We a Dream 1776 1976

We Had A Dream 1776 1976 Contributions of Black Americans Author and Editor- Vernon C. Lawhorn + II1II Additional methods can be used to further educate students about this mural. We Had a Dream 1776-1976 No. 1. This material can be used to enhance biographical work of historic figures. Contributions of Black Americans No.2. The material will readily lend itself to standard testing procedures, such as True or False, Multiple Choice, Matching Fill-Ins and Essays. No.3. This Visual material will aid the student in his or her effort to compare and contrast current events with the past or historical occurences. No.4. It could be useful in understanding the borrowing and synthe- The subjects of this painting are both male and female, encompassing sizing that occurs in the birth and development of movements. Dr. Martin virtually all aspects of the American Experience. Luther King, Jr. borrowed from Mahatma Gandi; Ceasar Chavez, the No. 1. It is a history in color of the Black experience in America. It's Mexican American who now still marches and protests against a system first figure is that of an African Mask: It's final figure is a Red, Black & that deprives his people their freedom and rights, from Dr. King. Green flag, symbolic of the desire by blacks to understand and relate to their African Heritage. In summation, the question is, who would benefit? NOTE: The African Mask is symbolic of the origin of American Blacks. No.2. Some of the individuals in the painting are anonymous but most . Multiculture is apparently the wave of the future. History has blithely are famous and of heroic stature. Ignored the Marcus Garvey's, given short shift to the Malcolm X's and No.3. The subjects in the Dream challenged the status quo, and led generally dismissed those ethnic figures who vehemently opposed the status movements and set up alternative Institutions in an effort to improve the quo. We have matured enough to honestly appraise our past and look those cause of Freedom for all Black Americans. individuals who still oppose us squarely in the eye. No.4. In this Bicentennial Year we do not subscribe to a theory of racial In the field of literature, it is only realistic to acknowledge James superiority anymore than we believe in Ethnic Purity. Any ethnic, racial, Baldwin, Richard Wright and the myriad of other Blacks (as well as writers or cultural groups could create a Mural or painting depicting their own from other ethnic backgrounds) who have strongly censured America for heroes or villans which would be no less legitimate than the one before you. her treatment of Black Americans. This painting reflects the resourcefulness of the human spirit, in its effort to shake the shackles and bondage of any type, regardless of the The painter of this mural and researcher of the subjects shown is Vernon source of their position. C. Lawhorn, a graduate of The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M., 1970, B.F.A. Supplementary material will follow this outline. The This painting also can be used for educational purposes (Yisual Aid). artist resides at 1038 Alabama St., Vallejo, California 94590. No.1. It is not merely a painting but a guide post for understanding the Black Experience in America. From the epic figures of this painting, it is a SImple process to follow events, movements, and Institutions which have affected all aspects of American Life. No.2. For the black student, this painting could be a source of pride and an enhancement of self-awareness through His or Her Scholarship. No.3. For the Non-Black Student this painting gives an opportunity to learn more about another culture, as provided through this Aid to view the Black Experience in America in a scholarly manner. Students of all ethnic, cultural. and racial persuasions are invited to compare and contrast their own histories against that of Blacks. No.4. Since the rhetoric of the [96O's has abated, the teacher can now deal with issues which were potentially explosive, in an impassionate manner. Both Student and staff are now sophisticated, and intellectually curious enough to incorporate all peoples and groups into an educational process in the classroom. 2 3 • • of great propaganda value to the American patriots. We Had a Dream 1776-1976 Two of His Majesty's regiments were stationed in Boston, sent to protect Contributions of Black Americans the unpopular customs officials. Goaded by taunts and jeers, the British soldiers, in a moment of panic, fired into the crowd. Eleven persons were Background information-Teaching Guide hit, five of whom were to die, including Crispus Attucks, a Black. 1. Africa and the 16th century ivory mask of The King of Benin The soldiers were acquitted for the incident because of its said provoking by Crispus Attucks. The fifth of March would be celebrated as the chief The first Europeans to reach the West Coast of Africa were officials and American holiday until superceded by the Fourth of July. It may be added traders interested more in profit and loss than in native cultures. Move over, that a Crispus Attucks Monument was erected on Boston Common in 1889, they observed Africa's indigenous peoples with a western eye, one that a step that the city took in response to petitions by Blacks to honor him. regards a difference in culture as an inferiority in culture. Nevertheless, an increasing body of material is becoming available for a study of Africa before the Portuguese, and today's historian is able to present a more 4. The U.S. first national flag balanced view of pre-colonial Africa than were his predecessors. On June 14, 1777 the Continental Congress adopted a design for the Fifty years ago it was difficult to find a European who did not view national flag. It resolved that "The flag of the United States shall be African cultures with the "Western Eye." A fare exception was Leo thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, with a.union of thirteen stars of Frobenius, an ethnologist who brought to the study of Africa no pre- white on a blue field, representing a new constellation." conceived notions of the inferiority of native cultures. Frobenius was a Although the 13 stars are usually pictured as being arranged in a circle, member of the German Inner African Exploration and published a two- no rule had been made and there was thus no uniformity. Some three volume work, The Voice of Africa. Frobenius began his study of West horizontal rows of 4, 5 and 4. In others the stars were arranged as if they Coast cultures in 1891 after reading in a Berlin paper a purportedly had been placed on the arms of the combined crosses of St. George and learned article which stated that pre-colonial Africa had been a hopelessly St. Andrew. backward region. 2. The introduction of Africans to America 5, Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) Among the earliest immigrants were Blacks from the West Coast of A U.S. journalist, and one of the most distinguished of American Black Africa; twenty of whom landed at Jamestown in 1619, a year before the orators, and anti-slavery leaders. He was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland on Mayflower reached Plymouth. These Blacks can in truth be numbered February 14, 1817, the son of a white man and a Black slave mother. In among the "Old Americans," those who first reached the English 1838 he escaped from slavery and settled in New Bedford, Mass. In 1841 at colonies. an abolitionist meeting in Nantucket he related his slave experiences, and Within two decades after Gonzalves had brought the first Blacks to for the next four years, despite many indignities, he lectured throughout Lisbon, the slave trade had become an important component of European the East for antislavery groups. In 1845 he published The Narrative of the commerce. And with the discovery of America toward the close of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which revealed his master's identity and century, the African slave trade became a truly major enterprise. Now the endangered Douglass' liberty. The tall, handsome, and articulate Douglass Europeans had a vast new continent in which this fresh supply of Black took refuge in England, where friendly liberals purchased his freedom from labor could be gainfully employed. The New World, with its great natural his master. From 1847, after his return to the U.S., he published his own resources waiting to be tapped, was a boon to slavery, and the fostering abolitionist newspaper, the North Star, in Rochester, N.Y., until 1863. It mother of the slave trade. also supported women's rights, a cause that Douglass championed from In rare instances a slave ship crossed the Atlantic without such mishaps his participation in the first women's rights convention (1848). Douglass as the loss of a single slave or crew member. More typical, however, were became a political abolitionist supporting the Republican party. He used that of a cargo of slaves suffering from malnutrition and dysentery after his lecture fees to aid fugitive slaves and headed the Rochester Station of the crossing the seas for many days with a disloyal crew. underground railroad. Despite his opposition to the Harpers Ferry raid (1859) Douglass fled to Canada because he had raised money for the 3. Crispus Allucks and the Revolutionary War ventures of his friend and confident John Brown. During the Civil War he With the rift widening between England and her mainland colonies, it recruited Blacks for the Union Army, pushed for emancipatin and was not surprising that a resort to arms should result.

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