Why teaching African-American history is important

Dealing with bigotry

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The question for us is, have we made a definite effort to teach our children about human respect through our schools and churches and civic organizations.   However, the Jasper incident is not to much unlike the Fort Worth Texas incident that demonstrated the same kind of tragedy.  When we teach students to respect other cultures, we help to minimize these types of tragedies.  Teaching students about cultures that are different from their own sends a message to the student that the people of these cultures are important.  One of the syllogisms that I hear spoken by some white students is if black history was important, they would teach us about it.   Moreover, as in the dialogue below, we realize that our students are sometimes confronted by demagogues who promote racism through distorted information.  Teaching the positives of African-American history helps to give the student an answer to the negative diatribes of the demagogue.  Please read on for more information.

The Turner Diaries has become a popular book with hate groups and white supremacist groups across the country.  This book was a favorite of the infamous Robert Jay Mathews who founded the white supremacist group called The Silent Brotherhood.  The FBI nicknamed Matthews' group, The Order, which was the name of the terrorist group in The Turner Diaries. 

Mathews considered the book like a bible.  Mathews modeled his terrorist group after the terrorist group in The Turner Diaries.  Mathews also adopted a death list as inspired from the book.  The Jewish talk show host, Alan Berg, was placed at the top of the list and murdered outside his home by Mathews' group in 1984.   Mathews was a straight-A student and a very ambitious young man. 

Often educators do not think there is a need to address issues of human respect in circles where academics are high.  We must always remember that high intellect, high IQ's, and affluent backgrounds do not guarantee that our students will display proper attitudes toward each other in regards to interpersonal respect and understanding.  It would have been helpful for Mathews to have been educated in a community where respect of persons who were different from himself was stressed.

The late Alan Berg got the attention of Robert Matthews' group after Berg's  radio show aired on which one of the guests was a man named Pete Peters. Berg humiliated both men who were proclaimed white supremacists. 

Mathews ordered the murder of Alan Berg because of this humiliation.  Peters' name shows up in some of the biographies that have been written about Robert Mathews.  Peters was the author of the pamphlet on the left.  I ordered this pamphlet when I caught  Peters' radio broadcast on clear channel radio.   I was curious about who would put out such a pamphlet.

 We were given Smith's hotline number by high school students who were calling it for fun to get the message of the week.   These same students attended a school that had no program for teaching black history.   The following is a message that was posted during Black history month in 1995.  How do you think that the students would answer Smith's statements?

"Some of you older white folks out their may remember when black history month was called February. Every year during this month we are subjected to a barrage of historical lies, distortions, half truths and just plain bull over the black man's so called role in history and it's all horse manure.  Let's get something straight.  Sure, the black man had a role in history; so did the horse.  But you don't see us giving votes, welfare checks, or affirmative action to horses.  The black man contributed nothing to American history which could not have been done better, faster, and more inexpensively by a good strong cart horse."

End of quote.

The Gloryworks Experience presents researchable information to help students and educators properly weigh the assertions of the demagogue.   You can E-mail the Gloryworks web site for help in finding researchable information.   Moreover, we have added the links page to give you other web sites that may help you in your search for good information in regards to black history.   As the Gloryworks web site grows in the following weeks look for more links to helpful information.  Clicking on the picture of the inventor, Granville T Woods, will take you to a page with a number of his inventions that were filed with the US Patent Office.  You will find listed, the patent number and the date it was filed.

While we stress the importance of teaching black history as it is an important element of American history, we also stress the importance of exploring other cultures that make up the American experience.  Settlers from Asia played an important role particularly on the West coast of America as did persons of Hispanic culture in other areas of America.  We do present some of this importance through The Gloryworks Experience as our focus is one of human respect of persons.

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