My number one goal for my second project is to learn about Slavery and how it still affects the world today. The information I have uncovered was captivating and I hope the information is out of this world.
English
I wanted to do a short story about two little boys. One is a black boy and the other is a white boy. I wrote a short about the two little boy's perspective during the event of the Montgomery bus arrest in Alabama on December 5, 1956. My short started off the little black boy named DeShawn. He was only seven years old and had only one parent who was still alive. They were excited to celebrate Ms. Brown's mother's birthday. In order to get to grandma's house, they would have to ride the Montgomery bus. Then my story went to the other boy named Hunter. His parents weren't the very loving type of parents. He always felt alone even with his big brother. After a long day of business work, his parents decided to take Hunter home by riding the Montgomery bus, but Hunter didn't understand why there was segregation on it.
The story is really sophisticated and well made to tell about the two little boys perspective of the bus arrest, how they felt on the bus, and how they felt after the event.
I had a little trouble trying to figure out the perspective for each boy. I also had a little trouble at first for the background of the story. I fixed my errors and made story something you won't forget.
I read two books to help support my language art portion too. I read a minor book that shared two perspectives of the characters in the story. I also read a book called "Black Lives Matter" by by Sue Edwards and Duchess Harris. I thought both books were captivating because the first book helped me with my short story, and the second book alleviated me to get the perspectives of blacks and whites in the United States.
I didn't make art this time, but I described art pieces from famous black artist around the civil war and before the civil war. I have never heard of these black artist, mainly because a lot of the artwork they created were destroyed by their masters. A lot of the artwork told stories, or even helped influence other stories to be fabricated into something amazing.
For the first picture, I researched about a black female artist in Athens, Georgia. Her name was Harriet Powers and she fabricated quilts for her master in the morning and in the night, her family. Many black woman would be born into creating quilts for their masters, just like Harriet Powers. Each square on a quilt would tell stories. In this case, Harriet Powers's quilt told famous testimonies from the bible. She even made a quilt about American history. The most famous quilt she made was called, "Powers' Bible Quilt Appliqué" which was framed in 1886. She was considered the preeminent African American quilt maker during the era of the Civil War. She was also famous for using the patchwork technique and the appliqué technique.
For the second picture, I researched about a black male artist in Boston Massachusetts. Scipio Moorhead was enslaved by his masters, John Moorhead and Sarah Moorhead. Only one of Scipio's paintings survived because Sarah Moorhead destroyed the rest of them. The only portrait that survived was a portrait of Phillis Whitley. Phillis Whitley was also the Moorhead's slaves, but she was a poet who would soon create a book about poetry. Besides the point, even though only one of his master pieces survived, he was considered a genius. Scipio wasn't just talented with an ink pen that was used for Whitley's portrait, but was also skilled at folk and European art which was a very limited art technique to slaves.
The finally black artist I researched wasn't an African American, but a Spanish slave. His name was Juan de Pareja who was born in 1606, Antequeras. Juan was an assistant painter to Diego Velázquez who owned him as a slave. While Juan and Diego were in Italy, they would make paintings of each other. Both the artists were intrigued by each other's art. Later on in Juan's career, he created, "The Fight into Egypt" in 1658 and, "The Calling of Saint Matthew" in 1661. Years before this his master pieces, Diego would send Juan to be free in 1654. Juan kept his independent career and still decided to stay with Diego and continue being his assistant artist. Juan even stayed with Diego until he finally died. Juan was very loyal to his master and without him, he wouldn't have become a famous and well respected Spanish artist in his era.
I enjoyed learning about African American artist I have never even heard of. I thought it was really breathtaking to learn their perspective of they art pieces and how they felt during the events that helped shape them into great well-known African American artist. I think I have ameliorated my art skills by leaning how to analyze the creations that artist developed. I also believe doing this part of the assignment helped me see bigger pictures in paintings. I also thank my parents for helping me with my project by sharing with me some stories about my ancestors that went through slavery and segregation. Overall, I think this portion of my second project really helped me improve my analyzing skills as a student.
Social Studies
For my social studies portion of the project, I chose to research about three African American people during the Civil War and three African Americans after the Civil War. I created slides on the app, Keynote that helped me understand their perspectives based on their life stories. I also wrote about the meanings of each of the person's famous quotes. The quotes played a key role because it would explain how they felt during the time they were in.
I will explain about two African Americans out of the six African Americans. The first one is a man named Robert Smalls. He was born in Beaufort South Carolina. He was a slave on a capital confederate ship called the CSS planter. He and few others devised a plan to escape. On May 13th, he executed that plan and took the ship to the Union. He became a pilot and led 5,000 slaves into joining the Union. He then became a captain of the CSS planter. After the war, he served in the House of Representatives for seven terms.
Another amazing slave/segregation story was from John Lewis, born on February 21, 1940, Troy Alabama. He was born into segregation and he was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. when he made a speech about the boycott in 1955 to 1956. John Lewis would help organize organizations against segregation. He would be arrested many times, but would never give up. Later on in 1963, he was known as the chairman of the Student Nonviolent coordinating Committee. He was also known to be part of the "Big Six" leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. John Lewis even spoke in Washington at the March event which was also called, "Bloody Sunday". After many years of supporting his nation, Congress made John Lewis the Medal of Freedom in 2011.
I thought all the researched I looked up was really stunning. I also enjoyed reading the quotes of the fellow slaves because some of the quotes really really spoke to me. There was nothing really challenging with this part of the project. The hardest thing was probably finding quotes that would speak very loudly to others. My parents also helped me with this part of the project since my dad is a history teacher.
Perspective
I chose to do this project because I might want to be a history teacher when I graduate from college. My parents would always talk about slavery and how they viewed it. I thought it was interesting to get their perspective on African American slavery. I thought slavery/segregation is a important topic to talk about because it still effects the United States today. Sure, there isn't slavery, but there's still a bit of segregation in our world. Blacks are still being looked upon not as bad, but still in a disrespectful way. I known this because when I would got out to eat, (This happens only a few times. ) other races would stare at me with a grin, or a weird look their faces. Anyway, I think this world still has segregation and people can make a difference each day by supporting others, no matter the race. In the end, slavery/segregation is a topic that can be discussed normally and I hope you support each other. No matter the race, religion, or culture.