Wonderful resources below, please note: the information below is taken from each organization’s newsletters you can find on their websites.
Wishing everyone a peaceful, healthy and happy winter break. Many thanks to each and every one of you.
| As federal agencies are ordered to scale back Black History Month activities and eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and some major companies opt to voluntarily follow suit, it is more important than ever to assert our commitment to teach truthfully. Young people learn from how adults respond. When they see adults self-censor, that is a lesson in itself. During the Civil Rights Movement, Freedom Schools were established in churches and community centers to teach the history that had been censored. Today, the teachers we work with around the country bring a Freedom School approach to lessons in their classrooms and the community. Our monthly Zinn Education Project Teach the Black Freedom Struggle classes, hosted with Rethinking Schools, provide a Freedom School for educators, students, and families. Find below our Black History booklist and a lesson about Freedom Schools from Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching, which is full of lessons that challenge assumptions and inspire young people to action. Teach Black HistoryOur booklist features titles on Black history for children, young adults, and educators. We also recommend titles on, but not limited to, our Black Lives Matter at School, Civil Rights Teaching, Reconstruction, and Slavery, Resistance, and Reparations booklists.Booklist Exploring the History of Freedom SchoolsThe Freedom Schools of the 1960s were first developed by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi. Through reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and civics, participants received a progressive curriculum during a six-week summer program that was designed to prepare disenfranchised African Americans to become active political actors on their own behalf (as voters, elected officials, organizers, etc.). An investigation of Freedom Schools allows students and teachers to explore the purpose and possibilities of public education today. In this high school lesson from Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching, students will discover that the Freedom School curriculum was designed to spark consideration of daily oppression and shaped to serve a liberation struggle. |
| Vashon Heritage Museum Family Day is this Saturday! |
| Family Day is around the corner: this Saturday, February 15th. We will have extended hours from 10 – 4. Bring your kids, grandkids, neighbors and their kids. It is a great joy to see the Museum full of children.We will have activities and programming for toddlers and kids, including:a scavenger hunt coloring pages and a jellyfish craft! From the Collection  This 1933 photo was taken by Norman Edson at the Funeral of Kanetaro Yorioka, known to islanders as Frank. He was born in Hiroshima in 1884 and he first emigrated to the United States when he was 18 years old. He married in Seattle in 1906. He and his wife moved back and forth from the US to Japan a number of times, but settled on Vashon around 1927. “All members of the family made a definite place for themselves in the circles of the Japanese Society and in the public schools and allied interests…Many friends and associates gathered to pay a last sad tribute.” The photo shows how large and vibrant the Japanese community was on Vashon Island. February 19, 2025, is a Day of Remembrance for Executive Order 9066 which led to the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans through 1945. “A total of 126 Vashon Japanese-American residents were assembled at what is now Ober Park and sent to these American concentration camps. Four islanders voluntarily exiled and moved to Eastern Oregon outside the Exclusion Zone. Executive Order 9066 effectively destroyed Vashon’s Japanese American community, and only about 40 returned after the war to pick up and resume the lives the war had interrupted.” Friends of Mukai is hosting an event on Sunday, February 23rd from 2 – 4 pm. Learn more here. Hope to see you this week before we close the special exhibit, last day to view it is this Sunday. Thank you for your support. Gretta Stimson Executive Director, Vashon Heritage Museum |
Klahanie School 