Elimu for Liberation

03/01/2022

“The purpose of edition is to secure the survival of a people. To maintain their very biological existence and enhance their quality of life”

02/02/2021

Its not too late to sign your middle school or high school child up for a Black History Month mini course! register today! Elimuforliberation.com
Direct link to Course Description here! https://elimuforliberation.com/courses/

COURSES 04 Mar AFRICAN HISTORY 2 : Golden Ages and the Influence of African Culture on the West 11:00 amOnline 6 week course for Middle and High School age youth: Students will learn and explore Af…

11/24/2020

Gary Cooper the Movie Star of the 1930’s 40’s and 50’s wrote an article for Ebony Magazine in 1959 shortly before his death. In it he detailed one of his inspirations of Western Heroism. That inspiration was a Black Woman who ran the Stagecoach Line and delivered the US Mail to the remote farmhouse where he grew up in Montana. Her wrote of her kindness and his admiration for her. Gary Cooper wanted to make sure that she would be remembered. Her name was “Stagecoach” Mary Fields. Here are her words and here is her story.
Stagecoach Mary Fields in her own words.

I am Mary Fields. People call me "Black Mary." People call me "Stagecoach Mary." I was born in Cascade, Tennessee.
I am six feet tall. I weigh over two hundred pounds. A woman of the 19th Century, I do bold and exciting things. I wear pants. I smoke a big black cigar. I drink whiskey. I carry a pistol. I love adventure. I travel the country, driving a stagecoach, delivering the mail to distant towns. Strong, I fight through rainstorms. Tough, I fight through snowstorms. I risk hurricanes and tornadoes. I am independent. Nobody tells me what to do. Nobody tells me where to go. When I'm not delivering mail, I like to build buildings.
I like to smoke and drink in bars with the men. I like to be rough. I like to be rowdy. I also like to be loving. I like to be caring. I like to baby sit. I like to plant flowers and tend my garden. I like to give away corsages and bouquets. I like being me, Mary Fields”

Mary Fields, born a slave in a log cabin in Tennessee, went west in 1884, Mary Fields gave meaning to her freedom at the earliest opportunity by migrating to Toledo, Ohio, where she worked for the Ursuline Convent. In 1884 Mother Amadeus of the Ursuline Convent founded the St. Peter's Catholic Mission School in Montana. Three years later Mary Fields joined her there. For the next ten years she provided protection for the nuns and the school and drove a supply wagon hauling essential freight and other goods. Mary chopped wood, did rudimentary carpentry, and whatever else was necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the nuns' enterprise. Mary Fields's temper was as legendary as her ability to get hard jobs done. Indeed, one altercation almost proved her undoing. Bishop Filbus N. E. Berwanger fired Mary from her position with the nuns following a shootout with a cowpuncher that left her unharmed and the cowpuncher slightly wounded and greatly embarrassed. Mary never followed social conventions or expectations of feminine behavior to circumscribe her. Rather, she carved a space for herself that allowed her the freedom to exploit both her penchant for hard work and her desire to help others. She settled in a town in Cascade County, Montana, where she was the only black resident. In 1895 Mary secured a job delivering mail for the U.S. postal services, and she continued to do so into her seventies. Citizens marveled at her fierce determination to deliver, on schedule, letters and parcels without concern for weather, the ruggedness of the mountain trails, or the remoteness of the homes and outposts that relied on dependable means of communication in order to process land claims. Without doubt, her work facilitated central Montana's development. She was a respected public figure in Cascade, and the town closed its schools to celebrate her birthday each year.
Mary Fields died in 1914 of liver failure. Neighbors buried her in the Hillside Cemetery in Cascade. A simple wooden cross mark her grave.
Gary Coopers remarks in his story to Ebony Magazine are a fitting epitaph. "Born a slave somewhere in Tennessee, Mary lived to become one of the freest souls ever to draw a breath, or a .38”
References
Cooper, Gary & Crawford, Marc (October 1959). "Stagecoach Mary". EBONY (Reprinted Oct. 1977 ed.). p. 98.
Metcalf McConnell, Miantae (2016). Deliverance Mary Fields, First African American Woman Star Route Mail Carrier in the United States: A Montana History. Huzzah Publishing.
Franks, James A. (2000). Mary Fields (Black Mary) (1st ed.). Santa Cruz, Calif.: Wild Goose Press.

11/16/2020

In 1990 this episode of Family Matters aired and 30 years later we are still battling for school districts to have the History of African people taught in our schools all year long. We continue to fight schools and school districts to incorporate the vast accomplishments and contributions of African people in American and worldwide human history into the curriculum. Many students in the 80’s and 90’s fought to have Black/African Studies classes in public schools and in colleges. Today most of those classes are gone in public schools and the amount of colleges offering them as a major isn’t enough.

We must realize that we have the power and the autonomy to teach our children their history whether schools want to do it or not. While fighting to make sure public schools provide our children with an affirming curriculum that shows them their greatness, we must make sure that we teach our Black children their history outside of school. Outside of schools we have much more autonomy over what and how Black youth learn.

Let’s not be in this same place, making the same arguments in another 20 years. Let’s give Black youth what they need and maintain it!

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11/06/2020

ELIMUFORLIBERATION.COM WEBSITE DROPS THIS SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!

Been working on this for a few years now. The mis-education of black people in America has been an ongoing problem from enslavement to today.
As an educator for so many years, I knew there was something better for our children than what they were being given in public schools.
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This year has shown many black families how much we need to be educating our children in a way that inspires them to be their most brilliant selves. We need to be building black children who will be able to create solutions that will enable black communities to survive and thrive beyond what we can possibly imagine.

Let’s give black children the education they need to liberate themselves.

06/17/2020

This Friday... ....come learn something’s you can do to empower black youth through education...tips and resources will be provided

06/03/2020

06/01/2020

If, after a natural disaster decimated a city, I proposed to a governor or a school board that they replace a significant portion of a majority- white teaching corps with black teachers because doing so would potentially confer educational and social benefits, I’d probably be denounced as a racist and publicly excoriated.

But the reverse is exactly what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and it’s what could happen again across the country in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic if we’re not paying close attention. Thousands of black teachers were laid off after the hurricane and replaced by white ones. When schools come back after the coronavirus, black teachers are once again more likely to be lost to the budget cuts and health problems following in its wake.

If this is our chance to reimagine schools, remembering this history and prioritizing the protection of the black teaching force will be essential to create better places for black students to learn.

Having a black teacher in classrooms has a lasting impact on students, especially on Black students' future outcomes and worldview.

06/01/2020

How do we as a community pull in [Black] educators that understand how to teach Black students better?

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Distance learning has revealed that a digital divide exists nationally and locally. The issue was front and center at a recent virtual town hall.

06/01/2020

We have to show up for black youth!

"We’re facing a lot of unknowns, and unfortunately, we all are inheriting a history in which even with the best of intentions, when black voices aren’t at the table, when we aren’t in the room, our perspectives get lost,” she said. “Lived experience of what it means to be black is not something that can be written down and exported, we need to show up.”

BUSD turned to issues specifically affecting black students and their families in a virtual town hall on Tuesday evening, hearing from over 100 community members.

05/27/2020

Join us as we present African centered activities for multiple subjects to counter the mis-education of black youth.

https://blackyouthempowerment.eventbrite.com