Black History Month: Teacher Offers Powerful Lesson On Slavery

MOSS POINT, MS — For Black History Month, the month-long observance in February that celebrates the achievements of African-Americans, a sixth-grade math teacher is correcting history with a letter that covers the door to her classroom at Magnolia Middle School in Moss Point, Mississippi.

“Dear Students, they didn’t steal slaves,” the letter Jovan Bradshaw posted on her door begins. “They stole scientists, doctors, architects, teachers, entrepreneurs, astronomers, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, etc., and made them slaves. Sincerely, your ancestors.”

Bradshaw, who attributes the message to the Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen, a poet and author, posted the letter after a boy in her class said slaves didn’t contribute much to U.S. history because they couldn’t read or write.

“He kinda caught me off guard,” Bradshaw, 40, told news station WLOX. “I said, ‘Baby, if I snatched you up and dropped you off in China or Germany or Africa, even, you wouldn’t be able to write their language either. Does that make you useless or any less educated?’ ”

The knowledge gap is widespread and many African-American students “don’t know where they came from,” Bradshaw said.

“All they are taught is slavery, the servitude side only,” she told the news station. “They need to know we were great long before slavery. We built a country with our blood, sweat and tears, and the strength of our ancestors is why they can be great today.

“You have to see people who look like you contributing to society, and the African contribution is left out at school. I teach math, but I’m woke and I plan on waking up every student that comes through the halls of MMS.”

Bradshaw’s original plan for Black History Month, also known as African American History Month, was to post a picture of a black woman with natural hair. But after her conversation with the student, she switched gears.

“His comment broke my heart, and I had to do something more,” she told Yahoo Lifestyle. “It was like a lightbulb going off for him. He understood.”

Though math is her area of expertise, the teacher of nine years told Yahoo she tries to make history relevant.

“I sneak it in whenever I can,” she said. “I teach the whole person, not just one subject.”

Bradshaw posted a picture of the letter on her Facebook page, where it has been shared at least 103,000 times.

Black History Month has been observed annually since 1926, first as a week-long observance known as Negro History Week during the week that encompassed the birthdays of both President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist and escaped slave Frederick Douglass.

Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson, who founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, promoted the idea of what is now known as Black History Month, saying at the time that Americans needed to know the history of African-Americans in order for reason to prevail over prejudice.

Black History Month became a month-long celebration in 1976.

Below is Bradshaw’s Facebook post.

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)