An Introduction to the Black History Resource Black History Month is celebrated in the UK, the United States of America and Canada. It provides an opportunity to remember important people and events in the history of the African people. Every October Sunderland City Council arranges a programme of literature and arts activities that celebrate freedom and cultural diversity. The Black History Community Education Resource has been commissioned to support this programme. The programme of activities during Black History Month has grown in recent years, both through new ideas and links we have developed within Sunderland and the North East of England as well as through opportunities which have been opened up through our international connections including our Friendship Agreement with Washington DC. Through this unique historical connection with the capital of the United States we have had opportunities to learn more about African American history, about slavery - including George Washington’s attitude to slavery - and about the fight for emancipation and civil rights in Washington DC. As a city we have many links to Africa within our community and we are keen to celebrate all the different nationalities and cultures which make such a significant contribution to life in Sunderland. We are also proud to have been a Fairtrade city since 2006 and to be developing new links with Africa such as Sunderland AFC’s partnership with the Nelson Mandela Foundation. This new educational resource brings together information, images and activities to help us engage even more with Black History Month and think more about the many ways it is important to us all - both in our day to day lives as individuals, and to us as a city. Enjoy! Councillor Paul Watson Leader of Sunderland City Council Page 1 of 16 The Black History Education Resource can be used to support Knowledge and Understanding in Citizenship. Teachers can use the content of the resource to create their own Programme of Learning for Upper KS2 and KS3 pupils. The resource has four sections: George Washington: An insight into George Washington’s life and his views on slavery. Sunderland’s Black History: The history of slavery particularly in relation to Sunderland. Same but Different: An historical look at the African and African American visitors to Sunderland. What Can I Do?: An overview of some of Sunderland’s current links with Africa and African people, including with African Americans through the Friendship Agreement with Washington DC Citizenship 2013 The current national curriculum programmes of study for citizenship at KS3 has been misapplied with effect from 1 September 2013 and is no longer statutory. This means that schools are free to develop their own curricula for citizenship that best meet the needs of their pupils, in preparation for the introduction of the new national curriculum from September 2014. Citizenship remains a compulsory national curriculum subject at KS3. New statutory programmes of study will be introduced from September 2014. Citizenship from 2014 Purpose of study “A high-quality citizenship education helps to provide pupils with knowledge, skills and understanding to prepare them to play a full and active part in society. In particular, citizenship education should foster pupils’ keen awareness of how the United Kingdom is governed and how its laws are made and upheld.” Page 2 of 16 Relevant Aims • Acquire a sound knowledge and understanding of how the United Kingdom is governed, its political system and how citizens participate actively in its democratic systems of government. • Develop a sound knowledge and understanding of the role of law and the justice system in our society and how laws are shaped and enforced. • Develop an interest in, and commitment to, volunteering that they will take with them into adulthood. The content of this resource can also be used to create a presentation, performance or event to celebrate Black History Month. Page 3 of 16 Reading List 1 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Half of a Yellow Sun In 1960’s Nigeria, a country blighted by Civil War, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university professor. Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. The third is Richard, a shy Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s enigmatic twin sister. When the shocking horror of the war engulfs them, their loyalties are severely tested in ways that none of them imagined... Monica Ali Brick Lane Nazeen’s inauspicious entry to the world, an apparent stillbirth on the hard mud floor of a Bangladeshi village hut, imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across the continents when she is married of to Chanu. Her life in London’s Tower Hamlets is, on the surface, calm. For years, keeping house and rearing children, she does what is expected of her. Yet Nazeen walks a tightrope stretched between her daughters’ embarrassment and her husband’s resentments. Nadeem Aslam Maps for Lost Lovers In an unnamed town Jugnu and his lover Chanda have disappeared. Rumours abound in the close-knit Pakistani community, and then on a snow- covered January morning Chanda’s brothers are arrested for murder. Maps for Lost Lovers tell the story of the next twelve months. What follows is an unravelling of all that is sacred to Jugnu’s brother and sister-in-law. Malorie Blackman Noughts and Crosses Callum is a nought- a second class citizen in a world run by the ruling Crosses... Sephy is a Cross, daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country... In their world, noughts and Crosses simply don’t mix. And as hostility turns to violence, can Callum and Sephy possibly find a way to be together? They are determined to try. And then the bomb explodes... Amit Chaudhuri Real Time In these wry, lyrical stories, men, women, children, and even gods try to maintain their dignity and make sense of their lives, amid the jostling loneliness and cultural upheaval of post-post- Independence India. Whether it’s an embarrassed schoolboy standing up to the tyranny of disco, a conventional housewife inspired to write her memoirs, a businessman attending memorial rites for a young suicide, or two divorcees about to enter into an arranged marriage, the portraits that Chaudhuri draws from India’s new middle class are studies in heartbreaking awkwardness and hard-won grace. Page 4 of 16 Amit Chaudhuri The Immortals Shyamji has music in his blood, for his father was the acclaimed ‘heavenly signer’ and guru, Ram Lal. But Shyam Lal is not his father, and knows he never will be. Amit Chaudhuri Three Novels A Strange and Sublime Address, Afternoon Raag and Freedom Song are all stories about Indian life. Austin Clark The Polished Hoe Bimshire, 1952. The sergeant of the island’s police force is called to hear a murderous confession. A lifetime of tragic compromise told in a single night. Layers of disturbing history unfold as Mary-Mathilda- fair –skinned mistress of plantation manager Mr Bellfeels- weaves her intimate story of passion, motherhood and loss, culminating in a gruesome revenge. Anita Desai Baumgartner’s Bombay In his shabby flat behind the Taj Hotel in Bombay, surrounded by his family of stray cats and fading postcards, Hugo Baumgartner lives out his final years in familiar solitude and comfortable squalor. The tides of war that swept him from Nazi Germany to the shores of India fifty years before have left him washed up in this corner of a foreign city among his memories and his dreams. One morning he finds a stranger in his local café, a young German clearly in trouble, Baumgartner feels he has clearly no alternative but to befriend him. Anita Desai Clear Light of Day To the family living in the shabby, dusty house in Delhi, Tara’s visit brings a sharp reminder of life outside tradition. For Bim coping endlessly with their problems, there is a renewal of the old jealousies for, unlike her sister, she has failed to escape. Anita Desai Fasting, Feasting Uma, the plain, spinster daughter of a close-knit Indian family, is trapped at home, smothered by her overbearing parents and their traditions, unlike her ambitious younger sister Aruna, who brings off a ‘good’ marriage, and brother Arun, the disappointing son and heir who is studying abroad Anita Desai Journey to Ithaca. Like so many other young Western people in the 60’s and 70’s, Matteo leaves his home on the Italian lakes to search for a spiritual enlightenment in the ashrams of India. Practical, down-to- earth Sophie accompanies him but does not find the mysterious Mother as inspiring a guru as he does. Page 5 of 16 Anita Desai The Village by the Sea With their mother ill and their father permanently drunk, Hari and Lila have to earn the money to keep the house and look after their two young sisters. In desperation, Hari runs away to Bombay, and Lila is left to cope alone. Anita Desai The ZigZag Way Eric is an uncertain, awkward young man, a would-be writer, and a traveller in spite of himself. Happy to follow his more confident girlfriend to Mexico, he is overwhelmed with sensory overload, but gradually seduced –by the strangeness, the colour, the mysteries of an older world. He finds himself in a ‘ghost’ mining town, now barley inhabited, where almost a hundred years earlier young Cornish miners worked the rich seams in the earth. Until Pancho Villa and revolution cam to Mexico... Kiran Desai Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard The delightful story of Sampath Chawla, bored post-office clerk and dreamer, who takes to the branches of a secluded guava tree in search of the contemplative life- only to find something rather different..