Philadelphia schools to require African, black history

Associated Press ^ | 06/09/2005 | Maryclaire Dale

[americaprd]

Three decades after students demanding African-American studies in city schools clashed with police, the district will require all high schoolers to take a full-year course on the subject.

Philadelphia, whose public schools are two-thirds black, may be the first U.S. school district to require the class.

"I think it's a promise that we are many, many years late in filling," said Cecilia Cannon, an assistant superintendent for curriculum. "We have the opportunity ... to do something under our watch that is really going to do right by our students. To say, 'We've come from some pretty great places.'"

The course in African and African-American studies, now offered as an elective at 11 of the city's 54 high schools, has captivated students who have taken it, teachers say.

At nearly all-black Strawberry Mansion High School, a top student in the African-American studies class was chosen as the subject of a $360 genetic test designed to help blacks trace their roots back to Africa. James Sullivan, a senior, learned the bittersweet news that his maternal family descends from the Ibo tribe in Nigeria, and that they came to the U.S. as slaves.

"There were tears in his eyes, but joy also," said Principal Lois Powell Mondesire, who said other students are now interested in genetic testing.

National education groups said they did not know of other districts that require black studies, now a high-profile academic field on college campuses such as Harvard and Cornell.

But urban school leaders will no doubt be watching the Philadelphia experiment. School districts in California, Massachusetts and elsewhere have called to ask for details, Philadelphia officials said.

"School districts all across the country try all kinds of different things to engage the kids and improve student performance," said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, which represents 65 large urban school districts. "So this will be of interest, but it won't necessarily create a stampede in this direction."

Philadelphia students must take three other social studies courses to meet state requirements and five electives to graduate. The new class, designed for 10th graders, will be mandatory and reduce the number of electives to four.

"I think if we have to take African-American history as a mandatory class, that we should have it open to other cultures: Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans," said Briggitte Rodriguez, 14, a freshman at Philadelphia High School for Girls, which is 62 percent black. "It's a big world. You have to think about everyone else, too."

Some schoolmates disagree.

"They usually just focus on African-American history in February, and it should be all year-round," said Victoria Pertell, who is black.

The push for African-American studies in the city dates back to at least November 1967, when a few hundred students demonstrating outside a school board meeting clashed with police. Under the direction of then-Police Commissioner Frank L. Rizzo, officers clubbed some of the singing students after a few climbed atop cars.

The district's 210,000 students are about 67 percent black, 14 percent Latino, 14 percent white and 5 percent Asian. Three years after a state takeover that brought reform-minded schools chief Paul Vallas from Chicago, test scores are up and new buildings are planned to replace crumbling schools, although violence continues to erupt.

School leaders hope the course will not only keep black students interested in their academic work, but also give other students a more accurate view of history.

"It has an impact on our African-American children, but it also affects children from other cultures. Their perception is often skewed," said Sandra Dungee Glenn, a member of the five-person School Reform Commission that unanimously approved of the requirement this spring.

With a better understanding of each other and history, students will have the "opportunity for better understanding in schools and in the community."

[Polybius]

James Sullivan, a senior, learned the bittersweet news that his maternal family descends from the Ibo tribe in Nigeria, and that they came to the U.S. as slaves.

How is this bittersweet ? He should take a long hard look at that country and ask himself "Should my family have stayed?"

The answer would be, "No."

In the 1968, a genocide of over 1 million Ibo's took place in Nigeria.

"In some areas outside the East... Ibos were killed by local people with at least the acquiescence of the federal forces... 1000 Ibo civilians perished in Benin in this way" (New York Review, 21 December 1967)............. " after the federal take over of Benin... troops killed about 500 Ibo civilians after a house-to-house search" (Washington Morning Post, 27 September, 1967).............. "The greatest single massacre occurred in the Ibo town of Asaba where 700 Ibo male were lined up and shot" (London Observer, 21 January, 1968).............. "Federal troops... killed, or stood by while mobs killed, more than 5000 Ibos in Wari, Sapele, Agbor..." (New York Times, 10th January, 1968)..............Firstly the region between the towns of Benin and Asaba where only widows and orphans remain, Federal troops having for unknown reasons massacred all the men. According to eyewitnesses of that massacre the Nigerian commander ordered the execution of every Ibo male over the age of ten years." ,Le Monde (French Evening newspaper) April 5, 1968.

[VeniVidiVici]

What about English-Scottish-Swedish-Americans like me?

Whoa! No way! I'm also English-Scottish-Swedish.

Go figure! ;-)

[bvw]

I think this is a good idea. Any idea in the Philly Schools -- they need something.

[VeniVidiVici]

As I recall, the Ibo were the folks who tried to break free of Nigeria in the 1970s and form their own nation of Biafra. The predominantly Muslim Nigerian army crushed the attempt with horrific slaughter inflicted upon the Animist and Christian Ibo.

I bet nobody told junior that part.

Speaking of DNA tests for this, I thought it only traced the paternal side, but this article said maternal/Ibo.

[bvw]

Swedish or Swensk? English or Ensk? Scottish or Scensk?

