3 books for kids for Black History Month
Every U.S. kid learns about President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. But how many know that slaves were granted freedom almost 100 years earlier, during the Revolutionary War, when the British governor of Virginia issued a proclamation granting freedom to any slave who would leave his American master to fight with the redcoats?
They can read all about it in Margaret Whitman Blair's exciting Liberty or Death: The Surprising Story of Runaway Slaves Who Sided With the British During the American Revolution (National Geographic; 64 pages; $18.95; ages 10-up). Two weeks after his proclamation in November 1775, 300 runaway slaves had joined Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment. ("Ethiopian" was a term applied to blacks generally at the time). By early 1776 there were 800.
Dunmore had the motto "Liberty to Slaves" embroidered on their uniform shirts. He wasn't against slavery, Blair explains; he just needed more troops. Among those who answered the call: Henry Washington, one of George Washington's runaway slaves. Women and children came too, and supported the war effort.
Dunmore's actions inspired the American side to drop some of their prejudice to increase their manpower. Slaves were freed to fight with the rebels in Connecticut and Vermont, and in Massachusetts and Rhode Island free blacks were allowed to join up. An estimated 5,000 blacks served with the American troops during the war, mostly in integrated units. Blacks also served as spies for one side or the other, Blair writes, and some even acted as double agents.
In 1779, another British proclamation issued in New York declared that any slaves who fought with the rebels, if captured, would be sold immediately, but those who fought with the British would be treated as free men. This inspired even more slaves to run away. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 fled to British-occupied cities Savannah, Charleston and New York.
Some sources claim as many as 80,000 to 100,000 escaped to British protection. After the war, about 400 went to London. Others went to Nova Scotia, where they had been promised land, in 1783, to form a colony of sorts. When they found the promise of land unfulfilled and after facing poverty and starvation, some accepted a promise of land in British-occupied land in Sierra Leone in Africa and built a colony there, which was also a great struggle.
This little-known history is lavishly illustrated and captivatingly told by Blair. What a fantastic resource for kids during Black History Month and beyond.
For younger kids, there's Dinah Johnson's picture book Black Magic, illustrated by Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator R. Gregory Christie (Henry Holt; 32 pages; $15.99; ages 5-9). With bright, bold images and poetic phrases that capture a child's exuberance and unbound imagination, Johnson expresses feelings of pride and joy in unexpected ways. "Black is LOUD like my best tap shoes, making noise with every move," the little girl narrator says, "and black is quiet like a butterfly."
The art is fun and fanciful. And the ideas flow freely from the metaphoric to the concrete, as when she says, "Black notes make music on a plain white sheet. Black words make stories that we can speak out loud ... or keep in our hearts to erase the blackness of being apart sometimes from the people we love." You don't have to be black to be swept up by this "Magic."
There's something irresistible about Paulie Pastrami Achieves World Peace, by James Proimos (Little, Brown; 32 pages; $15.99; ages 4-9). Its underlying message that you can spread peace by doing small acts of kindness is delivered with fun and charm and without being heavy-handed or corny. Seven-year-old Paulie is nothing special when the story begins. In fact, he was "constantly picked last for street hockey," and often his socks did not match. But he starts being kind to animals and tending the earth by watering flowers and being nicer to his sister and classmates. He gives out cupcakes to make people feel better, and thereby spreads peace all over town.
It's a little-kid, cartoony vision of peacemaking, but the nugget of truth is there.