Below is the complete text of journalist Dion Rabouin’s recent Huffington Post blog challenging this country to engage in a more comprehensive and far-reaching celebration of African and African-American achievements during Black History Month. GBN couldn’t agree more, and has added links to his blog for just that purpose. Enjoy!
Malcolm X was fond of saying, “Our history did not begin in chains.” Yet every year that’s where Black History Month lesson plans in schools across America begin. They begin telling the story of our history — black history — in chains. Young black school children don’t learn that our people mapped, calculated and erected some of the greatest monuments ever, like the pyramids, the sphinx and the obelisks (after which the Washington Monument is modeled) or that our people were literally the lifeblood of some of history’s greatest civilizations. They don’t learn that calculus, trigonometry and geometry all trace their origins back to African scholars.
Black History Month lessons never begin with Haile Selassi I, ruler of Ethiopia, who could trace his ancestry to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and beyond that to Cush in 6280 B.C. Never mind that Selassi actually has the most ancient lineage of any human being in history.
Black History Month lessons certainly never begin with one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever known, Hannibal, an African who conquered and extended the rule of the Carthaginian Empire into Italy, Rome and Spain. Most school children (and most adults, truth be told) don’t even know that Carthage, Hannibal’s homeland, is in Africa.
Posts published in “Education”
NBA legend and business mogul Earvin “Magic” Johnson, multi-Grammy Award-winning musician, actor and philanthropist Common, and Black Entertainment Television (BET) chairman and CEO Debra Lee join forces with Coca-Cola this month in a movement to uplift and pay it forward to the next generation.
Kicking off the second year of its signature program, “Coca-Cola Pay it Forward,” the world’s most recognized brand enlists the help of some of today’s leading African-American history makers to offer exciting apprenticeship experiences to aspiring youth. Magic Johnson, Common and Debra Lee will serve as mentors, giving four lucky young people the opportunity to shadow them and their teams for a week during the summer. The four apprenticeship experiences will focus on: business (Johnson); music and community (Common); and media/entertainment (Lee). Expanding this year’s program offering, the Company has partnered with UNCF (United Negro College Fund), the country’s largest minority education organization, for a text-to-donate program.
“I have and always will remain committed to uplifting the urban community in my business and nonprofit endeavors, and that makes the Coca-Cola ‘Pay It Forward’ program a perfect fit,” said Johnson. “There is no better way to empower a community than to arm its youth with the necessary skills to succeed.”
Richard Wamai, an assistant professor of public health in the department of African American studies at Northeastern University in Boston, received the 2012 World AIDS Day Unsung Hero Award presented by Blood: Water Mission, a Nashville-based nonprofit organization that deals with AIDS and water issues in Africa. Professor Wamai is currently part of a global research consortium seeking to identify the best way to allocate funds to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. The research is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dr. Wamai is a graduate of Egerton University in Kenya. He holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in health policy from the University of Helsinki.
Karen Jackson-Weaver, associate dean for academics and diversity at Princeton University in New Jersey, received the university’s Martin Luther King Day Journey Award for fostering a supportive environment which helps students succeed. She has been on the staff at Princeton since 2007. Previously, she served as executive director of the Amistad Commission which integrated African-American history into the K-12 curriculum in New Jersey’s public schools.
Dr. Jackson-Weaver is a graduate of Princeton University, with a degree in history. She holds a master’s degree from Harvard University, as well as two additional master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in U.S. history from Columbia University.
Howard Fuller, distinguished professor of education at Marquette University, received the Martin Luther King Jr. Heritage Award from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Professor Fuller is the founder and director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette. He is the former superintendent of the Milwaukee Public School system.
Dr. Fuller is a graduate of Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He holds a master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and a doctorate in the sociological foundations of education from Marquette University.
article via jbhe.com
Historically Black Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, has announced that Kevin D. Rome will become the 19th president of the educational institution on June 1. Current Department of Education statistics show that there are about 3,400 undergraduate students at the university and Blacks are 41 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Dr. Rome is currently vice chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management at North Carolina Central University in Durham. Dr. Rome has been an administrator at North Carolina Central since 2008. Previously, he was vice president for student services at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He has also held administrative posts at Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia, and Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, Indiana.
A graduate of Morehouse College, Dr. Rome holds a master’s degree from the University of Georgia and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas.
article via jbhe.com
Dr. Aletha Maybank examines patient (photo: Disney Junior)
In celebration of Black History Month, Disney Junior will debut “We Are Doc McStuffins” interstitials featuring Doc McStuffins, a young African-American girl who aspires to be a doctor like her mom, alongside three real life female African-American physicians sharing what their jobs entail, and saluting their heroes.
The interstitials will begin airing on Disney Channel and Disney Junior on FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1 (10:25 a.m. ET/PT and 4:25 p.m. ET/PT, respectively) following a new “Doc McStuffins” Valentine’s Day themed episode. Additional interstitials featuring the three doctors will begin rolling out in the spring and will air regularly on both platforms.
