Major Themes of Book 8 of A History of US:

Gaining Political and Economic Power (Chapters 1-13, 18)

Oppression and Depression (Chapters 14-17, 26)

Power through Written Expression and Environmental Consciousness (Chapters 19-25)

Turn-of-the-Century Presidencies (Chapters 27-31, 35-36)

Reform and Invention (Chapters 32-34)

World War I (Chapter 37)

On page 163 of Book 8 of “A History of US”, Joy Hakim states that ‘the more you read history the more you will notice that sometimes the right things happen for the wrong reasons, and vice versa.’ This is the plight of many African-Americans, if not all Americans, as we continued to progress socially and economically. We will cover the biographies of several leaders in music, science, education, and politics, again using the “Black Americans of Achievement” series.

One of many untold stories in African-American history is the contribution to modern-day living through inventions and science, from Elijah McCoy’s engine lubrication system, to Dr. Daniel Hale Williams’ pioneering efforts in medicine, to Jan Matzliger’s shoe lasting machine. While reading Book 7 of the Hakim series, we covered the work of George Washington Carver, a protégé of Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute, which later became Tuskegee University. Here we meet Charles Drew, whose work is largely responsible for our ability to share blood with each other in the effort to save lives.

Through the associated readers and read-alouds, we continue our exposure to the great performing arts of the Harlem Renaissance by studying the life of Duke Ellington, and we look into the inspiration of Asa Philip Randolph, whose name became synonymous with Black labor unions and who preceded Martin Luther King and others in the civil rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s.

In 1787 the first public school for African Americans, the African Free School, opened in New York City. For the most part, however, schools for African Americans were housed in churches and homes of African-American leaders. (Hudson, pg. 73) Abolitionists opened schools, as did church groups and even the government. But dedicated African Americans such as Booker T. Washington, Charlotte Hawkins, Brown, and Mary McLeod Bethune established their own educational institutions, and in so doing, helped placed education at the forefront of the African-American plan for advancement. Says Ms. Bethune, ‘I opened the doors of my school, with an enrollment of five little girls…whose parents paid me fifty cents’ weekly tuition…I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in a living God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve…’ ( Hudson, pg. 74) We have the privilege of learning about this educator, civil rights leader, and founder of Bethune-Cookman College.

The reading plan is listed on the following pages. Associated discussions and learning activities are included on the pages following the reading plan.

If you lived at the turn of the 19^th century…

1899

War begins in the Philippines between U.S. troops and Filipino soldiers led by Emilio Aguinaldo after two American privates start shooting at Filipino troops outside Manila. The war goes on for three and a half years.

West Africa's Ashanti attempt their final uprising against the British, who had previously faced struggles with Africans, along with other European powers, in the scramble for Africa.

Andrew Carnegie creates Carnegie Steel and consolidates his properties in the wake of the Homestead Strike.

United Mine Workers of America unites anthracite and bituminous coal miners into a single labor union.

The boll weevil crosses the Rio Grande and begins to spread through U.S. cotton fields, damaging Southern cotton production and precipitating the first great black migration to the North.

1900

The Boxer Rebellion breaks out in China. Nationalists attack foreign diplomats and missionaries, hoping to expel foreign influences from China. The U.S., Japan, and European nations send military forces to put down the uprising.

The first auto show is held in Madison Square Garden, New York City. The cars exhibited range in price from $280 to $4,000.

The International Ladies Garment Workers Union is founded.

The first Pan-African Congress convenes in London.

President William McKinley signs the Gold Standard Act, requiring all paper money to be backed by gold, an important move in the international monetary system.

The first photocopying machine is invented in France.

A New Haven, Connecticut, restaurant serves a beef patty on two slices of toast, inventing the hamburger, although it would be another 55 years before Ray Kroc starts his McDonald's empire.

Russia annexes Manchuria.

In the process of urbanization, one out of five Americans lives in an urban center of 100,000 or more residents.

Reading Plan:

Week 13

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
A History of U.S.: An Age of Extremes by Joy Hakim			Preface, Chapters 1 and 2		Chapters 3 and 4
READ-ALOUD: Duke Ellington by Ron Frankl	Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Chapter 4	Chapter 5
READER: Color Me Dark: The Diary of Nellie Lee Love, The Great Migration North by Patricia McKissack	pgs. 52-71	pgs. 72-89	pgs. 89-105	pgs. 106-121	pgs. 122-139

Week 14

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
A History of U.S.: An Age of Extremes by Joy Hakim	Chapters 5 and 6		Chapters 7 and 8		Chapters 9 and 10
READ-ALOUD: Duke Ellington by Ron Frankl	Chapter 6	Chapters 7 and 8	Chapter 9
READ-ALOUD: Charles Drew: Life-Saving Scientist by Miles J. Shapiro				Chapter 1	Chapter 2
READER: Color Me Dark: The Diary of Nellie Lee Love, The Great Migration North by Patricia McKissack	pgs. 140-156	157-171	172-199
READER: Langston Hughes by Jack Rummel				Chapter 1	Chapter 2

Week 15

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
A History of U.S.: An Age of Extremes by Joy Hakim	Chapters 11 and 12		Chapters 13 and 14		Chapters 15 and 16
READ-ALOUD: Charles Drew: Life-Saving Scientist by Miles J. Shapiro	Chapter 3	pgs. 46-59	pgs. 59-69	pgs. 70-82	pgs. 82-94
READER: Langston Hughes by Jack Rummel	Chapter 3	Chapter 4	Chapter 5	Chapter 6	Chapter 7

