National
Application
Local
Application: Uplifting a "New" South (Click
here to sample the Georgia team's application of this theme.)
In
Georgia, Educating for Citizenship team members studied Spelman College
as an example of collaboration between blacks and whites to create an
empowering educational institution for African Americans in the decades
after the Civil War. Setting this achievement within a larger context
that sometimes questioned the ability of the freed peoples to become fully
enfranchised citizens, participants read poetry and prose by Frances Harper
about the post-Civil War learning needs of blacks in the South, correspondence
between local schoolteachers and Freedmen's Bureau administrators, and
periodical literature of the 1870s and 1880s about the best goals for
educating African Americans. Focusing specifically on Spelman's story,
team members collected oral histories and archival materials, including
turn-of-the-century copies of The Spelman Messenger, a bulletin
about college students and graduates. All along the way, team members
considered how they might encourage their students' awareness that the
educational opportunities many take for granted today were gained only
through prolonged collaborative efforts that should be honored–and
may often need to be replicated–by diverse American community members
today.
