News & Current Events, update Jan 2008
The Florida Humanities Council
invites K- 12 educators from across the U.S. to explore the impact of
Eatonville, Florida on the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston, author
of Their Eyes Were Watching God. This week-long workshop will be
led by distinguished historians, folklorists, architectural historians
and literature scholars. While examining Hurston’s life and work,
participants will stay at Rollins College, located near Orlando.
Stipends will be paid to help cover travel and living expenses.
Who: K-12 teachers (public & private), administrators, and other
school personnel
When: Three week-long workshops: June 15–21, June 22–28, June 29–July
5, 2008
Where: Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida
How: Visit our website at:
www.flahum.org/Zora or call (727) 873-2010
On-line application deadline is March 17, 2008.
This Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop is presented by
the Florida Humanities Council and funded by the National Endowment for
the Humanities.
The Crafting
Freedom Materials Project: Enhancing the Teaching of Black History with
Recent Scholarship on African American Entrepreneurs, Artists, and
Abolitionists”
The Crafting Freedom Materials
Project, or the Crafting Freedom Project (CFP) is an educational
materials development project that aims to address the lack of
high-quality, scholarship-based lesson plans and instructional materials
for the elementary (3-5) and the middle (6-8) grade levels on the
African American experience during the antebellum period. The teaching
of the 19th century African American experience is often
limited to accounts of plantation slavery and the listing of the same
few exemplary blacks during Black History Month. CFP materials focus on
the lives of ten 19th century African American “freedom
crafters” who have received much scholarly attention in recent years and
who are historically significant, yet remain little-known beyond the
academy. These ten freedom crafters—and thousands of other African
Americans like them— crafted freedom by purchasing it, through active
resistance to slavery; through their art and creative expression, and
through their spoken and written words.
The materials to be developed and
field-tested over a 2.5-year period are:
-
a teacher-friendly web site with
teacher support, web links, and lesson plans. (see below)
-
twenty-four original
classroom-tested (freely downloadable) lesson plans (twenty address
the ten crafters with two lessons per crafter; four address the four
major topics)
-
a DVD featuring ten dramatic
presentations of the words and experiences of each crafter.
CFP will enable teachers at the 3rd
- 8th grade levels to more effectively address history
standards regarding slavery and freedom, the 19th century
market revolution, and national expansion. It will also address American
literature themes such as the relationship of the individual to society,
the quest for individual and economic self-development, and the desire
for emotional and spiritual fulfillment. CFP will provide teachers with
the background knowledge needed to teach the each lesson, testimonials
from fellow teachers who have taught them, and guidance on how to teach
with primary source material. Teaching educators to use primary sources
is critical, because at these grade levels teachers often use secondary
sources that lack sound scholarship.
The freedom crafters provide windows
through which to view 19th century America, but they also
provide new role models for young students. Freedom crafters such as
Elizabeth Keckly, Frank McWorter, Lunsford Lane, and Sally Thomas were
enslaved entrepreneurs who used profits from their business ventures to
purchase their own freedom. Henry “Box” Brown, Harriet Jacobs, and
William Henry Singleton were fugitive slaves who wrote narratives that
described in heart-stopping detail their experiences as enslaved youths.
Singleton’s narrative reveals that after being sold away from his family
at the age of four, he fled six hundred miles when he was seven years
old to return “home” with the help of white and black adults. Other
freedom crafters like George Moses Horton, Edmonia Lewis, and Frances
Ellen Watkins Harper expressed their love of freedom and democratic
ideals in works of art and literature that CFP materials will help
students to explore.
CFP grows out of the NEH-funded
Landmarks of American History workshop: “Crafting Freedom: Thomas Day &
Elizabeth Keckly, Black Artisans and Entrepreneurs in the Making of
America,” one of the highest teacher-rated Landmarks workshops in 2004 -
2006.
NEH
SUMMER INSTITUTE GRANT AWARDED FOR SUMMER 2007
August 2006
DURHAM, NC The Thomas Day Education Project through its sponsor
the Apprend Foundation, Inc.received word late summer that it had received
its first grant for an NEH summer institute. The two-week
summer institute will support 30 elementary, middle, and secondary
humanities teachers. They will be engaged in an intensive study of
antebellum American history and culture as viewed through the lives and
works of free and enslaved black artisans, entrepreneurs, and
artists.
The expansion of the popular five-day Crafting
Freedom workshop – which has to date been offered seven times to over
400 teachers nationwide - to a fourteen day seminar will allow
needed time for: reflection and discussion; study of new
scholarship on the lives of other artisans, entrepreneurs and
artists; viewing and exploring the instructional uses of recently
produced instructional films, media and on-line resources on slavery and
freedom and interacting with experienced teacher mentors highly
experienced in teaching this material.
