For the second summer, this columnist participated in the after-school program of the African Christian Community Church which meets in the old sanctuary of Hatcher Memorial Baptist Church in Richmond, Va. The Richmond Baptist Association adopted the African Christian Church as its missions partnership project, which literally means missions on their doorstep. The church is composed of refugees from several African countries. Some escaped horrific situations to find a new life in America.
Fred Anderson
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The after-school program is led by the indefatigable Ruth Guill, who is a master at recruiting volunteers. She found Richmond Baptists to lead children in games, crafts, storytelling, Bible study, sewing, singing and other activities. The children were taken on field trips to a swimming pool and to Maymont Park. Second Baptist Church in Richmond included the African children in their own Vacation Bible School. A policeman taught safety in the community. The women of some 25 churches brought lunches.
Last year the University of Richmond, through President Ed Ayers, donated several good-as-new computers and the Telephone Pioneers of America, a group of retired telephone employees, conducts classes to teach the Africans. When I arrived, two young boys were playing a quiz on the computer.
Calvin Birch, pastor of the African Church and a native of Liberia, requested that I teach African-American history to the children. It was no small request.
I pulled from my shelf a teacher’s help from 40 years ago when I was teaching American history in high school. The book was about teaching what then was called Negro history. It suggested using filmstrips!
I have no ready-made multi-media materials for children on African-American history so it was an assignment which called for creativity. I found several children’s books in a local bookstore. The clerk cautioned me that one of the books was biased toward the Christian faith. “I’ll take that one,” was my quick response. It was a wonderful picture book for children, tracing the African-Americans’ story from slave ships to the inauguration of the first black president. I also chose a picture book on Harriet Tubman, the courageous woman who led some 300 slaves on the Underground Railroad.
There is another reason why the assignment was challenging. It is like teaching in a one-room schoolhouse. The children vary in age from 3 to 15. It is for certain that the lecture method will not work with these children.
I devised games with the assistance of Abbie Johnson, a rising senior at Sweet Briar College who attends Cool Spring Baptist Church in Hanover County, Va. She is a seasonal employee of the Historical Society. I also was assisted by Elsie Richards, administrative assistant at the Society, who found just the right Bible verses for one of our games.
Students learn their place on the clothesline of history at the Virginia Baptist Historical Society.
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For the first lesson, we read from the picture book, which covered centuries. Throughout the book the author kept referring to “I” as “I was the shoes they wore” or “I was the shoulder they leaned on” or “I was the Bible.” I paused along the way to ask who or what was the “I” and the children shouted in unison: “God.” They knew.
Throughout the book there were references to noted African Americans along with key dates. I learned a long time ago that history is like a clothesline and names and dates can be pinned to the line. And so we literally did it. Two tall boys held a clothesline and we started by pinning to the clothesline some key dates: 1619, the arrival of the first blacks; 1776, the birth of American independence; 1865, the end of the Civil War and of slavery; and 2011, the current pausing place in the stream of history.
We reviewed names in the book — Marian Anderson, Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks and others — and selected dates associated with them. The children used their knowledge of math and history to find the proper place to pin the dates and names. Each child also placed their own birth year on the clothesline of history.
After reading the book on Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, we played another game. It was a quest for freedom. I searched the storeroom at the Historical Society and found a large blue star. “That’s the North Star,” I said, “and it will be your guide.” The children wanted to hold hands and escape to freedom in pairs. They drew instructions from an old black hat: “A friendly person helps you, move forward three spaces; growling dogs threaten, move back three steps.” We kept cautioning that they were too noisy and would never be able to escape detection; but it was happy noise.
Eventually, all the children made it to freedom with their personal star to guide them. On the back of each star was an appropriate Bible verse which Elsie had selected. We were reminded that a simulation game bears little resemblance to the real-life experience of an escaped slave, facing threats at any moment and all the while wearing the same clothes day after day. I told the children that ironically just a few steps away from the very room in which we were playing there once lived a slave, Gabriel Prosser, whose attempt to lead a slave escape was foiled.
I told the children about Lott Cary who was born into slavery in nearby Charles City County, identified with the First Baptist Church of Richmond and organized a church for Monrovia, Liberia, while still in Richmond. I showed them an original drawing of Cary which had been made years ago by an African-American artist; and I asked the children to draw their own likeness of Cary based upon the old drawing. Two of the children wanted me to place their sketches in the Virginia Baptist Historical Society’s museum. And I have.
Finally, I gave out copies of our publication, Heritage Seekers — the issue which featured a Virginia Baptist woman of color, Nannie Helen Burroughs. “Miss B,” as I chose to call her for the children’s sake, started a school in Washington, D.C., which still operates. I told how she became a public speaker and I tried to teach the children how to make an effective speech: Stand tall, look your audience in the eyes, have a good beginning and a good closing, say something funny and something serious. One little boy stood tall and gave an impromptu speech. It was his moment to shine. I think he has the potential to one day have his name pinned to the clothesline of history!
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies at the University of Richmond. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.