{"id":2120,"date":"2009-11-24T01:04:13","date_gmt":"2009-11-24T06:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/archives\/2120"},"modified":"2009-11-24T01:04:13","modified_gmt":"2009-11-24T06:04:13","slug":"teaching-history-with-childrens-literature-sweet-land-of-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/openwidelookinside\/2009\/11\/24\/teaching-history-with-childrens-literature-sweet-land-of-liberty\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching History with Children’s Literature: Sweet Land of Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sweetlandbook.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The book Sweet Land of Liberty<\/a>, <\/em>written by Deborah Hopkinson and illustrated by Leonard Jenkins, tells the true\u00a0story of how a simple experience as a child can lead to an extraordinary experience in history.\u00a0 It begins with a poor\u00a0white\u00a0boy in rural Virginia during the Jim Crow era, who sees how his black friends are treated unfairly.\u00a0 The boy, named Oscar Chapman, sees the effects of racism at a young age,\u00a0and it\u00a0leads him to a life-long commitment to end bigotry.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Oscar ends up with an important government job in Washington, D.C. (Secretary of the Interior) and he becomes friends with Walter White, head of the NAACP.\u00a0 Oscar and Walter worked together to figure out a way to have Marian Anderson, a black singer with a beautiful voice, sing at a public concert. Even though she was famous across the world, she wasn’t allowed to sing in Constitution Hall (the largest concert hall in D.C.) because of her race. Then Walter\u00a0had an idea and told\u00a0Oscar\u00a0that\u00a0the perfect place\u00a0to have Marian sing would be\u00a0in\u00a0front of the Lincoln Memorial.<\/p>\n

“The Lincoln Memorial had never been used for a public gathering. But Oscar wasn’t about to let that stop him. Oscar went to see his boss, Harold Ickes, who agreed to talk to his boss: President Franklin Roosevelt!”<\/p>\n

President Roosevelt thought that the performance would be “a wonderful idea” and on Easter Sunday in 1939, 75,000 people of all ages and races came to see Marian Anderson sing America: My Country ‘Tis of Thee. <\/em>Marian decided to change the traditional lyrics “of thee I sing” to “to thee we sing” knowing that America still had a lot of work ahead to “let freedom ring.” Oscar, Walter, and Marian had no idea at the time that 24 years later, another important public\u00a0“performance” will take place in that very same setting, promoting an even bigger\u00a0protest against segregation by Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/p>\n

At the end of the book, the author gives a factual review of the events that eventually led to Marian Anderson’s performance, along with actual photos of the characters. This story’s colorful and depective\u00a0artwork, along with author’s message of a child’s ability to change the course of history, makes Sweet Land of Liberty<\/em> a great choice for any elementary student’s\u00a0classroom or home.<\/p>\n

Curriculum Connections<\/strong>:
\nSweet Land of Liberty<\/em> uses a symbolic\u00a0national song, America: My Country Tis’ of Thee<\/em>, to tell the story of how segregation led to the first performance ever conducted at the Lincoln Memorial in front of a large crowd\u00a0(of course, a couple decades later,\u00a0Martin Luther King, Jr. uses the same setting for his I Have a Dream<\/em> speech).\u00a0 The book gives examples of the effects of\u00a0segregation in the first half of the 20th century, and shows\u00a0how even the famous<\/em> African-Americans would still be treated unfairly.\u00a0 Also, this book emphasizes the importance of standing up for your beliefs, and your belief in others, which promotes good citizenship.<\/p>\n

Additional Resources<\/strong>:<\/p>\n