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CommonLit | The Rose That Grew from Concrete by Tupac Shakur | CommonLit

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Tupac Shakur, who wrote The Rose That Grew From Concrete, was an African American rapper, poet, and activist. View lesson plan, annotation tools, and more.

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"The Rose That Grew From Concrete" by Tupac Shakur

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"The Rose That Grew From Concrete" by Tupac Shakur

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Did u hear about the rose that grew from a crack
in the concrete
Proving nature’s laws wrong it learned 2 walk
without having feet
Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams
it learned 2 breathe fresh air
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else even cared!

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- Racism
- Community
- Hope
- Family
- Time
- Resilience
- Religion

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1. What are the impacts of racism?

2. How does resilience strengthen a community?

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Stella lives in segregated Bumblebee, North Carolina during the Great Depression. Some folks in her town were rather nice, while others were downright cruel. With the Ku Klux Klan being tame for quite some time, her community is rightfully rattled. Unfortunately, Stella witnessed a gathering and cross burning by Klans men, bugging her into community activism to keep her family safe.

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With each chapter following a different character, readers begin to fill in the story about a community garden that rises out of a trash-filled, vacant lot in Cleveland, Ohio. Each character's perspective displays their role in cultivating the community garden—all unknowingly assuming an essential role to make the community garden possible. Characters challenge their preconceived notions and slowly learn about one-another.

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"The Rose That Grew From Concrete" is the perfect partner poem for both "Seedfolks" and "Stella by Starlight" because of the connection to the connection to themes of nature and racism seen in the novels. When introducing this text to students, I would target understanding the difference in how each "story" is told. How does the language differ? Ultimately, my goal would be to connect students to the ways racism has impacted each of the texts.

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James A. White Sr.: The little problem I had renting a house

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Fifty-three years ago, James A. White Sr. joined the US Air Force. But as an African American man, he had to go to shocking lengths to find a place for his young family to live nearby.

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Painting "Celebration" at William J. Green Federal Building, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Through discussion of racism, community, hope, family, time period, religion and resilience, students will leave with a strengthened understanding of racism in America. The order of texts will depend on each teacher's understandings of their students and what types of connections/scaffolding they need. Though, I recommend having read Stella by Starlight before diving into Seedfolks. Additionally, while the theme of community is a key factor, educators should feel empowered to reorder the themes of importance based on the needs of their students/school/community. This collection of linked texts is meant to take students through a journey of racism and resilience in America. Connections to your community's hometown should be made as much as possible, as a way to directly show students the impacts of racism. As well, finding ways to demonstrate joy, resilience, and freedom dreaming is essential to begin to ignite students to take a stand. Some students will come into the classroom already empowered with the truths of our past, some maybe will know a few things, and even some will know nothing. Centering all those experiences as valid is key, too. Consider where students own life experiences can take stage among this linked text set.

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It was a bloody Sunday in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963 that inspired the singer and pianist Nina Simone's famous protest song, "Mississippi Goddam." Four young Black girls died that day in a white supremacist terror attack that would become known as the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. But the incongruously upbeat show tune wasn't just crying out about this sole event. Simone was also lamenting the recent gunning down of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Mississippi. She was voicing anguish about all the acts of violence and oppression against Black communities in the segregated South. She was weaponizing music itself.

"At first I tried to make myself a gun. I gathered some materials. I was going to take one of them out, and I didn't care who it was," Simone famously said after hearing of the Birmingham bombing. "Then Andy, my husband at the time, said to me, 'Nina, you can't kill anyone. You are a musician. Do what you do.' When I sat down the whole song happened. I never stopped writing until the thing was finished."

The end result, composed in under an hour, would become her first battle cry for the civil rights movement. "It was my first civil rights song," she later recalled, "and it erupted out of me quicker than I could write it down."

"Alabama's gotten me so upset // Tennessee made me lose my rest // And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam," Simone sings in the song's opening line. Writing and performing it felt "like throwing ten bullets back" at the four Ku Klux Klan members who planted the dynamite, she said.

Actual justice was agonizingly slow for the victims and community affected by the bombing. One of the Birmingham perpetrators wasn't convicted until 14 years after the attack and two others weren't jailed until more than 38 years later. The fourth died before being charged.

Simone's protest anthem addresses the general sluggish pace of change and justice in America: "I don't trust you anymore // You keep on saying 'Go slow!' // Go slow! // But that's just the trouble." She also addresses the fears surrounding a biased criminal justice system that could easily be transposed to racial injustices that are still being protested against today: "Hound dogs on my trail // School children sitting in jail // Black cat cross my path // I think every day's gonna be my last."

"In Mississippi Goddam, we have Nina Simone pulling from the past and invoking it in the present, but also speaking to what is yet to come if America does not enact real social change," said musicology professor Tammy Kernodle.

The song's stinging lyrics subvert the lively, up-tempo refrains of the melody itself - seemingly a commentary on America's eagerness to ignore or wallpaper over the pain of racism and segregation. The (mostly white) audience who heard the show tune as it was being recorded live at Carnegie Hall did not seem to get the message at first. At the start of the performance when Simone announces, "The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam, and I mean every word of it," the crowd titters and laughs. In the middle of the recording when she addresses the crowd again with, "Bet you thought I was kidding didn't you?" Her question is met with only a few murmurs.

Then there were those who protested the protest tune. "We got several letters where they had actually broken up this recording and sent it back to the recording company, really, telling them it was in bad taste," Simone said during a 1964 interview on the Steve Allen Show. "They missed the whole point."

