Final Draft of The Black History Assembly

Dance Drums - Dance by the Lisa Gold Dance Troupe

Music: “Glory”

#1 Slide: “Still I Rise”

Introduction 

Destiny Yancy-Wiley:

The story of Black History Month begins in 1915, half a century after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson and the prominent minister Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, an organization dedicated to researching and promoting achievements by black Americans and other peoples of African descent. The group sponsored a national Negro History week in 1926, choosing the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. 

The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize local celebrations, establish history clubs and host performances and lectures. In the decades that followed, mayors of cities across the country began issuing yearly proclamations recognizing Negro History Week. By the late 1960s, thanks in part to the Civil Rights Movement and a growing awareness of black identity, Negro History Week had evolved into Black History Month on many college campuses. Since then, every American president has designated February as Black History Month. 

#2 Slide: Frederick Douglass 

Music: “Solomon” - Twelve Years a Slave

Cheyenne: 

Frederick Douglass was born a slave on a plantation in Maryland around 1818. He died 77 years later as a free man in his home high above Washington, DC.

 As a slave on a Maryland plantation, Frederick Douglass would look longingly toward the Bay and its sailing ships. For Douglass the ships represented everything that had been denied him by slavery, and in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written in 1845, he describes how he would 

Akili: 

”pour out my soul's complaint. . . to the moving multitude of ships":

#3 Slide: Frederick Douglass

Akilii:

"You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angels, that fly round the world; I am confined in bands of iron! ... It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave.”

Cheyenne:

And he did not die a slave! He taught himself to read and write, and traveled In his journey from captive slave to internationally renowned activist, writer, and orator, Douglass changed how Americans thought about race, slavery, and American democracy.

Transitional Music with Dance: 

“Wade in the Water” - sung by Kimberly and Kayla

Dance: Makenzie, Whitney, Jazzmyn, Daisha

#4 Slide: Harriet Tubman 

Makenzie: 

Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad Conductors. Tubman set out, guided only 

#5 Slide: North Star

by the north star,  for the “Promised Land”, the North, where she found work, saved her money, and returned to the South again and again, leading slaves out of bondage.

#6 Slide: Underground Railroad Map

During a ten year span Harriet Tubman made nineteen trips down south to escort at least seventy slaves, and perhaps many more, to freedom.

Tubman carried a pistol in case anyone got “cold feet”. She never had to use it. During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman worked as a spy for the Union. And after the war, she lived out the rest of her long life in Auburn, New York. 

Music Transition: “Follow the Drinking Gourd” with dance 

#7 Slide: Sojourner Truth 

Akili: 

Born into slavery in 1797, Isabella Baumfree, who later changed her name to Sojourner Truth, would become one of the most powerful advocates for human rights in the nineteenth century. 

#8 Slide: B/W of Slaves in front of cabin

Like other slaves, she experienced the miseries of being sold and was cruelly beaten and mistreated. In 1827, after her master failed to honor his promise to free her, Isabella ran away, or, as she later informed her master, 

Beverly: 

“I did not run away, I walked away by daylight….” 

Alexy: 

After experiencing a religious conversion, Isabella became a traveling preacher and in 1843 changed her name to Sojourner Truth. During this period she became involved in the growing 

antislavery movement, and by the 1850s she was involved in the women’s rights movement as well. Sojourner Truth delivered what is now recognized as one of the most famous abolitionist and women’s rights speeches in American history: “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Beverly:

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

Music Transition: 

“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” - sung by Cheyenne Dioh

Music Transition - Take the A Train

Dancers: Daesha, Makenzie

#9 Slide: The Harlem Renaissance 1920 - 1935

Timerica: 

In the early part of the 1900s, many African Americans made their way out of the South to seek a better life in the North, and many of them found their way to Harlem. As a result of this large exodus, Harlem, in the 1920s,  experienced a cultural and intellectual explosion that became known as the Harlem Renaissance. 

#10 Slide: B/W Graphic of Words 

This small portion of New York became an African American cultural center - and poets, artists, musicians, and philosophers were all key parts of the movement. 

#11 Slide: Colored painting of jazz musicians

Jazz, the new music created by the grandchildren of slaves,  could be heard pouring from apartments and saloons in the streets of Harlem. And poets, such as Langston Hughes introduced a new form of poetry called jazz poetry. Black writers tackled the painful themes of slavery and racism, and the marks they left on the African American soul.  The Harlem Renaissance had a profound impact on music, literature, and art in the United States and the world

#12 Slide: Langston Hughes

Cheyenne: 

Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902. His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

#13 Slide: “My Soul Has Grown Deep Like the River” by Langston Hughes 

Music: “Open” by Peter Gabriel 

#14 Slide: Colored Photo of River 

Akili: 

I’ve known rivers:

I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

#15 Slide:  Duke Ellington

Sophisticated Lady - sung by Shakhina 

Music: “Sophisticated Lady” 

Cheyenne:

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was the most prolific composer of the twentieth century, and is considered by many to be America’s greatest composer, bandleader, and recording artist.  The Duke Ellington Orchestra, noted for their elegant and brilliant blend of jazz, big band, and swing, became the house band from 1927 to 1932, at the Cotton Club in Harlem.