Since its March 2012 premiere, “Doc McStuffins” has garnered worldwide attention for its portrayal of a young girl who runs a clinic for her stuffed animals and toys out of her backyard playhouse. Additionally, the series inspired a group of female African-American physicians to begin a “movement” they coined, “We Are Doc McStuffins.” Seeing a reflection of themselves in the Doc character and the opportunity to inspire young girls, the group grew to form the Artemis Medical Society, an organization of over 2500 female African-American physicians and medical students from around the world.
The interstitials feature three of the founding members of the “We Are Doc McStuffins” movement – Dr. Myiesha Taylor, an emergency doctor based in Dallas; Dr. Aletha Maybank, a pediatrician in New York City; and Dr. Naeemah Ghafur, a family doctor in Los Angeles who provides specialized care for the underserved, including the elderly and patients with high-risk illnesses.
Every year, The Root embarks on a nationwide search for 25 of the brightest African-American innovators between the ages of 16 and 22 for its annual Young Futurists list. The Root looks for students and recent graduates who are making waves in the fields of business, green innovation, social activism, science and the arts and who use their talents to make the world a better place.
“We’re helping to shape a change in culture about what young people can and cannot do,” explains Charles Orgbon, a 16-year-old futurist from Dacula, Ga., who founded the environmental organization Greening Forward. “With the right support, young people can do anything.”
The young men and women who make up the 2013 class represent the true promise of our country’s future. There’s Michael Tubbs, a 22-year-old Stanford University graduate who ran for his hometown of Stockton, Calif.’s City Council — and won — after seeing his cousin fall victim to youth violence. And Trinity Russell, a high schooler from Long Island, N.Y., who discovered key behavioral differences between laboratory-raised and wild fruit flies; her findings have major implications for researchers who use the insects in their experiments. Or Thekia Cheeseborough, a Spelman College student from Jacksonville, Fla., who, inspired by the struggles of her own young parents, created a program that connects teen moms to academic and career resources.
Every day in February, we will highlight a different futurist. Check The Root’s home page daily to learn more, and click here to see the full list of 2013 Young Futurists.
article via theroot.com
Ideal School of Manhattan administrators (l-r) Angela Bergeson, Head of School; David Byrnes, director of institutional equity, and Michelle Smith, school co-founder watch second-graders at work on a Civil Rights Museum project
A Civil Rights museum like no other is going to pop up in Manhattan later this week. This one is meant to change the future. Students at the Ideal School of Manhattan were busy constructing exhibits for the museum, a yearly event at the seven-year-old, independent K-to-eighth grade school.
Head of School Angela Bergeson said the museum started out as a yearly school assembly on civil rights, but became so popular that “we decided to devote the whole morning to the museum so that families could go room to room and see all the curriculum pieces, the writing, readings and plays.”
Each grade in the school is assigned an iconic figure from the Civil Rights or non-violence movements, along with an associated word around which the students create exhibits.
Each grade in the school is assigned an iconic figure from the Civil Rights or non-violence movements, along with an associated word around which the students create exhibits.
Kareem Dale, Special Assistant to President Obama for Disability Policy (left), with Learning Ally member Henry “Hoby” Wedler (right)
When Kareem Dale, now a special advisor to President Barack Obama, was in high school, all he wanted to do was wrestle. But as a student who was partially blind, that wasn’t easy.
Dale’s school made it possible for him to participate in the sport by creating a rule that wrestlers always needed to be touching their opponent. “It allowed me to wrestle throughout public high school,” Dale said. “That experience of wrestling gave me confidence, it made me healthier, it was really an extraordinary experience.”
But hundreds of other students with disabilities may not have had an opportunity in school sports, a 2010 Government Accountability Office report suggested. The U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights on Friday is sending school districts a 13-page guidance document that spells out the rights of students with disabilities to participate in school athletics.
But hundreds of other students with disabilities may not have had an opportunity in school sports, a 2010 Government Accountability Office report suggested. The U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights on Friday is sending school districts a 13-page guidance document that spells out the rights of students with disabilities to participate in school athletics.
Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Fordham University is launching a project to create a database which lists the burial grounds of enslaved African-Americans in the United States. Sandra Arnold, a history student in Fordham’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies, has been leading the ambitious project, reports Fordham University’s eNewsroom.
Irma Watkins-Owens, Ph.D., is the co-director and an associate professor of history and African-American studies at Fordham. The two are working closely with advisers from several other American universities, including Emory, Yale, and the College of William and Mary.
In this June 9, 1963 file photo, James A. Hood and Vivian J. Malone of Alabama pose in New York. Alabama Gov. George Wallace said he would personally bar them from registering at the University of Alabama despite a restraining order. (AP Photo/John Lindsay, File)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — One of the first black students who enrolled at the University of Alabama a half century ago in defiance of racial segregation has died. James Hood of Gadsden was 70. Officials at Adams-Buggs Funeral Home in Gadsden said they are handling arrangements for Hood, who died Thursday.
Then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace made his infamous “stand in the schoolhouse door” in a failed effort to prevent Hood and Vivian Malone from registering for classes at the university in 1963. Hood and Malone were accompanied by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach when they were confronted by Wallace as they attempted to enter the university’s Foster Auditorium to register for classes and pay fees.