[stainlessbanner]

A film for the new curriculum: The Old Negro Space Program

[Cecily]

We're a minority! We definitely need a special high school class, and maybe reparations too. Our ancestors probably didn't want to leave Europe either, but were compelled by horrible and unfair circumstances to come over here.

[lightman]

Perhaps they can also learn how it was the Western Whites who eliminated slavery, first in Britain, and then in America

Western ChristianWhites...such as William Wilberforce in England and Theodore Parker in America.

[americaprd]

Actually, there are very large segments of whites, latinos, and asians in the City. Northeast Philly is overwhelmingly white.

[m87339]

, there are also a farrago of charlatans who are in the business of inventing "African" history from thin air.

Kwanzaa -- Racist Holiday from Hell

[foreverfree]

Delaware Valley-bred bump

[LongElegantLegs]

"Captivated" is probably not a good word to use when talking about Afro-American history.

*Snicker*

[DocH]

Then why the push for afro studies?

[antiRepublicrat]

I can't believe they are wasting a year of schoolwork on this nonsense when the majority of kids coming out of those schools can barely write a coherent sentence or do basic math.

I can't believe it either. My view is that most schools offer world history (as an elective!), and that's good. Mandatory PC education? NO! If history beyond American history is mandatory, make it world history so they're not ignorant about why things are happening around the world. Black and African history, if taught right (instead of the "evil white men" angle), would help them understand the troubles in Africa, but only in Africa, and Africa is pretty insignificant these days, having effectively ended after colonialism died.

[antiRepublicrat]

Logically speaking, there is of course as much African history as any other place. The problem, I think, is that there is so little written record.

If you're talking that ancient, it's true. But starting around the 700s there is a wealth of information on Africa. Who here has heard of Mansa Musa, or that Africans actually made it to the Americas long before Columbus (they never came back, so it doesn't matter much to the world). Who knows that when the Dutch went around the horn they actually found extremely rich trading kingdoms, not just natives in loin cloths? Does anybody know the history of the Boer War (think Breaker Morant)?

Unfortunately, there are also a farrago of charlatans who are in the business of inventing "African" history from thin air. (See, for instance, Black Athena.)

I don't know much about the Black Athena debate, but I believe they did have at least one Nubian pharaoh, Tutankhamen. As for the rest, not black. In Somalia, our black soldiers were getting into trouble by trying to identify with the Somalians as fellow blacks, not knowing that Somalians 1) don't consider themselves black, and 2) are often quite racist. I guess a bit of real African history would have helped there. :)

[antiRepublicrat]

I remember taking my Daddy's Ecyclopedia Britannica and just reading it. I was surprised how many famous men were from Scotland. A lot of them not famous enough that you would have heard of them but famous because of what they accomplished.

Everybody's heard of Andrew Carnegie, who immigrated here from Scotland with almost nothing. My hometown library was a Carnegie library, along with about 3,000 others. And I'm sure some churches are still using some of the 7,000 organs he paid for.

[aliceburrows]

.....so when do they eat each other's hacked body parts? I wonder how is it prepared -- you think boiling (water or oil?), deep frying (a la chicken), or maybe over a fine chianti and a demiglasse?

[aliceburrows]

Hey genius,

You can ONLY do an historical genetic tracing through the maternal genes (has something to do with RNA I believe). Remember that womens have only 1 Y chromosome, while men have 2. Maternal tracing allows you to back-track through that one 1 chromosome (which will also be in her mother and her grandmother and her great grandmother and so on and so on and....)

If you tried to do this through a paternal line, you could only trace back to the father (then you'd have to figure out which of the two grandfathers and then the potential 4 great grandfathers and then the potential 16 great-grandfathers and so on and so on and....)

[DuncanWaring]

I never said anything about "eating" hacked body parts.

Although, now that you mention it, Africa does seem to have somewhat of a history of cannibalism.

No, I don't have recipes.

[VeniVidiVici]

Two tests, wise ass. I didn't know so I thought I'd ask.

Thanks for playing.

---

mtDNA Tests - Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is contained in the cytoplasm of the cell, rather than the nucleus. This type of DNA is passed by a mother to both male and female offspring without any mixing, so your mtDNA is the same as your mother's mtDNA, which is the same as her mother's mtDNA. mtDNA changes very slowly so it cannot determine close relationships as well as it can determine general relatedness. If two people have an exact match in their mtDNA, then there is a very good chance they share a common maternal ancestor, but it is hard to determine if this is a recent ancestor or one who lived hundreds of years ago. It is important to keep in mind with this test that a male's mtDNA comes only from his mother and is not passed on to his offspring.
Example: The DNA tests that identified the bodies of the Romanovs, the Russian imperial family, utilized mtDNA from a sample provided by Prince Philip, who shares the same maternal line from Queen Victoria.


Y Line Tests - More recently, the Y chromosome in the nuclear DNA is being used to establish family ties. The Y chromosomal DNA test (usually referred to as Y DNA or Y-Line DNA) is only available for males, since the Y chromosome is only passed down the male line from father to son. Tiny chemical markers on the Y chromosome create a distinctive pattern, known as a haplotype, that distinguishes one male lineage from another. Shared markers can indicate relatedness between two men, though not the exact degree of the relationship. Y chromosome testing is most often used by individuals with the same last name to learn if they share a common ancestor.