Teaching for Change leads Daisy Bates Discussion

"Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching" Book LaunchCommunity Cinema [DC] is happy to be working with Teaching for Change as a community partner for our January screenings of DAISY BATES: FIRST LADY OF LITTLE ROCK. Executive director Deborah Menkart, Jenice View (assistant professor of Educational Transformation at George Mason University), and Alana Murray are co-editors of the highly acclaimed education resource book Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching. (photo: from L-R Jenice View, Alana Murray, Deborah Menkart)

Putting the Movement… is a collection of essays, articles, analysis, interviews, primary documents and interactive & interdisciplinary teaching aids on civil rights, movement building, and what it means for all of the inhabitants of the planet. With sections on education, economic justice, citizenship, and culture, it connects the African-American Civil Rights Movement to Native American, Latina, Asian-American, gay rights, and international struggles; while highlighting the often-ignored roles of women in social justice movements.. Packed into nearly 600 oversize pages are photographs, songs, statements, and work from the likes of such writers, historians, and activists as Bill Bigelow, James Loewen, June Jordan, Grace Lee Boggs, Herbert Kohl, Bayard Rustin, Rita Dove, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Ward Churchill, Leonard Peltier, Thurgood Marshall, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Martinez, Sonia Sanchez, Eric Foner, Marcus Garvey, Manning Marable, and dozens more.

Julian Hipkins is the 11th grade social studies teacher at Capital City Public Charter School. Hipkins is using Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States as the text for his American History class.

Deborah Menkart, Jenice View and Julian Hipkins will be guest speakers following the Community Cinema screening of Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock Saturday, January 21 at 5 PM (Busboys and Poets); Menkart, Hipkins will lead the discussion after the screening Sunday, January 22 at 3 PM (Washington, DC Jewish Community Center). Additional speakers are TBA.

Additional Resource:
Teaching for Change is a coordinating organization with non-profit publisher Rethinking Schools on the Zinn Education Project. One of the Zinn Education Project’s recommended civil rights resources is Warriors Don’t Cry, a memoir by Melba Pattillo Beals (one of the Little Rock Nine). Download a Teaching Activity PDF by Linda Christensen from this link. The PDF includes role play and writing activities for language arts and social studies on the Little Rock Nine, Brown v. Board, and schooling in general. Designed for use with the memoir, Warriors Don’t Cry. (FYI – you must register on the Zinn Education Project site to download the PDF.)

Community partners for the Community Cinema [DC] presentations of Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock



01/10/2012 | admin | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »

Meet Our Speaker for “Troop 1500″

The Beyond Bars Girl Scout Council initiative featured in the film “Troop 1500″ was founded in Baltimore, MD in 1992. It was a pilot project between the Girl Scouts of Central Maryland and the National Institute of Justice, arranging for formal visits between Scouts and their incarcerated mothers.


Shannon Marshall is the Child Advocacy Program Specialist for the Girl Scouts of Central Maryland where she provides management and oversight of three grant funded programs: P.A.V.E (Project Anti-Violence Education), Beyond Bars at the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women and Thomas J.S. Waxter Detention Center for Young Women. Shannon’s philosophy is based on her core belief “that where there is where there is no guidance the people fall, but in abundance of counselors there is victory (Proverbs 11:14).”

Shannon joins us for the Community Cinema-DC screenings of “Troop 1500″ on Saturday, December 17 at Busboys and Poets, and Sunday, December 18 at the Washington, DCJCC. The Girls Scouts Council of the Nation’s Capital will also participate in our “Troop 1500″ events. Samples of the new 100 anniversary Girl Scout cookie “Savannah Smiles” are expected to make a Community Cinema debut.

The Community Cinema-DC presentations of “Troop 1500″ is part of ITVS’s Women and Girls Lead, a multi-year initiative.

