Each February Black History Month celebrates the African-American experience and the many contributions African-Americans have made to American culture, society, academia, and the arts.
Below are a few titles, available from Random House, which will assist children in understanding African-American history.
There Comes a Time
by Milton Meltzer
Winner of the 2001 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, historian, scholar, and award-winning author Milton Meltzer outlines the struggle of African Americans for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," starting with the landing of the first slave ships on colonial shores. How did over 300 years of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow laws come to an end in the civil rights movement of the 1960s?
Storm Warriors
by Elisa Carbone
Driven from his home by the Ku Klux Klan and still reeling from the death of his mother, Nathan moves with his father and grandfather to the desolate Pea Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina to start a new life. Fortunately, life on Pea Island at the end of the 19th century is far from quiet. The other island residents include the surfmen--the African American crew of the nearby U.S. Life-Saving Station--and soon Nathan is lending an extra hand to these men as they rescue sailors from sinking ships.
A Piece of Heaven
by Sharon Dennis Wyeth
A young teenager deals with her family's disintegration with the help of a teacher who gives her a summer job working in his garden. Haley's excited about turning 13, but her teenage years start off with a thud when her mother checks herself into the hospital for severe depression. Her older brother, Otis, is busy with his job selling clothes, and Haley tries to keep her mind off the family problems with her own job, helping a music teacher clean up his backyard garden. As Haley's family life becomes more and more unstable, it's her work and her growing friendship with her employer that sustain her.
Not To Miss in February:
Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series: Selections from The Phillips Collection, at the Mississippi Museum of Art—January 26 - April 6, 2008
This exhibition features a small selection of paintings from Lawrence’s important Migration Series (begun in 1940), which depicts the migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North during and after World War I. The Great Migration was the largest movement of black people since slavery removed Africans to the Americas. An illustrated gallery guide accompanies the exhibition.
Did you know?
2.4 million
Number of black military veterans in the United States in 2005. More military veterans are black than any other minority group.
80%
Among blacks age 25 and older, the proportion that had at least a high school diploma in 2005. In states such as Colorado, the proportion was even higher – 90 percent.
1.1 million
Among blacks age 25 and older, the number who had an advanced degree in 2005 (e.g., master’s, Ph.D., M.D. or J.D.). Ten years earlier — in 1995 — only 677,000 blacks had this level of education.
2.3 million
Number of black college students in fall 2004. This was an increase of roughly 1 million from 15 years earlier.
$88.6 billion
Revenues for black-owned businesses in 2002, up 24 percent from 1997. The number of black-owned businesses totaled 1.2 million in 2002, up by 45 percent since 1997. Black-owned firms accounted for 5 percent of all nonfarm businesses in the United States.
Source: US Census Bureau.
