I suggest that teachers answer the questions to the Reading Guide of the book The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory prior to teaching the lesson. It is helpful for teachers to examine the history of slavery not just in the American South, but also in places like Connecticut. A primary text that I am aware of is The Anti-Slavery Alphabet, published in 1847 in Philadelphia for the Anti-Slavery Fair by Merrihew & Thompson, Printers that I purchased at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. It is an alphabet that was written prior to the abolition of slavery to assist children in learning how to read, and also educating them about the horrific violence of slavery in terms that they could understand. It is a resource that could be helpful for teachers in understanding the longstanding impact of slavery in simple terms. To take the lesson further, instructors can also expand into learning about the Black soldiers such as Venture Smith who fought in the Revolutionary War in Connecticut or the Haitian Revolution’s implication for the Western Hemisphere’s response to the contributions of black soldiers throughout history. “Venture was building on his past, not erasing it” (Saint, 68). Like Arturo Schomburg, Venture Smith chose not to obliterate his past but used it to build his future upon. After having been enslaved instead of choosing a new name he liberated his family, as well as other Black men and bought land as an investment (Saint, 71-73). According to The Rhode Island Slave Enlistment Act of February 14, 1778, “every able-bodied negro, mulatto, or Indian man slave, in this State, may enlist into either of the said two battalions to serve during the continuance of the present war with Great Britain” (Lanning, 205). The historical impacts of the African diaspora are profound, especially in the history of nations such as the United States of America, as dramatically echoed in Langston Hughes’s poem “I, Too”. In fact, Rhode Island “was colonial America’s largest transporter of slaves to the Caribbean and the colonies” (Farrow, 22). In the book The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory, the author Anne Farrow describes how this historical fact was something she realized she was not readily aware of because it was not something that occurred to her in her earlier research based on her sources. One of the topics Arturo Schomburg researched was the Haitian Revolution and his library collection reflects his interest in that historical event’s impact on the world (Weatherford, 14). The unit is a quest inviting students to travel through time with Arturo Schomburg as a guide. While Arturo “Digs up His Past,” students also learn about the history of the African diaspora through the poetry of Langston Hughes (Weatherford, 29). Schomburg was motivated to dig into the past like Farrow because he felt there was more to discover than was readily apparent, that there was more that was not seen because it was unlooked for (Farrow, 22).
In the course of the Poetry as Sound and Object seminar we discussed the legal and pedagogical significance of the banning of the watershed poetry book Howl, by Allen Ginsberg. This lesson is timely in the context of national debate concerning how African American history is taught in schools. The word “Negro” appears in two books written for youth used in the unit by Langston Hughes within his lifetime. In a June 1926 publication of The Nation Langston Hughes declared that the role of the young Negro artist to be unafraid of saying “I am a Negro-and beautiful!” (Shapiro, 374). According to Hughes it is ridiculous to reject African American vernacular traditions. Langston Hughes emphasizes the importance of music for the Black aesthetics of the Blues in his poetry. Using two texts written specifically for children during Langston Hughes’s lifetime can help ensure that the intent of the author is not lost during instruction and also that it is appropriate for students. Langston Hughes lived at a time the word “Negro” was not uncommon. This is an opportunity for thoughtful instructors to engage students in discussion about how to use critical thinking to understand how the social usage of words can change over time when looking at primary or secondary documents in research. The use of this word can potentially be an issue for some school instructors. It is advisable that the instructor discuss the unit with the principal and send home a letter to parents prior to instruction. Because it is a poem Hughes wrote as a young man that is foundational to his career, this unit concludes with an important opportunity for students to discuss the power of words and freedom of expression in poetry and art. Students will also learn what context means and that the meaning of words can change depending on how and when they are used.
Students may be inspired to become authors by learning Hughes became an author as a teenager. This unit prepares eighth-grade students to enter high school by encouraging them to practice critical thinking and social-emotional learning skills modelled by the poet Langston Hughes with other artists through reflection, production and collaboration. Students will learn to support their visual art ideas with observed evidence they analyze in the poem texts. The final resting place of Hughes symbolized by this mosaic is the end of the unit’s quest. It is also an invitation for students to continue learning through experience interrogating their positions with curiosity about how history shapes our world. A Yale-New Haven Unit written by the fellow Medria Blue connects the life of Langston Hughes to the Japanese-American experience during WWII and can be used as a resource by instructors for further explorations of the topic. When introducing how Arturo Schomburg’s life was shaped by his collection of books instructors can expand the scope of the unit to include the picture book Love in the Library. It is based on the experience of Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s grandparents and the impact access to a library at the Minidoka incarceration camp had on her family during World War II. This unit concludes with a poem transformed into an artwork representing the cultural legacy of the poet Langston Hughes that intersects with Arturo Schomburg who was the Change Agent whose life’s mission to create a great repository of knowledge began the unit’s quest.