Recess! Media

Koren Stembridge is on the internet for us, with some information about Black History Month, which begins tomorrow.

February is Black History Month, the perfect time to log on to the web with your child to visit the many sites honoring Americans of African descent.

The Afro American Almanac is an excellent place to begin our journey. Here you will find biographies of great African American men and women and you can pour through their collection of fascinating historical documents. For example, do your children know that Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence contained language condemning King George III’s indulgence of the Slave Trade. You can read his omitted text here, along with other important historical documents.

Another feature of the Afro American Almanac is a selection of folk tales, where you can read stories like “Why There Is Day and Night,” “Why Women Do Not Have Beards,”and “Why the Sun Lives in the Sky.”

Next, visit Encyclopedia Britannica’s Harlem Renaissance–a truly glorious site to be online, with exhibits about those extraordinary figures of literature, art and entertainment who sprang out of 1920s New York City at the height of the Jazz Age. There are wonderful multimedia resources here, including video footage of Fats Walker singing “This Joint is Jumpin.” See and hear poet Langston Hughes as he reads his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and watch Bill “Bojangles” Robinson as he performs his famous Stair Dance.

AFRO-America’s Black History Museum features important events in African American history. Here you can read articles about the Tuskegee Airmen or the Negro Baseball Leagues.

The Timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement takes us from the 1954 Supreme Court decision on Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas–where segregation was ruled unconstitutional–through key events in the Civil Rights movement–to the 1963 March on Washington. Photographs and links to additional resources make this pivotal time come alive.

Finish up your tour by stopping at Louisiana State University’s Faces of Science. We all know about the amazing George Washington Carver who developed synthetic products ranging from chili sauce to synthetic marble to shaving cream. But take a little time and get to know a few of the many other famous black biologists, chemists, engineers and inventors who have contributed to the body of scientific knowledge. They are guaranteed to inspire.