African Americans and the 20th Century: Teacher's engaged in ideas

For five days, July 5 - 10, 2009, I attended a teachers seminar presented by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and I am still talking about it to anyone who wants to listen!

The overarching topic "The 20th Century and the African American Experience" and discussion was managed by well respected Rutgers University history professor Dr. Clement Price, Director of the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience.

For five days 25 teachers, nine African Americans, three Hispanics, and 13 White teachers heard about, read, viewed, and discussed "scholarship" that "pivotally" places "African Americans and race relations at the center of virtually every chapter in the historical narrative of this nation." I was excited! Dr. Price's words resonated with the importance of teachers being able to respond responsibly and with integrity in the continuum of a "paradigm shift of scholarly inquiries into what might be contested terrain of American history and the social construction of history itself." In other words, giving credence to what should be common knowledge in the context of American history -- the reality of the African American experience and its impact in the shaping of our national point of view. Over those five days, Dr. Price more than once repeated "the facts are facts...but it is the point of view of the discussion that must change as America goes forward."

A major point of the week was that the African American experience should not be treated as an object to take on or off a table considered only during certain time periods (Black History Month), or simply as an aside in examination of literature and culture in America. In the process of the discourse we inevitably looked at what it meant to be an American, what it meant to be White, what was "the transcendency of becoming 'white' in America, and how being accepted as white characterized the 19th century and most of the 20th century.

It was an invigorating week.

The exploration of ideas began on day one - a sunny Sunday afternoon at Richard Stockton College, Pomona, NJ. Dr. Price offered that we agree to disagree, "as there are several truths" and there are "several ways to get to the truth." After each day's presentations by different scholars, and after dinner, we viewed a carefully selected film. What occurred over that week was a well-structured forum of meaningful conversations about race and racism in America's past and in present times.