1.25 - Not Your Token...BHM

Black History Month

Welcome back to When the Wind Blows...an Epic podcast for parents, teachers, leaders and anyone vested in the world of education. 

Lee...for 30 years you have been a super hero...an educator. What keeps you in this world? 

 

You were born in 1959...this is the year Motown Records was formed, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, The Temptations...Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis finishes recording "Kind of Blue" and it becomes the best-selling jazz album in history..."A Raisin in the Sun," a play written by Lorraine Hansberry, opens on Broadway. This play is the first Broadway show to be produced by a Black woman and went on to be made into a movie a few years later. MLKjr and Malcolm X are alive and in the height of their civil rights teachings, speaking, and activating. Kind of an amazing year to be born. We can think back on these great things and romanticize this time in history, but the fact remains that you still couldn't sit next to me in a restaurant or drink at my water fountain

 

Ok, Its Black History Month. You’re black. Is having an episode set apart right now from the rest and you a black man as my special guest even appropriate anymore?

 

The last thing I want is for this episode to be a token episode that fills a BHM requirement. This is not the first time I have had you one the show nor will the next time be February of 2022. 

 

FACT: As recently as the 2016–2017 school year, East Side High School in Cleveland, Mississippi, was practically all black: 359 of 360 students were African-American.

Theoretical question: when will we ever be fully integrated? 

Research the Kansas City Star - 

 

Fact: President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

 

Would the teenage Lee Roland be proud of the work that adult Lee Roland is doing?

Room 222

 

What advice would you give to the teenagers living through the movements of today? Wokeness & BLM

 

Research Ideas for teaching about BHM

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Tune in next week where we are rethinking how leadership and education can better prepare the next generation for a rapidly evolving world.