

Songs, Sounds, and Stories from the Georgia Sea Islands A Smithsonian Folkways Lesson Lead Belly and His Legacy of Southern Song- Lesson Planīlending African and Irish Sensibilities in Virginia’s Music Classrooms can address all sorts of topics such as the share cropping system, rural poverty, racism, southern cuisine, black families and even popular music as it relates to black musicians in the early twentieth century. Teachers can use the blues and early gospel music to teach about southern rural black culture from the early twentieth century. Using the blues and gospel music to teach Black history.Hip-hop is a great resource for language arts and social studies teaching because many artists address complex social, political, economic and historical issues such as poverty, abortion, racism, drugs and broken families.
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Thousands of song lyrics are readily available for free on the Internet to supplement the music videos to allow students to take a closer look at the meaning behind the songs. Students can use various hip-hop songs to highlight the struggle of the urban poor and African Americans in the late twentieth century to present.

Students can identify the time period in which the song was written and situate it historically, to tie it in to lectures, text book readings and primary source documents. Students can write about the mood and tone of the songs, the religious themes, historical content, melancholy subject matter and even double meaning of the songs. Teachers can use the Internet to locate the words to the songs to accompany the videos, allowing students to do a text analysis of the lyrics. Teachers can use Negro spirituals to teach about the challenges and hardships of slavery. Using spirituals to teach about African American slavery and the Civil War.We also include lesson plan ideas on how music can be incorporated into classroom curriculum in creative, effective and meaningful ways. Below we share a wealth of musical resources that allow readers to explore the wide variety of music genres in black cultural history. Historic music from certain eras help us understand the way of life during the time it was developed.Ĭlassrooms can come alive when teachers incorporate the rich reservoir of African American music that can now be easily accessed via a computer and the Internet. Other styles of music stemming from African cultural roots included the blues and gospel, which led to more contemporary genres such as soul, rock and roll, rhythm and blues and hip-hop. Ragtime would eventually become jazz both forms of music are distinctly American, but specifically African American. When black musicians blended African culture and rhythms with the European classical music they developed the ragtime style of music. After the Civil War many African Americans became employed as musicians playing European classical music. The songs that were birthed from slavery were spirituals, work songs and folk songs. Early black music from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was shaped by the terrible conditions and hardships brought on by slavery. Indeed, African American music is a very broad phenomenon that describes a wide range of musical styles and genres.īlack music was shaped by historical conditions that was a response to a variety of emotions including happiness, joy, suffering, disappointment, despair, exhilaration and pain. Music created by African Americans (Black music) is varied and complex, coming in many shapes and sizes. It is important to understand how it has shaped Black culture and also how Black culture has been shaped by music. A major back drop and cultural thread through every era of Black history has been music. Even though these aspects of Black history are of the utmost importance and have played a critical role in shaping history, other aspects of African American history must also be explored. Another topic that is explored often is the Civil Rights movement. One of the most commonly explored and researched aspects of African American history is slavery in America.

African American history is American history, in the sense that Black folks have been an integral part of United States history from its inception. The study of Black history is a multi-faceted, varied and deeply complex subject. Black history month is an opportune time to do so, in that it is a time to reflect upon and celebrate the complex history of African Americans in the United States. In this way, we can celebrate our differences, seeing diversity as a strength and an asset. A critical component in the success of the American democratic project is to embrace the diversity within the United States and its history.