Week 16

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
A History of U.S.: An Age of Extremes by Joy Hakim	Chapters 17 and 18		Chapters 19 and 20		Chapters 21 and 22
READ-ALOUD: Charles Drew: Life-Saving Scientist by Miles J. Shapiro	pgs. 94-102
READ-ALOUD:A. Philip Randolph by Sally Hanley		Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Chapter 4
READER: Langston Hughes by Jack Rummel	Chapter 8	Chapter 9 and Chronology
READER: Esparanza Rising by Pamela Munoz Ryan			pgs.1-22	pgs.23-38	pgs. 39-57

Week 17

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
A History of U.S.: An Age of Extremes by Joy Hakim	Chapters 23 and 24		Chapters 25 and 26		Chapters 27 and 28
READ-ALOUD:A. Philip Randolph by Sally Hanley	Chapter 5	Chapter 6	Chapter 7	Chapter 8	Chapter 9
READER: Esparanza Rising by Pamela Munoz Ryan	pgs. 58-80	pgs. 81-99	pgs. 100-120	pgs. 121-138	pgs. 139-157

Week 18

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
A History of U.S.: An Age of Extremes by Joy Hakim	Chapters 29 and 30		Chapters 31 and 32		Chapters 33, 34, and 35
READ-ALOUD:Mary McLeod Bethune by Malu Halasa	Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Chapter 4	Chapter 5
READER: Esparanza Rising by Pamela Munoz Ryan	pgs. 158-178	pgs. 179-198	pgs. 199-213	pgs. 214-233	pgs. 234-253

Why Harlem?

As noted scholar and writer Ralph Ellison observed, "Wherever Negroes live uptown is considered Harlem." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem) Though its boundaries have changed over the years, most consider Harlem as the area from the East River to the Hudson River between 155th Street, meeting Washington Heights, with a ragged border along the south. Central Harlem begins at 110th Street, and Spanish Harlem extends east Harlem's boundaries south to 96th Street. In the west Harlem begins north of Morningside Heights with a western border of Morningside Avenue.

Though the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 officially freed African-Americans from slavery, many were still enslaved by the deplorable conditions that existed in the South. With little or no education or training, decent jobs were difficult to find. Many African-Americans returned to work for the very plantation owners who had enslaved them. Low wages and poor living conditions under these employers kept them in perpetual debt. In addition, the boll weevil devoured crops, making food increasingly scarce.

Racism continued to prevail in the post-Civil War south. Amidst attempts to establish order, new Jim Crow laws were established in the South to keep African-Americans impoverished and deprived. Segregation of blacks and whites became legal; ‘separate, but equal’ was indeed separate, but not equal. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was established in 1866 in an attempt to assert white supremacy, and the number of lynchings increased. Later, Ida B. Wells Barnett would become famous as she kept public record of the lynchings of African-American men.

Finally, World War 1 meant that scores of men were sent overseas to fight as a part of the Allied Forces. The normal pool of employees for these jobs, European immigrants, was halted as legislation prohibited the immigration process during the war years. Owners of city factories needed more workers to generate war-related supplies. The job openings in factories allowed many African-Americans to work and live at an economic level previously unknown to them.

Built in 1877, the community of Harlem was originally built to house white inner city dwellers who had become weary of the crowds. It also housed a significant number of the city’s more prosperous Jewish residents. A new subway line facilitated the building of a number of apartments to accommodate those hungry for suburban living. There was extensive development in the 1890’s, but the builders got ahead of themselves, and the dream of a bustling community remained largely unfulfilled. Phillip Payton and other African-American realtors convinced the builders of these properties to sell the empty apartments to Blacks who migrated to the area. Also, Blacks currently living elsewhere in New York in dilapidated and overcrowded housing would be attracted to these better living conditions. Finally, thousands of Black immigrants from the West Indies moved into the area. By 1910, Blacks were the majority group on the west side of Harlem north of 130^th Street.

The Black elites of the Washington, D.C. area shunned Harlem’s perceived vulgarity, and unlike Washington, Atlanta, and Nashville, Harlem contained no predominately Black center of higher learning, but it was considered ‘the cultural center of the race and a Mecca for its aspiring young.’ (Wintz, p.22) Much of the emerging literature and art of the period reflected the conditions of the Harlem community, from Palmer Hayden’s portrait of “The Janitor Who Paints” to Claude McKay’s poem “The Harlem Dancer.” Consider this excerpt from Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem”:

Where did they get

Them two fine cars?

Insurance man, he did not pay--

His insurance lapsed the other day--

Yet they got a satin box

for his head to lay.

Night funeral

In Harlem:

Who was it sent

That wreath of flowers?

Them flowers came

from that poor boy's friends--

They'll want flowers, too,

When they meet their ends.

Night funeral

in Harlem:

Who preached that

Black boy to his grave?

Old preacher man

Preached that boy away--

Charged Five Dollars

His girl friend had to pay.

Between the years 1916 and 1920, approximately 500,000 African-Americans left these conditions and migrated to cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York City. Though race riots would break out in several of these cities while more African-Americans changed the landscape, Harlem would become the “Black Capital of the World.”

SHINING GOD’S LIGHT ON OUR JOURNEY:

Read Matthew 25:14-30 and 1 Corinthians 12. What is the purpose of gifts and talents, according to the apostles Matthew and Paul? How do these words speak to our use of gifts and talents that God has given us?

Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us that ‘to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…’ The Harlem Renaissance marked a season where African-Americans were credited, even sought out, for their intellectual prowess and giftedness when the thinking was previously that all a Black person could be was a domestic servant or common laborer. How could African-Americans make the most of this season for the kingdom of Christ?

Much of the Harlem Renaissance era is known as much for the music and dancing of the age as the literary boon of African-American writers. Read 2 Samuel 6:12-14, Psalms 150, and Ecclesiastes 3: 1-13. Are music and dancing necessarily demonic? What are the boundaries upon how we should enjoy music and dance?