#16 Slide: The Cotton Club in Harlem (Colored painting)

Although, the Cotton Club was in Harlem, and featured predominantly African American artists, the club was white owned, with an exclusively white clientele. If you were black, the only way you could enter the Cotton Club was through the back door as a bus boy or an artist. 

#17 Slide: B/W photo of the Cotton Club

Music: “A Love Supreme” by John Coltrane

#18 Slide: B/W photo of Rosa Parks in bus

Acted out by Troupe:
Rosa Parks started a revolution by sitting down. Tired after working all day as a department store seamstress, Rosa Parks was sitting in the black or "colored" section of a crowded Birmingham, Alabama bus one day in 1955, when the bus driver demanded she give up her seat to a white man. When she refused, 

#19 Slide: B/W photo of Rosa Parks’ arrest

she was arrested, thrown in jail, and fined. Tired of having to sit in the back of the bus, tired of having to give up their seats when they were tired, old, sick, or disabled so that a white person could sit down, a Baptist minister by the name of the Reverend Martin Luther King, and his colleague, the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, organized a boycott of the Birmingham bus service.  Their demands were simple - black passengers should be treated with respect! In November, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Martin Luther King, and the black bus riders. Because of Martin Luther King and the black bus riders, integrated buses became law of the land.  By refusing to stand up, Rosa Parks changed how black Americans were treated. 

#20 Slide: B/W shot of mother and child with  Supreme Court in back ground 

Music: Glory

#21 Slide: B/W photo of Martin Luther King with American flag

Jazzmyn:

Martin Luther King was a galvanizing force in the African Americans' fight for civil rights. Baptist minister, activist, humanitarian, writer, orator, leader, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King achieved recognition for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his own Christian beliefs.  

#22 Slide: B/W photo of MLK with Ralph Abernathy

Daisha: 

In the brief span of his life, Dr. King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led the  struggle in 1962 to desegregate housing, organized marches to Washington to demand civil rights, organized the Selma to Montgomery March

#23 Slide: B/W photo of marchers 

 for African Americans’ right to vote, and took his mission for civil rights up North to Chicago to continue his fight to desegregate housing. In the final years of his life he expanded his focus to include poverty,  and to protest the Viet Nam Conflict.  He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his seismic impact as a peace activist, writer and orator. The Reverend Dr. King was planning a national occupation of Washington D.C. to be called the Poor People's Campaign when he was assassinated on April 4th,1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. 

#24 Slide/Video of Martin Luther King 

Music: “A Change Is Going to Come” sung by Kimberly Lowe

#25 Slide: B/W photo of Black Panthers - The Ultimate Justice of the People

Alexy:

In the turbulent 1960’s, change was coming to America and the fault lines could no longer be ignored - cities were burning, Viet Nam was exploding, and disputes raged over equality and civil rights.  A new revolutionary culture was emerging and it sought to drastically transform the system. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would, for a short time, put itself at the vanguard of that change. 

#26 Slide: B/W photo of man serving breakfast to children 

Tai: 

In the beginning the Black Panther Movement was more committed to social programs to help impoverished, disenfranchised communities. One of its most important and successful programs was providing breakfast to the community’s children. At one point, the men and women of the Black Panthers were feeding 20, 000 children breakfast per week. By the early 1970’s, women comprised two thirds of the Black Panther  Movement, and occupied important positions in every level of the organization. 

#27 Slide: B/W photo of Angela Davis

Alexy: 

However, the Black Panthers began to derail when the movement became increasingly radicalized which lead to more violent conflicts with the police.  The leadership became more fragmented, when some, like Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, were incarcerated, and others, like Elridge Cleaver fled to Africa. 

Music: “What’s Going On?” - Timerica

#28 Slide: Malcolm X

Taraz: 

At the age of twenty, Malcolm Little was sentenced to prison for larceny where three important life changes occurred: Malcolm  Little became a voracious reader, devouring books on history, politics, race, and religion. As a result of his new awareness of race and history, Malcolm Little became Malcolm X, rejecting his surname as a slave name,  symbolic of the loss of his ancestral name, his history, and his culture.  The third major event was Malcolm X’s conversion to Islam and becoming a member of the Nation of Islam, an organization founded by Elijah Mohammad for African American muslims. After his release from prison, Malcolm X became of the most influential leaders in the Nation of Islam, and was the driving force in many of its successful social services including its free drug rehabilitation program. 

