very rare that they're written down and I don't know of any case in which they were written down in needlework in this particular way."

That rarity that inspired Auslander to being a search to find the family that once owned this bag.

He knew that based on the fabric it most likely came from the mid 1800s and the floss used to embroider the story was from the early 20th century. Next he used the clues provided by the bag itself. Rose is the most common name of enslaved women in the 1800s but Ashley is one of the most unusual.

Ashley's age, 9, provided another clue for where to look.

Young children were usually sold with their mothers or in large groups at estate sales after the death of a slave owner. It meant that there were records, thousands of them, that could lead him to Rose and Ashley. He searched through records online and in courthouses in South Carolina until finally finding a set of records copied down before the Civil War. They were saved from a fire that destroyed the originals.

On one page he found a "Rose" who was owned by Robert Martin Sr., the head of a vast and lavish manor in South Carolina. One hundred miles away were slaves owned by Martin who were sold when he died in 1852, and among them was a child named Ashley. With records that matched the names, location and dates of the story stitched on Ashley's sack, Auslander knew they were on the right track.

But what about the embroider Ruth Middleton?

In the 1920 census there were 16 African-American women named Ruth Middleton. Through a process of elimination, Auslander was able to find a Ruth Middleton who had family roots in South Carolina, was the right age and literate. She was the single mom of a young girl named Dorothy in Philadelphia in 1921, when Auslander imagines she wanted to preserve the story of her grandmother and great grandmother by stitching it into the cotton sack.

According to Auslander, Dorothy passed away in 1988 in a Philadelphia nursing home. Her possessions were most likely taken to a Goodwill, which is how the bag must have ended up at a flea market 20 years later.

Auslander believes this bag is a national treasure. He says we often think of slavery in the terms of suffering but, "we have to remember the narratives of resilience, of courage and of family continuity. You can't imagine a family being more terribly torn apart than by then by a slave auction of a 9-year-old little girl, but this family story continued."

To Auslander this bag and its story tells us something profound and intimate about a vital part of American history.

Today the bag has a place of prominence. It sits next to an old slave auction block in the new Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C.
Mark Ausslander's research appeared in the academic journal Southern Spaces. Ashley's sack is on loan from Middleton Place to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Corrections 12/23/2016: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Ashley's appraised value, where her mother stayed, and where Ruth Middleton lived when she stitched this message.

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A slave mother's love in 56 carefully stitched words

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For about $300, a 9-year-old girl named Ashley was sold as a slave. Her mother, Rose, remained a house slave at a mansion in South Carolina. This was the 1850s, roughly a decade before Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, setting slaves free. Before mother and daughter were separated, Rose gave Ashley a cotton sack.

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Underground Railroad Scholastic's Teacher's Activity Guide

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Underground Railroad Scholastic's Teacher's Activity Guide

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Children will examine the life of Harriet Tubman and identify the character traits that made her a hero.

Social Studies Focus:

history, American heroes

key details, use vocabulary

Page 4 Skill:

key details

Vocabulary:

enslaved, illegal, clever, disguises, inspired

RI.2.1, RI.2.4, L.2.6, RI.2.10, SL.2.3

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Children will examine the life of Harriet Tubman and identify the character traits that made her a hero. Social Studies Focus: history, American heroes key details, use vocabulary Page 4 Skill: key details Vocabulary: enslaved, illegal, clever, disguises, inspired RI.2.1, RI.2.4, L.2.6, RI.2.10, SL.2.3

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Show Way by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Hudson Talbott w/ lesson ideas

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Show Way by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Hudson Talbott w/ lesson ideas

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Interest Level:  Gr. 3-6
DRA Level: 24
Lexile Measure: 720L
Grade Equivalent:  3.9            Guided Reading: M

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Every part is gloriously illustrated in vibrant colors and designed around the motif of a quilt (a 'show way' was a special quilt design that was used at the time of the Underground Railroad to help runaway slaves know which way to go to reach freedom.)

As much of the book focuses on the first few generations' lives in slavery and contribution to the Underground Railroad, this book would make an excellent addition to American History units on slavery and the Civil War.

School Library Journal and Booklist both gave this book a starred review. Booklist called the book "a must for the classroom" and promises that it "will move many readers to explore their own family roots." And called it "an outstanding tribute, perfectly executed..."

- Newbery Honor 2006 - American Library Association Notable Children's Book 2006 - National Council for Social Studies Notable Children's Book 2006

- National Council of Teachers of English Notable Book 2006

Interest Level: Grade 3-6 DRA Level: 24 Lexile Measure: 720LGuided Reading: M
Grade Equivalent: 3.9

Here's a spread from this book, showing a slave family being torn apart. The child depicted is one of the generations of women highlighted in this book--all ancestors of the author.

This spread depicts the author's distant relative sitting by the fire at night listing to stories about freedom told by Big Mama, who raised her and the other parent-less children.

Activity #1 -- Make Your Family Show Way
(for teaching about the Underground Railroad)

The function of the 'show way' was originally to help runaway slaves reach freedom in the North. Over time, the show way also became a thread that bound together members of this family---a knowledge of the struggles and challenges that were met and finally overcome, and a way that one generation can pass on something to strengthen the next generation as they face their own challenges.

Woodson's story is certainly a unique and powerful one, but each one of us has ancestors that have likewise met challenges and learned things throughout their lives that they would like to pass on to their posterity. Have your students make their own family 'Show Way' composed of the advice of their older family members--something that they can look to like the characters in this book looked to their family show way. Here's how to do it:

Step 2: Make a Family Show Way
Once students have the completed questionnaires, have them create a 'family show way'. We have created a grid to handout to your students.

You can access the grid handout here. In each square, the student writes the family member's advice on the longer line and the person's name below it (Mom, Grandpa J, etc...) In the empty space, the students draws a representative picture of the advice OR the experience that led the person to get that advice. Remind the student that they are making quilt squares so they will have to draw more abstractly, since it would be hard to sew a very detailed drawing.

Activity #2 -- Seeing the Whole Struggle
(for when teaching about the Civil Rights era)

When studying the Civil Rights era, it's important to convey to students that this is not something that happened during a few decades of the mid-20th century. Students need to understand:

(1) the struggle for freedom and equality took many generations
(2) African-Americans have made tremendous advances despite discrimination and hardships

This book--and the story of Jacqueline Woodson's family--does an excellent job of conveying both of these important concepts. Read this book to your class and then review the experiences of each individual woman with your class.

Soonie's Great-Gr.--slave sold away from her family

Soonie's Grandma--slave sold away from her family, husband died during Civil War

Soonie's Mother--freed slave

Soonie--free sharecropper

Georgina--learns to read

Caroline & Ann--grew up during the Civil Rights movement

Author--a successful published author!

Author's baby--the future!! :)

Where to now?

Now that you've seen this great book, what would you like to see now? Please note that as an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

This is a great book, but if it's not exactly the book you are looking for, you can see:

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This page lists Show Way lesson ideas, activities, reading levels, a peek inside, and more.