Heroes of the Underground Railroad

April 26, 2008

How much do you really know about the Underground Railroad, how it worked, and what it meant to slaves in the Americas?

Do you know who Thornton and Ruthie Blackburn were?  Did you know Canada played a key role in the life of the Underground Railroad?

The book is a year old now, and well worth a look: I’VE GOT A HOME IN GLORY LAND, A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad; Karolyn Smardz Frost, (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007).

Clear review from the New York Times, and the first chapter of the book so you can test drive it before you buy.

Two-fer:  The author is both an archaeologist (the one who did the dig at the Thorntons’ home in Toronto) and a historian.

This book would be a good one for an honors history course or AP history course for which students are required to read a book.


Slave narratives in Flash animation

August 31, 2007

Wow!

Graphic for Slave Narratives on-line exhibit

Teachers, take a look at this Flash animation about slavery, from the Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco. Yes, that beautiful, distinctive narrator voice is Maya Angelou — this is a high quality, high-impact presentation.

This MoAD piece, “Slave Narratives,” gives a glimpse of the potential of on-line learning, and what can be done with computers to supercharge a subject. Here slavery is presented as not only a colonial American problem, but is instead carried on through salvery issues in the 21st century. It’s part of the MoAD “Salon,” a site that world geography, world history and U.S. history teachers need to visit right away.

Cyberspace Nova discusses the site in a quick review of recent great Flash animations:

Imagine how it looked like taking a people freedom, torturing them, killing them and moving them far far away from their home. Tears can follow very easily if you just put one picture on your mind how it looked like. Yet, Slave Narrative put thousands of pictures in front of your eyes if you listen to the stories of slaves who lived to write them and share with people that will live after them. Let’s never forget this, because it’s happening today, like some stories from Slave Narratives tell… I love that this site is done in Flash, it is so powerful, it tells a story that we cannot hear a lot… Narrative part not just only justifies use of Flash, whole interactivity makes it great. 5/5

Opening to Photographs from the African Diaspora exhibit

Also look at this photographic exhibit of from MoAD, featuring more than 2,000 photos of people of African descent and places and things important to them — again, with great flash animation.

Bookmark the home page of the museum while you’re there.