Maxine D Jones

This teachers' manual is meant to accompany the text entitled African Americans in Florida. The manual includes, for each chapter, (1) the key terms that are bold-faced in the text and defined in the glossary, (2) research questions for possible further work, (3) discussion topics for the classroom, and (4) a project geared to the particular chapter. The text is based on the recommendations put forth by the Study Commission on African American History in Florida, which was established by the Florida Legislature in 1990. The book integrates suggestions made by this and other educational commissions, by, for example, placing an emphasis on the role that history and geography have played in the story of African Americans of Florida. Teachers might want to use the text as a supplemental resource, not only in Black History Month, but throughout the school year.

Education for Liberation completes the study Dr. Richardson published in 1986 as Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890 by continuing the account of the American Missionary Association (AMA) from the end of Reconstruction to the post-World War II era. Even after the optimism of Reconstruction was shattered by violence, fraud, and intimidation and the white South relegated African Americans to segregated and disfranchised second-class citizenship, the AMA never abandoned its claim that blacks were equal in God’s sight, that any “backwardness” was the result of circumstance rather than inherent inferiority, and that blacks could and should become equal citizens with other Americans. The organization went farther in recognition of black ability, humanity, and aspirations than much of 19th and 20th century white America by publicly and consistently opposing lynching, segregation, disfranchisement, and discrimination. The AMA regarded education as the means to full citizenship for African Americans and supported scores of elementary and secondary schools and several colleges at a time when private schooling offered almost the only chance for black youth to advance beyond the elementary grades. Such AMA schools, with their interracial faculties and advocacy for basic civil rights for black citizens, were a constant challenge to southern racial norms, and trained thousands of leaders in all areas of black life.

Brief essays profile over 50 African Americans during four centuries of Florida history. Traces the role African Americans played in the discovery, exploration, and settlements of Florida, through the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement. For classroom use: one free teacher's manual with the purchase of three books.