Teach Secondary Issue 13.6

Stories of respect Introducing this excerpt from the new book, Black History for Every Day of the Year , Dr Yinka Olusoga shines a spotlight on two exceptional Black individuals whose accomplishments deserve far wider recognition... W riting Black History for Every Day of the Year felt like pulling on a tiny thread and being met with an avalanche of creativity and community. For me, the highlight of the process was uncovering the histories behind Black contributions to culture. Have you ever played with a Super Soaker? Then you have inventor Lonnie Johnson to thank. For the three way traffic light, it’s Garrett Morgan. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Young, Gifted and Black’? Or the title ‘ARaisin in the Sun’? You can read about them in the entry about the brilliant playwright, Lorraine Hansberry, and learn of her connections to Black singers, actors activists and more.. . LORRAINE HANSBERRY On 11thMarch 1959, history was made at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York, when the first Broadway play written by an African American woman was performed. The playwright was Lorraine Hansberry and at the time she was only 29 years old. Her play, ARaisin in the Sun , was named after the line in the Langston Hughes poem ‘Harlem: ADream Deferred’, and tells the story of a working class Black family in Chicago. Its cast was led by the actor Sidney Poitier and the director was Lloyd Richards, who that night became the first African American to direct a Broadway play. The play was nominated for four Tony awards and named the best play of 1959 by the NewYork Drama Critics Circle, making Hansberry the youngest American to win the award. In 1961 it was turned into a film, starring the original Broadway cast. Hansberry was the youngest of three children born to an accomplished African American family living on the South Side of Chicago. She became interested in theatre and politics and moved to New York to study. She started writing for Freedom – a monthly African American newspaper that featured columns by its co-founder, the singer and activist Paul Robeson, as well as articles by the scholar and activist, W. E. B. Du Bois. Hansberry identified as a lesbian, but homosexuality was illegal in NewYork at the time. In 1953 she married fellow activist Robert Nemiroff, and although their romantic relationship ended a few years later, he remained one of her closest friends. Her only other play to be performed during her lifetime was The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window . It closed on the day she died, at the tragically early age of 34 from pancreatic cancer. In 1969 Nina Simone and Weldon Irvine co-wrote the song ‘To Be Young, Gifted and Black’ about Hansberry, who had been godmother to Simone’s daughter. ROBERTSMALLS If there’s one word to sum up Robert Smalls, it’s ‘audacious’. Once you read his entry, you may, like me, ask why you weren’t taught about it at school – and why on earth no one has bothered to make a movie about it? On the evening of 12th May 1862, aboard the Confederate transport ship The Planter , an enslaved man named Robert Smalls set inmotion an incredibly daring plan that would transformhis life. Smalls had been born in Beaufort, South Carolina on 5th April 1839, the enslaved son of Lydia Polite – an enslaved woman – and her owner, JohnMcKee. From the age of 12, Smalls was hired out by his owner to work on ships in Charleston Harbour. By the time the American Civil War broke out, he had a wife and children and had become an experienced maritime pilot, possesing the knowledge and skills needed to guide and sail ships safely. He was working as a pilot aboard The Planter as part of an enslaved crew led by three white officers. In April of 1862, Smalls became worried that the Confederate side seemed to be winning, and would succeed in their goal of establishing a separate slave-owning republic. “Once the familieswere aboard,Smalls and the enslavedcrewmembers seized their chance...” teachwire.net/secondary 60