12/14/2011 | admin | Tags: , , , , | No Comments »

Emira Woods – Q&A from September Community Cinema

A lot has happened since our Community Cinema [DC] screenings of “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” in September. Weeks after our screenings, Liberia held elections for president. On November 10 the first woman president of an African nation, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, was re-elected in a presidential runoff in Liberia by a 90.2% majority. Turnout was low with an opposition boycott of the elections. Prior to the run-off Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee (featured in “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Gbowee received the news while on her book tour for her memoir Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War.


Emira Woods

One of Leymah’s proud sisters sharing the good news is Emira Woods of the Institute for Policy Studies, our guest speaker for “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.” After the Nobel prize announcement, Woods joined a panel on the PBS Newshour to talk about the meaning of the Nobel prize for Liberia, peace and women’s rights. Community Cinema is proud to be part of Emira Woods’ sisterhood over the years and especially for the first Women and Girls Lead Community Cinema [DC] event.


MP3 audio of the Q&A with Emira Woods on September 18, 2011 at the Washington DC Jewish Community Center is available on these links:
Emira_Woods, part 1
Emira Woods, part 2


Emira recommends both Leyhmah Gbowee’s memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers; and a second book (novel), Redemption Road: The Quest for Peace and Justice in Liberia by Elma Shaw. And I will add the documentary “Liberia: America’s Stepchild” by Nancee Oku Bright will give you historical context about the country and its leadership struggles from 1820 until the rise and fall of Charles Taylor. And a link to the discussion guide for “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” is posted on this site’s Discussion Guide page.

11/26/2011 | admin | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Meet Our Speaker: “We Still Live Here” (Nov. 20 – DCJCC)

Rose Powhatan

Rose Powhatan is co-founder/director of the Powhatan Museum of Indigenous Arts and Culture. She is descended from the Pamunkey (mother) and Tauxenent (father) Indian Tribes of Virginia. Ms. Powhatan also works as an artist/historian/storyteller.

Rose Powhatan is a mixed-media artist, educator and cultural practitioner. She earned her honors undergraduate and graduate degrees in studio arts, art history and education from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and completed graduate studies at University of London (in the UK). As a visual artist, Ms. Powhatan has created paintings, murals, installations, prints, and totem poles- all infused with culturally-based Eastern Woodlands symbolism. She is also a storyteller whose film work includes her appearances in “The New World”, the HBO mini-series “John Adams”, and Jamestown Settlement’s “1607:A Nation Takes Root”.

Ms. Powhatan’s work as an educator and curriculum writer includes her having taught studio arts, theatre and humanities courses in the United States and the United Kingdom for over 25 years, in addition to her authorship of new courses and instructional materials. Her creative writing consists of autobiographical and historical material, as well as staged plays.

Numerous awards have been presented to Ms. Powhatan in recognition of her diverse achievements in the arts, education and community service. Select board memberships include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the Nation’s Capital, the Intertribal Women’s Circle, and ATLATL National Native Arts Network (the nation’s premiere Native American arts organization).

Ms. Powhatan is also a former Cafritz Foundation and Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Fellow, whose membership in the British Fulbright Scholars Association underscores her support for promoting positive international solidarity. She is the Assistant Chief of the Tauxenent Nation of Fairfax County and the tribe’s 2007 co-founder.


(photo – above) 2005: Rose Powhatan with her contemporary Eastern Algonquin totem. The sculpture, made from wood, vines, clay and adorned with wild turkey feathers, honors her ancestor Keziah Powhatan. Keziah Powhatan was the leader of a Northern Virginia Indian band of Tauxenents (Dogues) whose “hostile actions” led to the removal of the first Fairfax County courthouse at Tyson’s Corner, VA in 1752 (she claimed ownership of the land). The D.A.R. plaque (right) was erected to record the incident (near Chain Bridge Road and Courthouse Road in Fairfax County).


WHEN: Sunday, November 20 at 3 PM
WHERE: Washington, DC Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th Street, NW
Register

This is a Women and Girls Lead event, a media initiative of ITVS. Girl Scouts (GSCNC) can earn patch points by attending a “We Still Live Here” Community Cinema event. Sign-in sheets will be available at the venue.

11/15/2011 | admin | Tags: , , , , , , , , | No Comments »
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