In the years after she first penned the song, Simone changed the lyric, "Tennessee made me lose my rest," several times during various live performances around the country and the world. On the same 1964 episode of Allen's show, Simone swapped the line for, "St. Augustine made me lose my rest," in honor of the civil rights movement that took hold in that Floridian city. A year later, she sang for "Selma," after the brutal police confrontation with peaceful marchers across Alabama's Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965, and later that same year for "Watts," when riots broke out over six days in that Los Angeles neighborhood. Simone then mourned that, "Memphis made me lose my rest," after Martin Luther King was assassinated there in 1968.

"An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times. That to me is my duty," Simone said in an interview with Black Journal. "And at this crucial time in our lives when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don't think you can help but be involved.

"Young people, Black and white, know this. That's why they're so involved in politics. We will shape and mold this country, I will not be molded and shaped at all anymore."

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The story behind Nina Simone's protest song, "Mississippi Goddam" | American Masters | PBS

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It was a bloody Sunday in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963 that inspired the singer and pianist Nina Simone's famous protest song, "Mississippi

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"There's plenty about my life I can't change. Can't bring the dead back to life on this earth. Can't make the world loving and kind. Can't change myself into a millionaire. But a patch of ground in this trashy lot—I can change that. Can change it big. Better to put my time into that than moaning about the other all day."

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"I start up conversations in lines and on the bus and with cashiers. People see I'm friendly, no matter what they've heard about whites or Jews. If I'm lucky, I get 'em talking to each other. Sewing up the rips in the neighborhood."

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"Watching him carefully sprinkling them into the troughs he'd made, I realized that I didn't know anything about growing food and that he knew everything. I stared at his busy fingers, then his eyes. They were focused, not far-away or confused. He'd changed from a baby back into a man."

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Providing students with an informational text about the KKK is critical to help students understand the significance of what they are reading in Stella by Starlight. Scaffold students' level of understanding by facilitating group work to collaborate while they are learning. Britannica also offers three levels of reading difficulty so students have the autonomy to adjust their own learning. Additionally, providing informational learning will allow deeper reflection on the two novels and companion texts. While the novels' plots are fictional, it is important to remind students the topics discussed are a consequence of past actions.

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"The Little Problem I had Renting a House" by James White Sr. 

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"The Little Problem I had Renting a House" by James White Sr. 

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This TED Talk brings an important concept to the table: silent racism. In Stella by Starlight, the actions of racism are often blatant and directly impact the characters. However, in Seedfolks, racism has silently accumulated in the community. James White Sr.'s experience buying a house in Columbus, Ohio demonstrates both forms of racism: the silent and the blatant.

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While part of the importance of Seedfolks is providing students with literature they can critically assess, another important factor is uplifting hope. Charles Searles' mural is displayed in the William J. Green Federal Building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Through viewing the mural, students should explore the topic of celebration, hope, and the variety of forms joy can manifest. Additionally, through scaffolding, students should mule the importance of Searles' work being displayed in a government building. This should be directly connected to Leona's story and persistent actions to get the trash removed; how does her experience with government and government buildings differ?

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Because my own placement is at a catholic school with 7th/8th graders, I understand that the word "goddam" will need some extra scaffolding. I would first address students with the definition of goddamn: (slang) an expression of anger, surprise, intense excitement, or frustration; (derogatory) damned by God. I would even further break down the definition of derogatory: (adjective) reducing the power or value of; lessening the worth of. Finally, breaking down the meaning of damn(ed): (verb) to condemn, to declare guilty, to doom, to adjudge, to punishment. My goal would be to help students understand the power of curse words, and what times they are appropriate. After going through the article with students, students should realize Nina Simone is rightfully angry over the killing of innocent Black people. While watching the video, going back through making frequent stops to break down the lyrics and connect to information about each atrocity. Finally, ending with an opportunity for argumentative writing on students' opinions if the use of "goddam" was justified. Students should use justification using the lyrics, videos viewed, articles read, and novels.

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When creating this linked text set, I envisioned this clip from "black-ish" to appear around the discussion of voting in Stella by Starlight. Even though some of Stella's family is able to vote, they face many barriers to access participation in politics. This clip from "black-ish" illuminates the existing prevalence of restricting voting. However, I want neither this video clip nor Stella by Starlight to discourage students from participating in politics. Rather, I want students to realize the existence of voter suppression directly proves the power our elected politicians have—which can be proved through various topics today (Covid-19 response, school gun violence, abortion, even voting rights).

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"I gave her a smile and showed her that I was just giving her plants some water. This made her eyes go even bigger. I stood up slowly and backed away. I smiled again. She watched me leave. We never spoke one word."

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"Most every plank of pinewood inside the house was covered with old newspapers. Newsy decoration, Mama called it. The
pages were glued on with wood paste and randomly selected: a wall might sport an ad for medicine next to an article on the price of eggs. As the pages yellowed or peeled, Mama slapped fresh ones up. Stella could not remember when she wasn’t surrounded by newsprint. Tonight she reread a piece about what the paper called a crime wave—three robberies—which was next to a story about a college debate team and their success."

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"Won’t make no difference anyhow. Won’t put a nickel in your pocket or a biscuit on your table,” Spoon Man argued reasonably.
“It would to me,” her father replied stubbornly. “I live in this country and I ain’t no slave, and dadgummit, I oughta be allowed to vote!”

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"Every Negro family in Bumblebee knew the unwritten rules—they had to take care of their own problems and take care of one another. Help from the white community was neither expected nor considered. It was as it always had been"

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"The makeshift table was soon overflowing with food—oatmeal cookies, cheese grits, hot biscuits and honey, a sweet potato pie, Apple Brown Betty, black-eyed peas, fried chicken, corn pudding, pulled pork, and pickled pigs’ feet. Every single family brought just a little something. Pastor Patton and his wife from New Hope Church brought a pot of chicken and dumplings."