Disillusioned by the behavior of Elijah Mohammad, his spiritual leader, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and traveled to Africa and the middle east to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is the pledge of every muslim to visit the most holy site in Islam. There Malcolm X experienced the fourth major event of his life - the sight of all people, from white skinned, blue-eyed blonds to dark skinned Africans, embracing, sharing drink, sharing food, in an act of loving brotherhood. 

This experience profoundly altered his views on race, racism, and the world. Malcolm X returned to the United States with a new message and founded the Muslim Mosque to promote that new message - to reject racism, and to promote both racial harmony and black empowerment.

0n February 21, 1965, while in New York on a speaking engagement, Malcolm X was assassinated by three members of the Nation of Islam. His autobiography, published shortly after his death, has become one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th Century.  

#29 Slide: Nina Simone

Music: Four Women by Nina Simone 

#30 Slide: Colored photo of biracial child

Poem by Kayla Lee on being bi-racial

Music: “Formation” by Beyonce

#31 Slide: Formation 

Dance: “Formation” - Akili, Cheyenne, Whitney, Maddie

#32 Slide: Star Spangled Banner by Jimi Hendrix 

Video of Jimi Hendrix 

Kimberly: 

Jimi Hendrix is considered by many to be the greatest rock and blues guitarist who ever lived. His playing forever revolutionized the music of rock, blues and guitar technique.

#34 Slide: Nina Simone  

“Feeling Good” - Cheyenne Dioh

Music: “Strange Fruit” by Nina Simone 

Classically trained pianist from South Carolina, who studied at Juilliard, Nina Simone was brilliant, tormented, and passionate. Simone took up the flame of activism and became the voice of the Civil Rights Movement, creating songs like “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black” in response to the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham which killed  four little black girls. She collaborated with her dear friend, the great poet Langston Hughes for the civil rights song, “Black Lash Blues” and remained staunch in her beliefs that as an artist, one is bound to create change. Nina Simone once said, “An artist’s duty, as far as I am concerned, is to reflect the times.” 

#35 Slide:  Tupac

Music - “Dear Mama” rap by Tai Jones 

#36 Slide: Alvin Ailey

Music: “Wade in the Water” - Alvin Ailey

 In 1958, Alvin Ailey started his own dance company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre to carry out his vision of enriching modern American dance heritage and preserving the unique African American cultural heritage.  

#37 Slide: Red photo of three male dancers 

Alvin Ailey dedicated his life to bringing dance and cultural awareness to under served communities across the world. 

#38 Slide: Judith Jamison 

Judith Jamison has been described as an African Queen, and Alvin Ailey’s Empress, and it has been said there was always something of the divine about Ms. Jamison’s performances. Long legged, and lean, Judith Jamison was Ailey’s muse, and he created some of his greatest dance pieces for her, including “Cry” which was “dedicated to black women everywhere, especially to our mothers.”  

#39 Slide: Group dance photo

Upon his retirement, Alvin Ailey appointed Judith Jamison his successor as artistic director, and through her own choreography, continued the prestige of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. 

 Music: “I Wanna Be Ready”

Dance: Emani and Sam 

#40 Slide: Maya Angelou

Alexy: 

Dr. Maya Angelou was a towering icon in American literature exploring feminist and African American struggles in her poetry and in her books, including I know Why the Caged Bird Sings. 

Poem: “Still I Rise” - Jazzmyn 

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I rise. 

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

#41 Slide - Toni Morrison

Daisha: 

Toni Morrison is an African American writer who authored eleven books, including The Bluest Eye and Beloved, for which she won the Pulitzer. She also won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in recognition of the profound impact her many books have had. The Nobel Peace Prize citation reads: “Toni Morrison: who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”

#42 Slide: Colored photo of white doll in foreground; black child in back ground

The Bluest Eye 

Timerica: 

I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me. Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs - all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. 

“Here,” they said, “this is beautiful, and if you are on this day ‘worthy’ you may have it.”  I fingered the face, wondering at the single stroke eyebrows; picked at the pearly teeth stuck like two piano keys between red bowline lips. Traced the turned-up nose, poked the glassy blue eyeballs, twisted the yellow hair. I could not love it. But I could examine it to see what it was that all the world said was lovable.” 

#43 Slide: Barack Obama

#44 Slide: Video of Barak Obama’s 2008 and 2012 inauguration. 

Music: Glory 

During song, play the slides backwards