The Black Family Rising: “Bringing the Gifts that My Ancestors Gave”

Abstract

14 | BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 83, NO. 2 (EXTENDED DIGITAL VERSION) 83 No.2 INTRODUCTION THE BLACK FAMILY RISING: “BRINGING THE GIFTS THAT MY ANCESTORS GAVE”1 By: Regina A. Lewis, Katherine Scott Sturdevant, and Stephen Collins Family is at the heart of the Black experience—it continues to rise. After the Civil War, in collaboration with the Freedmen’s Bureau, Black people actively looked for family members who were sold during enslavement. Subsequently, missing-family advertisements were placed in newspapers for decades—they communicated to elevate hope. Teaching History Online: Communicate to Elevate ThethemeforthisissueoftheBlackHistoryBulletin(BHB),TheBlackFamily:Representation,Identity,andDiversity,provides special commentary about history and communication. While we were developing this issue, the global COVID-19 pandemic caused schools worldwide to convert to online/distance learning. As professors of communication and history, we believe that teachers must communicate to elevate regardless of the teaching venue. Moving from in-person classroom instruction to remote teaching and learning is a paradigm shift that requires changes to teaching methods to engage students. The BHB is dedicated to assisting teachers in learning and implementing culturally responsive teaching practices. Each journal provides relevant themes and articles with companion lesson plans. Therefore, this issue of the BHB provides concepts, culturally responsive lesson plans, and resources to assist with creating culturally responsive online instruction that is engaging. All of the articles within this issue provide educators with a panoply of materialthatcanbeutilizedwithinin-personorvirtualclassrooms.Additionally,authorscommunicatetoelevatehopebyilluminating how members of Black families continue to use the gifts their ancestors gave. Specifically, the authors’ articles use the lens of diverse disciplines to represent the complexities of Black life: (1) History; (2) Social Policy; (3) Sociology; (4) Cultural Anthropology; (5) Political Reform; and (6) Social History. Below you will find summaries of the articles organized by the aforementioned disciplines. History and Social Policy Title: Exploring the Heartbeat of the Black Family: Observations through the Lens of Endarkened Epistemology Authors: María T. Colompos-Tohtsonie, Shanell L. Walter, and Karina Avila Looking through the lens of endarkened epistemology provides a new clarity across decades of Black family analyses by historians, sociologists, and policymakers. Walking us through historiography of the American family, endarkened epistemology clarifies how and why stereotypes occurred and damaged the Black family. Family History and Social History Title: Walls Tumbling Down: Teaching Black Family History and Genealogy in Social History Context Author: Katherine Scott Sturdevant BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 83, NO. 2 (EXTENDED DIGITAL VERSION) | 15 83 No.2 The media trends of Black family history, and the fulfillment it could provide, began with Alex Haley’s Roots and continue with Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s Finding Your Roots. African American family history today accesses sources and technologies that make it more possible than ever to get past the “brick wall” of research that slavery built. Students can build family histories by drawing on documents, artifacts, oral history, and oral tradition, as well as accessing records increasingly online. Weaving the specific family material together with the social history context of what life was like is fulfilling for families and “makes history come alive.” History and Cultural Anthropology Title: A Realm of Descendent History: African American Families Homesteading the Great Plains Authors: Avis Roper and Denise Scales From the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 through the Kincaid Act of 1904, thousands of African American families struck out into the West to build towns, homesteads, and better lives for their families. One case, DeWitty, Nebraska, offers a hopeful example of how, when there is not a site for public visits, descendants can join with local activists and scholars to reconstruct what life was like for these Black families. History and Sociology Title: The Black Military Family: Inspiring through Military Legacy Authors: Charles Edward Lewis III and Lynn Chandler Garcia African Americans have been fighting in America’s military since before American independence. Careful historical study makes clear how Black people weighed those choices, realistically and ethically. Some fought for freedom when it was the American colonies vs. Great Britain, but more accepted Britain’s offer of freedom in exchange for joining the Loyalist side. African Americans answered Frederick Douglass’s “Call to Arms” to fight in the Civil War for their own emancipation...