Introduction
This is a six-to eight-week unit designed to introduce students to the history of Blacks and Italians in New Haven from the beginning of each community until the decade of the 1930’s. Students will become familiar with the chronology of each group’s establishment, will learn how and why separate institutions were formed, and will understand the relationship of each group to the larger community. A major objective in the study is for students to appreciate the uniqueness of each ethnic experience while understanding the similarities and differences between the two groups as minorities which attempted to survive and adjust in a community in which they were seen as outsiders.
The unit will be taught to 10th, 11th, and 12th grade high school students, most of whom read on a third to fifth grade level. For this reason reading and writing assignments must be carefully chosen or written by the teacher, and other kinds of learning experiences will be very important. We expect to find or develop pictures, slides, films, and taped narratives as we teach the course this year, and to make our materials available. We also hope to have speakers come to the class and to take several trips to local sites.
The unit can be divided into five general parts with each of the topics mentioned as one or more potential lessons depending on the class, the teacher, and the resources available.
I.
|
Blacks in Early New Haven
|
|
A.
|
Slaves and freemen in Puritan society
|
|
B.
|
Laws affecting blacks
|
|
|
1.
|
Slave laws
|
|
|
2.
|
The Gradual Emancipation Act of 1784
|
|
|
3.
|
The custom of electing black “governors”
|
|
C.
|
Neighborhoods where blacks first lived
|
|
D.
|
Personalities
|
II.
|
The Establishment of Black Institutions and issues Involving
the
Larger Community
|
|
A.
|
The Abolitionist cause
|
|
B.
|
The attempt to establish a Negro college
|
|
C.
|
The Amistad affair
|
|
D.
|
The first black churches
|
|
|
1.
|
The history of the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church
|
|
|
2.
|
Amos Bemon
|
|
E.
|
Education
|
|
|
1.
|
The New Goffe Street School
|
|
|
2.
|
Edward Bouchet
|
|
F.
|
Blacks in the local economy
|