Black History Month

Woodville Elementary School

Honoring Our Past, Present and Future

. "Experience has taught me a great secret I have spent most of my life trying to share

with my children and anyone who will listen ... History happens one person at a

time." Patricia Stephens Due

Introduction

• One hundred years ago a man by the name of Carter G. Woodson earned his masters degree from the University of Chicago. He then went on to be the second African American to earn his doctorate from Harvard University. While attending a 50th anniversary celebration of the freedom of slaves, he and four others started the “Journal of Negro History”. “Negro History Week” was started in 1937 on the second week of February. In 1976 it was expanded to include the entire month of February. Each year it has been given annual themes. This year’s theme is Black Women in American Culture and History.

• Carter G. Woodson chose February because it is the birth months of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. It provides a time to share the important contributions of African Americans to the history of the United States.

• To us Black History means that we can look at the plight of African Americans and how they overcame injustice to make significant contributions to our society. We know that anything is possible with hard work and perseverance.

Today’s Events

•Administrative Welcome•Welcome and Occasion•“Honoring Our Past”•School Sing Along “We Shall Overcome”•“Honoring Our Present”•“Honoring Our Future”•School Sing Along “Lift Every Voice”•Closing

Black Leaders that changed our History

Harriet Tubman1821-1913

Harriet Tubman dreamed of freedom she had only heard about. At age 28 protected by the dark of night and guided by the North Star, she found freedom! She wanted to help other slaves and became a member of the Underground Railroad and led over 300 slaves to freedom!

George Washington Carver

1865-1943

George Washington Carver was born a slave in 1865. He became a famous agricultural chemist and botanist whose lifelong efforts were to better the lives of poor Southern Black farmers by finding commercial use of the regions agricultural products and natural resources, such as: peanut, sweet potato, cowpea, soybean, and native clays from the soil.

Booker T. Washington1856-1915

Booker T. Washington was born a slave in 1856. After his family became free at the end of the Civil War, he graduated from Hampton Institute with honors and later became the first President of Tuskegee Institute , which became a major educational establishment where African-American teachers learned to provide outstanding education to students.

Mary McLeod Bethune 1875-1955

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator and civil rights leader best known for starting a school for African American students in Daytona Beach Florida, that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University and for being an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a young girl she had to work in the fields but she followed her dream to attend college to become a missionary.

Madam C.J Walker1867-1919

Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove in 1867. She became an entrepreneur who built her empire developing hair products for Black women. She became an inspiration to many Black women by lecturing about her wealth and success of her business which empowered other women into the business world. She became the first African-American woman millionaire.

Benjamin Banneker1731-1806

Benjamin Banneker was born in 1731. At 21 years old, he built the first clock in the United States entirely out of wood. The clock kept perfect time for 40 years. He was also an accomplished astronomers and correctly predicted the solar eclipse of 1789. Published the “Banneker Almanac” which caused many to change their attitudes that blacks were inferior to whites.

Garrett Morgan1877- 1951

Garrett Morgan was born in Paris, Kentucky. His parents were very poor and he only had a fifth grade education. As he grew older he moved to Cleveland, OH and worked as a sewing-machine mechanic. By 1907 he improved the sewing machine and began his own business. In 1909 he discovered a solution to straighten hair and patented a breathing device that allows users to breathe safely when toxic fumes are present. During World War I his hood was adopted and then adapted for use as a gas mask. In 1923 he patented a traffic signal.

Jackie Robinson1919-1972

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia to a family of sharecroppers. In 1947 he became the first African American major league baseball player. In 1962 he was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame.

Marian Anderson1902-1993

Marian Anderson was born in 1902. She became the first African-American to sing at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. She was also invited to sing at the inaugurations of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy.

Langston Hughes1902-1967

Langston Hughes was born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He became one of the most important African-American writers in this nation’s history. Through his writing he hoped to bring about positive changes in the condition and treatments of blacks in America.

