Yakima Family Times

February is Black History Month and there are plenty of story books to share with children about Black History.  The Yakima Libraries usually compile them in a display during the month of February, or you can order them online.  My kids are kind of hard on books, and they love them so much that we tend to buy more books than we borrow.  Enjoy these, our favorites.

The Theme for Black History Month this year, is “From Slavery to Freedom” so we chose books that looked up close at that pivotal time in American History, as well as those that looked at the bigger picture (histories of slavery all over the world) and books that looked at the smaller picture (personal stories of children caught up in segregation) Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
was absolutely, hands-down, our very favorite.

From the Black History Month Website:

The transition from slavery to freedom represents one of the major themes in the history of the African Diaspora in the Americas. Under and against the rule of various powers, Africans experienced emancipation during the course of the nineteenth century. In Jamaica and Brazil, freedom came peaceably, but bloodshed also accompanied slavery’s death. In the United States, the rebirth of freedom resulted from what was at the time the world’s most destructive civil war, a war in which liberated slaves and free Blacks played a vital role in determining the victor and securing their own liberty. In Saint Domingue, the slaves, under the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture, engaged in violent revolution and won their freedom and independence, establishing Haiti, the world’s first Black republic. Regardless of the path to freedom, African peoples in the New World had to continue to struggle for liberation. Where ex-slaves formed the majority, the quest for sovereignty, independence, and equality remained elusive or hollow. Elsewhere they rarely enjoyed equal citizenship and the untrammeled right to pursue happiness.

ASALH dedicates its 2007 national theme to the struggles of peoples of African descent to achieve freedom and equality in the Americas during the age of emancipation. Over a half-century ago, the celebrated historian John Hope Franklin, a leading light of ASALH, identified the struggle for slavery and freedom as the central theme of African American history. We take up this theme to honor him and to place before the nation and the world the historical importance of
slavery and freedom in the making of modern societies in the Americas.