Thomas Day and Elizabeth Keckly provide rich and rare case histories of
the black artisan experience in the 19th century. Although the
level of success Day and Keckly achieved was exceptional, many of their
life experiences were typical for the untold thousands of free and
enslaved black artisans, entrepreneurs, and artists who, despite the
racially based societal constraints placed on all people of color, used
their unique talents and skills to "craft freedom" for themselves
and others.
Thomas Day was born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia in
1801 and moved as a young man to the town of Milton in Caswell County,
North Carolina. Milton was a booming tobacco market center and there
Day became one of the most prominent furniture makers in the antebellum
South. By 1850 his shop in the former Union Tavern was the largest
furniture-making establishment in the state. His striking furniture
designs have survived for over 150 years and today are considered
outstanding examples of 19th-century American vernacular furniture.
Elizabeth Keckly also was born in Dinwiddie County sixteen years
after Thomas Day. However, she was born into slavery. As she grew
into adulthood, she honed her skills in the needle arts to become a
highly accomplished dressmaker and fashion designer. After thirty
years of slavery, she was able to purchase her own and her only child's
freedom. Later Keckly moved to Washington, D.C., and became the sole
proprietor of an exclusive dressmaking shop and the fashion designer and
confidante of first lady Mary Todd Lincoln. In 1868, she wrote a
detailed memoir, Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave, and
Four Years in the White House.
Recent research on other black artisans, entrepreneurs, and artists
of the 19th century also will be a part of the Institute and will
help illuminate three inter-related and overlapping institute themes:
"crafting freedom through black business enterprise;" "the politics of
crafting freedom;" and "crafting freedom through creative expression."
According to workshop director, Laurel Sneed, "The Crafting
Freedom Institute is critically important because the teaching of
African-American history at the K-12 levels—while mandated by curriculum
standards in all states—is still too often limited to superficial
accounts of plantation slavery, acknowledgement of the Civil Rights Movement, and the listing of a few exemplary blacks
during Black History Month. There has been a great deal of
scholarly research in recent years on slavery and freedom, yet there are
still significant gaps in knowledge and understanding of this history
among K-12 teachers. The Institute will address many of these gaps.
The scholarship of the institute aims to add substantial depth to
participants' understanding of what many scholars see as the central
paradox of American history—how the institution of race-based slavery
co-existed with the expansion of political rights and economic
opportunities for most Americans in the 19th century. This paradox
began in colonial America, but it was never so visible as in the
antebellum period when Keckly, Day, and many other black artisans,
entrepreneurs, and artists were
intently and independently "crafting freedom" for themselves, their
loved ones, and, in a larger sense, for the black community as a whole.
CAMI
TOWNSEL WINS WITH DAY/KECKLEY LESSON
Cami Townsel, a 2005 Crafting Freedom participant, and Media
Specialist at Martin Luther King Magnet School in Nashville, TN notified TDEP that she had received the 2006 Tennessee Association of School
Librarians' Innovative Library Program Award for a project entitled: "
Are the Character Traits Which Thomas Day/Elizabeth Keckly Possessed
Important for the 21st Century Professional?" Townsend's project was
selected by a committee of TASL members as the most innovative program
submitted for the high school division. She was presented with the
award and a check for $500 during the Volunteer State Book Award dinner
on Friday, November 3, 2006 at the TASL annual conference held at the
Chattanooga Convention Center in Tennessee. Congratulations for a job
well done and for taking the stories of Day and Keckly to new audiences
in Tennessee!
MIKE WILEY ON STAGE
Written and performed by Mike Wiley and directed by Serena Ebhardt, this
original work explores the lost truth of a hate crime that set the civil
rights movement in motion. Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett Till
chronicles the murder, trial and unbelievable confessions of the men
accused of Till’s lynching. While visiting Mississippi from Chicago,
fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was kidnapped from his uncle's home in the
middle of the night— several days after he allegedly whistled at Carolyn
Bryant, a local white woman. Days later, Till’s mutilated body was found
in the Tallahatchie River, weighted down with a cotton gin fan. His nose
was crushed. His left eye was missing, and his right eye was dangling on
his cheek. A hole was blown in his right temple. Most of his teeth were
gone. The body was identified only by a ring he was wearing. His mother
held an open-casket funeral in Chicago, shocking the public with the
sight of her son's battered body. Carolyn Bryant's husband, Roy Bryant,
and his half brother, J.W. Milam, stood trial on murder charges weeks
later. After 67 minutes of deliberations, the all-white jury found the
men innocent. The brothers later confessed to the crime in a paid
interview in Look magazine. In 2005, Till’s body was exhumed and
consideration was given to reopening the case. In 2006 Federal
prosecutors decided not to pursue charges. Fifty years later, questions
still remain. Fifty years later no one has been convicted.
Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett Till is a co-production by Mike Wiley
Productions
www.MikeWileyProductions.com and EbzB Productions
www.EbzB.org. The play was originally performed in February 2006 at
Virginia State University. In June 2006 Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett
Till had a three-week run at Deep Dish Theatre in Chapel Hill, NC. That
production earned accolades and is unanimously acknowledged as one of
the Triangle Region’s Top Ten Theatrical Works of 2006 by The News and
Observer, Independent Weekly, Classical Voice of North Carolina, and
Front Row Center. Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett Till is the second
collaboration between Mike Wiley Productions and EbzB Productions. The
first was Brown vs. Board of Education, a play exploring the landmark
ruling on school
integration. The team is currently working on their third collaboration
and has recently secured the rights to develop the theatrical adaptation
of Life Is So Good by George Dawson and Richard Glaubman. The book was
featured on Oprah in March 2003. It is the story of a special friendship
and one man’s extraordinary journey through the twentieth century
including how he learned to read at the age of ninety-eight.
DISCOVERY CHARTER SCHOOL
AND BROOKLYN FRIENDS SCHOOL HOST MILES & SNEED
November 2006
NEWARK, NJ Crafting Freedom
was “on the road” in the Northeast November 8-10.
Nellie "Chubbs" Miles and Laurel Sneed made presentations to teachers
and students at the
Discovery Charter School in Newark and at Brooklyn Friends in downtown
Brooklyn, New York. They worked with students as well as with teachers. Miles
shared
historical pictures from her childhood and life stories about growing up
in generational tobacco sharecropping in rural North Carolina during the
last half of the 20th century with groups of students at Brooklyn
Friends. At Discovery Charter, Sneed facilitated instruction with
several groups of students using the Thomas Day Furniture kit, a
hands-on resource developed by teachers, and the multimedia CD-ROM,
Exploring the World of Thomas Day, developed by a team headed by Sneed
1999-2002. At Discovery, Miles conducted a workshop on doll-making with
over 50 students. On Friday, November 10, Sneed and Miles made
presentations to 15 New Jersey teachers whose schools have received "Teaching American History" grants from the Department of Education. Dr. Irene Hall (Crafting Freedom 2004) and Barbara Weiland (Crafting Freedom 2004)
co-directors, hosted Miles and Sneed at Discovery. Seth Flicker ( Let It
Shine 2003 and Crafting Freedom 2005) was instrumental in the visit
at Brooklyn Friends which was sponsored by Brooklyn Friends parent,
Toukie Smith..
NEW FILM PLANNING GRANT AWARDED FOR THE DOCUMENTARY-IN-PROGRESS "THOMAS
DAY, AMERICAN", June 2006
Durham, NC In June TDEP was notified that it had received a planning grant for
$24,800 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for Laurel
Sneed's documentary film-in-progress, "Thomas Day, American." The fiscal
agent for the film is the North Carolina Museum of History Associates,
Inc. and Sneed will be working closely with the museum director,
Elizabeth F. Buford, on the film's development.
In officially notifying the project of the award, Dr. Bruce Cole,
chairman of NEH , stated: " the film project has been designated as a
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), 'We the People' project and
is being supported in part by funds the agency has set aside for this
special initiative. The goal of the 'We the People' initiative is to
encourage and strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of
American history and culture through the support of projects that
explore significant events and themes in our nation's history and
culture and that advance knowledge of the principles that define
America.." Dr. Cole added, " I anticipate that your project will
contribute significantly to this effort."
The grant will be used to finalize the treatment of the documentary
working with major scholars in African-American history and culture, the
leading scholars and researchers of Thomas Day, and a major documentary
film-maker who specializes in PBS-oriented historical documentaries on
African-American historical subjects.
Funds will be used to assess the production assets available for this
film (extant film footage, visuals, texts, graphics, etc.) and to
incorporate the most recent scholarship relevant to Thomas Day into the
treatment.
"I've been working on this film for over a decade," Laurel Sneed
explained. "Due to new scholarly research, there have been many changes
in our understanding of free blacks and our understanding of the life
and work of Thomas Day. In addition, there have been numerous advances
in media technology and a renaissance of the public's interest in
documentary films during this time frame. All of these changes impact
our approach to the film creatively as well as technically. This
planning grant will enable us to go back to square one and re-think our
treatment and approach to the film based on all that has transpired over
the past ten years. It will also give us a chance to re-visit footage
that has been shot and re-assess it's usability given the many changes
that have occurred. It is rare that film-makers have the opportunity to
stop and "re-think" a project that's been in the works for long period
of time. We are extremely grateful to the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH) for this much needed opportunity for reflection and
assessment and are certain it will redound to the benefit of the final
product."
