By Kristin Boyd, The Packet Group
In a year when Sen. Barack Obama is vying for the presidency, Oprah Winfrey announced plans to launch her own cable channel and Kanye West won four Grammys, some people find themselves questioning the relevancy of, or even need for, Black History Month.
Now, with more emphasis being placed on helping students succeed in a global community, the month seems to be at an educational crossroads.
Area schools continue to celebrate the month with discussions, displays and special performances while simultaneously incorporating black history and other cultural studies into their overall curriculums.
”There is a range of reactions about (Black History Month), from fully embracing it to some students who question it and are inquisitive about the whole idea of why is this important,” said Jerusalem “J” Howard, director of diversity and multicultural affairs at Princeton Day School. “That’s a learning opportunity for us.”
School administrators like Mr. Howard say the ultimate goal is inclusion, for students to receive a well-rounded education and learn about diverse cultures year-round, not just during one designated month.
”It’s a much more efficient way to do things in terms of creating awareness so it becomes second nature, and it becomes a part of culture,” Mr. Howard said.
While that effort is continually making strides, school administrators say, celebrating Black History Month remains important because of the lessons it teaches students.
”The issues are still contemporary and the lessons are still valuable,” said Russ Walsh, director of language arts at Montgomery High School. “It gives us a greater cultural awareness and greater awareness of how our country has been shaped.”
Scholar Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week in February 1926 to draw attention to African-Americans and their accomplishments, which had largely been excluded from history books.
He chose the second week of February because it marks the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, two men he believed greatly influenced black Americans. In 1976, the week was expanded into Black History Month.
”It is sort of a reminder to recognize the influence of African-Americans in our lives,” Mr. Walsh said. “It brings a kind of poignancy and relevance to it, similar to our Holocaust celebration. It helps students better understand and brings history to life.”
Recognition and celebration are the cornerstones of Black History Month events:
The African-American Parent Support Group in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District is hosting an event at 7 p.m. Tuesday at High School North.
The Princeton Regional School District will present a three-day workshop with Creole singer-songwriter Terrance Simien and The Zydeco Experience that culminates with a Katrina relief benefit concert on Feb. 22.
And the Montgomery School District is hosting several black history programs, including displays, book discussions and African cooking and storytelling.
On Thursday, after classes were dismissed, nearly 50 Montgomery High School students gathered in Room 2213 to watch “The Long Walk Home,” the first of four movies being shown this month.
The 1990 movie, which stars Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek, tells the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott through the friendship of an upper class white woman and her black maid. Scenes touch on house bombings, “colored-only” facilities, segregation, discrimination and the fight for equal rights.
”I think it was important to watch because it really wasn’t that long ago, and younger kids need to be educated about what happened to make for a better future,” sophomore Marisa Desa, 15, said. “It was good seeing the struggle of what an everyday person went through, not like Martin Luther King Jr., who was a big leader. But it was good to see that one person can make a difference.”
Her classmate, 16-year-old Ama Quansah, agreed. “We need to know our history,” she says. “It taught me that small things can add up and multiply and become bigger things. I learned it’s important to stand up for yourself and never give up.”
Administrators continue to find ways to include black history in curriculums so diversity, not exclusion, will become the norm.
”We’ve done a better job of moving away from a European view of the world and view of history,” says Steve Mayer, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District. “We challenge our kids to learn history through a variety of views, a broader view.”
Area students now learn about black history — beyond slavery, Harriet Tubman and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech — in various classes, including English and social studies.
”We are in a global community,” Mr. Mayer says. “The traditional approach we’ve had toward our African-American heritage, I don’t think has really honored the contributions that should’ve been honored. …We can help our kids be proud, and that’s ultimately the goal.”
Mary Williams, an English teacher at PDS, agrees. The school’s English curriculum, for example, includes lessons about multicultural literature, including “In the Time of Butterflies” by Julia Alverez and “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston.
”We are not wedded to Black History Month as the only time to discuss black literature,” Ms. Williams said. “African-American literature is certainly an important part of American literature. It adds to everyone’s knowledge of the intellectual history of this country.”
Connie Escher, an ancient world cultures teacher at John Witherspoon Middle School in Princeton, recently won an Exemplary Practice Award from the New Jersey Amistad Commission, which recognizes educators who incorporate the contributions of African-Americans into their everyday curriculum.
On Friday, she talked with sixth-graders about several topics, including the Inca Empire, Egyptian King Tutankhamun and the similarities and differences between African and Roman slavery.
”Black History Month is a part of the history of understanding the human world,” says Ms. Escher, who plans to use part of her $5,000 Amistad grant to create a African-American history resource center at the school. “It should be a part of learning. So now, it’s a much more extensive infusion into the curriculum.”
Even during Black History Month, the overarching idea of inclusion and diversity is apparent.
At Montgomery High School, a flyer announcing a Chinese New Year celebration event is posted at the main entrance and handmade posters honoring notable Americans line the second-floor hallway.
There, Duke Ellington, Rosa Parks and athlete Jesse Owens share cardboard space with Walt Disney, Babe Ruth and actress Katharine Hepburn.
One poster reads: “History, making the past a part of the present.”
Maybe that was Carter G. Woodson’s goal all along.
