If the history of slavery has given rise to several recent works – whether we think of Beloved by Toni Morrison or Twelve Years a Slave by Steve McQueen, adapted from the testimony of Solomon Northup – it remains a complex subject to approach in the literature for young people. How, indeed, to introduce children and adolescents to the knowledge, highly […] … learn more→
Tag Archives: slavery
Talking to children about the slave trade: “Alma”, the story of a novel
Colleges confront their links to slavery and wrestle with how to atone for past sins
Colleges and universities across the U.S. have been taking a hard look at their ties to slavery. This isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. Back in 2006, Brown University published a report showing that the university – from its construction to its endowment – participated in and benefited from the slave trade and slavery. And since then, […] … learn more→
3 ways to improve education about slavery in the US
When it comes to teaching students about slavery in the United States, teachers often stumble through the topic. In the worst cases, they use poorly conceived lessons that end up inflaming students, parents and communities about a subject that is already difficult to deal with because of the inhumanity involved. For instance, in 2018 a […] … learn more→
Slavery and capitalism
Few topics have animated today’s chattering classes more than capitalism. In the wake of the global economic crisis, the discussion has spanned political boundaries, with conservative newspapers in Britain and Germany running stories on the \”future of capitalism\” (as if that were in doubt) and Korean Marxists analyzing its allegedly self-destructive tendencies. Pope Francis has […] … learn more→
Banned Books Awareness: “The Book of Negroes”
This is a republish of this article Lawrence Hill wrote one of the bestselling and most-popular Canadian novels of all time; but what does he do for an encore? Hill, who will be in Edmonton this coming Tuesday (4/17/12) to deliver the University of Alberta’s annual Henry Kreisel lecture, knows how to follow up a […] … learn more→
Banned Books Awareness: “Slavery by Another Name”
Being that these are the final days of Black History Month 2012, I thought it wise to share a news story that is also sadly apropos to the subject of censorship. The Equal Justice Initiative is a Montgomery, Alabama-based organization founded in 1989 to provide legal representation for the indigent and incarcerated. Bryan Stevenson, director […] … learn more→
Banned Books Awareness: “Beloved”
Students at the Plymouth-Canton Schools in Michigan got a crash course in politics this week. That’s because one family launched an official complaint on December 20, 2011 to have the fictional novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison, banned from the AP English curriculum due to racial themes, sexual content, and passages about ghosts (the spirit of […] … learn more→
