Hudson Valley - Students At Yonkers Montessori School Celebrate Black History Month With A Moving Presentation And A Q&A With Smithsonian Expert
March 8, 2012
Yonkers, NY, March 8, 2012 - 10th grade Global Studies Group students at Yonkers Montessori Academy explored the topic of civil rights through a program offered by Power to Learn and the Smithsonian Channel. Also participating in the program were Westchester County Board of Legislators Chairman Ken Jenkins and Christopher Wilson, Director of African American Culture, National Museum of American History. The program focused on the students' lessons on the Greensboro Four, told through the Smithsonian Channel's original documentary Seizing Justice: The Greensboro Four that tells the story of four college freshmen from North Carolina A&T who led a nonviolent sit-in that sparked a series of events that would help end the Jim Crow laws of the South. View Slide Show >> Following welcoming remarks by Chairman Jenkins, Principal Eileen Rivera, Cablevision's Vice President of Education Trent Anderson and Social Studies teacher Denise Wiggins, students presented an original video entitled A Field of Dreams: The Greensboro Four Revisited. In this student-produced video, two young men attending a lecture at the Smithsonian Institute, fall asleep and are transported to the Woolworth counter in Greensboro, SC, in 1960 - right next to the four young men who eventually became icons of the civil rights movement. In conjunction with the event, the school conducted an essay contest and the winner read the essay aloud during the event and was awarded an iPod touch by Cablevision. National Museum of American History Director of African American Culture Wilson also participated in a remote conference call Q&A with students. Chairman Jenkins commended Cablevision's Power to Learn and the Smithsonian Channel for the program, noting, "I'd like to congratulate all of the students involved today for tackling a serious subject in a creative and engaging way. Programs such as this are so important as they help broaden young people's knowledge of the civil right movement, as well as their appreciation for people who changed history for the better."
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