Rodney Berry, Long Time TDEP Board Member and Teacher
Mentor,
Deployed to Iraq, APRIL 2006
Durham, NC Rodney
Berry, a long-time teacher mentor and member of the TDEP advisory board, who is also an art teacher at Durham School of Arts
was deployed on April 28, 2006 with the 108th Army Reserve Division of
Charlotte, North Carolina to support "Iraqi Freedom." His tour of duty
in Iraq will be 18 months. The unit's mission will be to advise the
Iraqi army. Berry explained that he and his fellow officers will train
members of the Iraqi army in basic management and leadership skills that
American soldiers have been inculcated in. "They ( the Iraqi
soldiers) are coming from a dictatorship where they were not allowed to
be free thinkers, " Berry explained, "and we'll be training them in
decision-making skills. Actually, we have a process of decision-making
that we call the 'military decision-making process' and this is what
we'll be teaching."
Berry is one of the teacher creators of the Thomas Day Furniture Kit, a
popular "hands-on" instructional resource published by the Thomas Day
Education Project. It was highly praised by the former director of NEH's Division of Education Programs, Dr. Candace Katz, as
"the most
interdisciplinary teacher kit" she had ever used. It has received
many other accolades by educators and students alike. The kit was the
brainstorm of Berry; Beverly McNeill, TDEP mentor, key member or the
Crafting Freedom team, and 4th grade teacher at George Watts
Elementary in Durham; Marylu Flowers, art teacher at Forestview
Elementary in Durham; Brian Fricks, a former elementary art teacher who
currently works as a computer game designer in Seattle, Washington; and
Kari Smithnosky, a former Durham middle school social studies teacher
who now teaches in Pennsylvania. It received major funding from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, the North Carolina Arts Council,
and the Chipstone Foundation.
Two of the most innovative and successful lessons in the kit were
designed by Berry: "Who Was Thomas Day, Cabinetmaker?"" and "You are the
Furniture Designer." Both lessons are highly interdisciplinary
integrating history, art activities, and even mathematics, critical
thinking and writing skills. In "Who Was Thomas Day, Cabinetmaker?"
students are asked to imagine what Thomas Day looked like and to draw
him based on information they are given about his life. One piece of
information that is withheld is the fact that Day was an
African-American. Based on information received about Day,
most students automatically assume that he was a white
man. Because students are "caught in the act" of
racially stereotyping, Berry
created a natural "teachable moment" that causes
students to introspect about why they "assumed" that Day was a white
man. Research on teaching racial stereotyping has found that it's
imperative that students are put in a situation where they stereotype
and this lesson is designed to create that situation. This ingenious
lesson heightens student awareness of their own
proclivities to racially stereotype and forces them to address why they
stereotyped Day based on traits and experiences that are not in fact
related to race at all. Through self-examination of their own
prejudices, students achieve through this lesson a deeper understanding
of what stereotyping is and why it leads to misunderstandings and false
conclusions..
With "You are the Furniture Designer," Berry designed a simulation of a
furniture design division of a hypothetical business called "Chairs R Us
Furniture Company." In the simulation, students learn that "management"
has decided that it wants to create a new line of solid wood furniture
based on one or more of the traditional regions of Southern furniture.
Under the pressures of a deadline and the possibility of losing their
jobs, meeting design requirements and other demands from upper management,
students apply their drawing and design skills in a "business world"
role play that quickly starts to feel like the real thing. Indeed, the
student furniture designs that have been produced by Berry's students have been
highly praised by professional furniture designers. Steve Hodges of
Lexington, NC, a furniture designer, who consulted with Berry, said that many of Berry's 8th graders' furniture
designs were more innovative than those he'd seen produced by graduates
of furniture design programs at four year colleges. One of the furniture
designs that resulted from Berry's furniture design lesson, a book
shelf, was actually constructed by a shop student at Orange High School
in Hillsborough, NC.
Everyone at the Thomas Day Education Project will sorely miss Rodney
Berry because he has been as an outstanding TDEP teacher mentor at our
teacher workshops and a valuable advisor as board member. We
all wish him a safe and productive mission. Needless to say, the Iraqi
military is fortunate indeed to have such a magnificent instructor.
TDEP 'ON AIR' AT WUNC RADIO, February 2006
Chapel Hill, NC Listen to the
North Carolina Public Radio program at the WUNC audio archives.
(Scroll down to Thomas Day, date 2/6/06. )
