The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Research is part of festival
African American history lessons unveiled by story, book, article
The lessons of the historic civil rights movement live on today, said a local minister who added his own insights during a study on the topic.
The First Community Interfaith Institute of Ohio held its 39th Annual African American History Festival on Feb. 25 at Kanisa House II, 142 Cleveland St., Elyria.
About 20 people spent time selecting passages from among 30 books about black history from the earliest days of the slave trade from Africa to the western hemisphere, to the civil rights era of the 20th century.
The historical study is important because many people don’t know the facts and then rely on their own feelings, lies or misperceptions to form their ideas, said Minister Gerald J. Evans of FCII.
After starting, the group took quiet time to select among the volumes of history, biography and speeches.
“What we’re doing now is called research,” Evans said as the group scanned the books, looking for clues and summaries of what happened through history.
The assembled books included four by Martin Luther King Jr. But the participants found some lesser known facts and selections from them and the other authors.
One participant read from the Autobiography of Malcolm X, describing his time working in New York. Another participant read
about the development of jazz music as a mixture of European and African influences not limited only to black or white musicians.
Evans’ wife, Ruth B. Evans, read from LIFE magazine about Joseph Cinque and the Amistad slave ship rebellion. Participants heard about the integration
of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., and how in the 1920s, Oregon was one of the most racially divided states in the country with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
Evans added his own insights ranging from civil rights legislation after the Civil War and in the 1960s to court cases to King’s shift in fighting for racial justice to fighting for economic justice.
The book selections serve
as a good reading list to begin learning more about racial equality, said Martha Evans-Harris, the Evanses’ daughter. As a teacher, she said she spends time reading children’s books but she hopes to continue her learning about the history.
“You can never stop learning, you can never know everything,” she said. “You have to learn from each other.”
The FCII is a nonprofit community faith-based service organization that offers various counseling services. Information is available by calling 440-366-3244.