Charles Drew1904-1950

Charles Drew was born in 1904. He was an African-American physician who developed ways to process and store blood plasma in blood banks. The director of blood plasma programs of the USA and Great Britain in WWII, he resigned after a ruling that Black blood should be segregated.

Jessie Owens1913-1980

Born in Danville, Alabama. In May 1935, he broke 3 world records in track and field. One year later he won 4 Olympic Gold Medals in Berlin, Germany!

Thurgood Marshall1908-1993

Thurgood Marshall was born in 1908 and became the first African-American Supreme Court Justice in 1967. Thurgood was determined to overturn the “Jim Crow” laws which segregated Black Americans. In 1954 he successfully challenged school segregation in Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas Board of Education.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1929-1968

Martin Luther King, Jr . was born in 1929. After graduating from college, Dr. King moved to Montgomery, Alabama to become a Pastor. He was a member of the Montgomery Improvement Association and the founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He believed in and modeled peaceful changes to the segregation laws. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

History of Woodville Elementary

•Timeline

Hickory Grove Academy

The White Church School

Woodville School

Woodville Elementary School

Woodville Desegregates

Leon County Schools Desegregation

1856 1899 1907 1961 1966 1967

Woodville first opens its doors

Grades first through eight

It cost $3,175 to build and was 2 stories

Woodville becomes an elementary school

4 African-American students begin attending

Freedom of Choice plan

Woodville School

In 1940 Woodville School was a one room, one teacher school with 40 students. Mrs. Suwannee Lewis taught grades one through eight.

Local Black Leaders that changed our History

Dorothy Inman Johnson

Born in Birmingham, AL Ms. Johnson loved playing school with her friends. A teacher for nearly twenty years, Ms. Johnson taught at Woodville Elementary School and went on to become the first African-American female mayor of Tallahassee. She is currently writing a book entitled “Poverty in America: A View from Down Here”.

Rev. Charles Kenzie Steele

Rev. Steele was elected president of the Inter-Civic Council. The job of the council was to organize the Tallahassee bus boycott. He is quoted as saying he would rather “walk in dignity than ride in humiliation”. A car-pool was formed and eventually fined $11,000 which was paid in full by the efforts of Rev. Steele’s fund raising. The Tallahassee bus service was integrated thanks to the efforts of Rev. Steele and other brave Tallahassee residents like him.

Patricia Stephens Due

Ms. Due once stated the “ordinary people can do extraordinary things” proved just that. At the age of 13, she tried to use the “whites only” window at the Dairy Queen. She later pushed her 2 daughters in a stroller while she campaigned for the rights of the poor. She spent her honeymoon riding a bus to hear Dr. King speak in Washington. While there she heard his famous “I Have a Dream Speech”. She and 10 others were arrested for eating at the “whites only” lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Tallahassee. She was arrested and while in jail received encouraging notes from Jackie Robinson, Eleanor Roosevelt and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tallahassee Bus Boycott

Civil Rights Demonstration at the Corner of Adams and

Jefferson Street

Scene from NAACP March

Rev. C.K. Steele Removing the Burnt Cross after the Bus Boycott

Resources

• About.com Black History Month http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/p/blackhistorymonth.htm

• Biography: Carter G. Woodson http://www.biography.com/people/carter-g-woodson-9536515

• The Famuan: Dorothy Inman Johnson http://www.thefamuanonline.com/news/dorothy-inman-johnson-a-trailblazer-for-black-women-in-tallahassee-1.2526038

• Florida Memory: Tallahassee Civil Rights March http://www.floridamemory.com/solr-search/results/?q=*:*%20AND%20collection%3A%22Florida%20Photographic%20Collection%22+AND+49_s%3A%22Civil%20rights%20leaders%22&searchbox=1&query=Civil%20rights%20leaders&year=&gallery=0

• NY Times: Patricia Stephens Due http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/patricia-stephens-due-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-72.html

• Praise News: Reverend Charles Kenzie Steele http://www.praisenews.faithweb.com/pastors/revsteele.html