Teaching Our children The truth

When Steve and I were watching our grandsons, James and Jonny, one day this summer, we brought them to the Sully Branch Library in the city, to sign up for the summer reading program.  While James, 9, read by himself, and Steve read to Jonny, 5, I sat down and pulled one book after another off the shelves, impressed by the many excellent books about children and families of color.  I had never seen such a selection displayed in our suburban town library. 

One book in particular drew me in with its bold illustrations and well-developed characters.  Ashley Bryan, in Freedom Over Me, bases the story of an 1828 plantation upon an actual set of documents the author found.  With his warm illustrations and his imagination, Bryan, 98, an award-winning author and illustrator and a World War II veteran who served in the segregated army, brings to life the 11 enslaved people listed in an estate appraisal. 

Ranging in age from 8 to 62, “Peggy,” “Stephen,” “Jane,” “John,” “Athelia,” “Charlotte,” “Bacus,” “Qush,” “Mulvina,” and “Betty” tell their stories in their own voices.  We hear about 8-year-old “Dora” through her parents, Charlotte and Bacus. 

Though the book is written for children and recommended for ages 6 to 10, the cruelty of slavery is never hidden.  Peggy talks about the day her village in Africa was raided, when she and her mother were “captured and sold to white slavers.” Once the vessel was docked, “We were sold on the block, no two of a family or tribe together.  Frightened by voices shouting in no tribal language we knew, stripped of everything, our language, our customs, they even took our names.  They called me Peggy.  Peggy!”

John tells readers how he was “given as a birthday gift” to Mrs. Fairchilds, the plantation owner, and he talks about the secret lessons he gets from Stephen and Jane on how to read and write.  He, like all of the other people in the book, tells of his dreams of freedom. 

As a white woman, I am trying not only to know my history but also to try to understand the Black trauma that is the legacy of white people’s actions.  In Paul’s letter to the Colossians today (Chapter 3), we are asked to have “heartfelt compassion,” along with “kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” It’s been suggested in studies that works of fiction help us to develop compassion and empathy for others.* These fundamentally Christian values are often missing in discussions about how we should teach history to children.

Bryan’s characters tell of their feats in the areas of weaving, sewing, fashion design, cuisine, mathematical calculation, and building.  In their own voices, the enslaved people also tell of what they have to endure daily – for example, the endless hard work, the ever-present threat of physical punishment. 

And yet Bryan somehow masterfully allows the reader to absorb all of the awful things at his or her own pace.  At first, I got so wrapped up in the characters – admittedly, it was probably my white denial – that I overlooked the event that hangs ominously over Bryan’s story. The recently widowed plantation owner is about to appraise the estate for sale.  In doing so, she’ll leave these people vulnerable to more family breakup, and she’ll crush all their dreams of freedom.  (Consider the contrast: The owner tells readers that she wants to go back to England, where she will live safely, free of worry, “surrounded by my own good British people.”)

Bryan weaves photos of the appraisal documents throughout the book, so we see such things as the sale prices of the enslaved — $100 to $400 – right alongside the prices of the cattle, hogs, a horse, and some cotton.     

A small child might come away only with a sense that enslaved people had skills and talents, hopes and dreams.  Older students could delve more deeply.  As a retired high school teacher, I can envision an assignment in which students study slave narratives, read children’s books such as Bryan’s, and then create their own imagined stories of the hopes of enslaved people.

I’ve often wondered how far we should go, how detailed we need to be, as we teach our children the truth about American history.  Luckily, skilled authors have already done a lot of this work for us.  Curious children and thoughtful teachers, parents, and grandparents can use books to help children become leaders who do better than their forebears. 

Can the kids handle it?  Our son and daughter-in-law have had many honest talks about racial justice with the boys, imbuing in James a strong sense of right and wrong and in Jonny the heart of a social justice warrior.  I’m going to buy Bryan’s book, and I’m expecting it will be read and re-read by the boys, as they mature and understand more and more of the layers of this story, which is really the story of all of us. 

* Claudia Hammond.  “Does Reading Fiction Make Us Better People?” BBC Future. bbc.com. June 2, 2019.