Black History Month

A group of 8 and 9 year olds just left the library. We met for about 20 minutes, where I did a booktalk, promoting gorgeously illustrated biographies of African-Americans, including Satchel Paige, Harriet Jacobs, Thurgood Marshall, Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, Marian Anderson and Jackie Robinson. I had planned to read aloud the book As Good as Anybody: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel's Amazing March Toward Freedom, but I needed to take time to answer a child's question. I had mentioned the Negro Leagues and the segregation of baseball. She said, "I don't like that word 'Negro.' And I don't like it when people call me black." We had a long discussion where I explained about the changes over time in language and preferences in referring to people of African descent. I even defined the term epithet and said that they may have heard epithets for people of various races and backgrounds. Lots of heads nodded solemnly. Another child noted that he had heard the term "colored" and was puzzled by it. I told them that when we read a book set in times past, the author often uses the historically accurate language. We agreed that color terms (white, black) are highly inaccurate and perhaps ridiculous. We even discussed yesterday's event, in which MARTA renamed the Yellow Line, which runs through several Asian communities, as the Gold Line. What most reassured the little girl who got the discussion going, however, was that President Obama refers to himself as both African-American and black. She left with a big smile.