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January 2020 on Knowitall.org

Images of content featured on Knowitall.org in January 2020

Happy New Year to all! This month, Knowitall features resources for Martin Luther King Day and African American History Month for use now through February. Our Holocaust Remembrance Collection provides resources for International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

In addition, we have resources for National Trivia Day, National Bird Day, and Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

Throughout the month, be sure to visit What’s New on Knowitall and Knowitall Factoids, in which each date brings a resource you may not have thought to look for—here on Knowitall!

 

SOUTH CAROLINA AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY CALENDAR:

JANUARY HONOREE – VIVIAN AYERS ALLEN 

 

A native of Chester, S.C., Dr. Vivian Ayers Allen is a poet, cultural activist, and American classicist.

A 1939 graduate of the historic Brainerd Institute in Chester, Dr. Ayers attended Barber-Scotia College and Bennett College. Dr. Ayers has also received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Bennett College and Wilberforce University.

Her literary career began in Houston, Texas with the publication of “Spice of Dawns” (1952), a collection of poems that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. “Hawk,” an allegory of freedom made analogous to space flight, followed and was published on July 11, 1957, just 11 weeks before the launch of Sputnik I. “Hawk” would later earn praise from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at their Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center where enlarged reproductions of the writings are exhibited.

Dr. Ayers’ talents and interests also include the research of world cultures. She studied classical Greek at Rice University, Columbia University, and Princeton University. In addition, she has studied and translated texts on Mayan culture and astronomy.

In 1973, while still living in Houston, Texas and working with the Harris County Community Association, she collaborated with certified teachers to create her signature program, “Workshops in Open Fields.” This method of education was recommended to the nation as the prototype of grassroots arts programming by Nancy Hanks, who was then Director of the National Endowment of the Arts. The program continued with funding in Houston for nine consecutive years. Dr. Ayers was invited to serve as an advisor to the endowment as a member of The Associated Councils of the Arts.

Dr. Ayers is also the Founding Director of the Brainerd Institute Heritage. For more than a decade, her Workshops in Open Fields has been active on the Brainerd Institute campus in Chester. In addition to visual arts education, the program also serves Chester residents and surrounding areas by presenting Free Dance Days, with faculty from the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, as well as a Summer Preschool Literacy Program.

Presented through a partnership between the South Carolina Department of Education and South Carolina ETV. 

View the interstitial here. (coming soon)
View the video on Knowitall.org here. 
Download the SC African American History Calendar here. 

 

DATES FOR YOUR CALENDAR

 

NATIONAL TRIVIA DAY – January 4, 2020

Explore our Knowitall Factoids by Month and learn from a wide assortment of topics. Visit each day to learn something new! The January Factoids are here!

 

NATIONAL BIRD DAY – January 5, 2020

Explore our resources on birds in either of these ways:

View Subject Area > Science > Life Science > The Animal Kingdom > Birds

Or select Series (SC Life) > Cove Forest > 9) Animals of the Forest > Birds

 

NATIONAL SCREENWRITERS DAY – January 6, 2020

Pauline Kael from Writer’s Circle of South Carolina

Pauline Kael (June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001)

Looking back on her personal history as a writer, Kael offers some useful advice for aspiring screenwriters, and she has some strong views on the connection between writing and reading.

 

LAW ENFORCEMENT APPRECIATION DAY – January 9, 2020

Community Based Policing - Lansing, Michigan

Follow police officers Linda Doherty-Wright, and Cassie Alley, as they work to keep the peace in Lansing, Michigan. These officers bring back the yester-year methods of “cops on the beat”; regularly patrolling local neighborhoods. These older methods have significant positive impacts on local safety. The officers talk about what it is like to work in law enforcement.

Police Officer | Meet the Helpers

Dive deeper into a police officer's career and find out how this Helper assists in emergency situations.

Policemen and Federal Marshals | Periscope

By the time Ruby Bridges was six years old, there were new laws stating that African American and white students had to integrate, or share, schools. People such as Martin Luther King, Jr. had worked for civil rights so all people could share the same education and opportunities.

In 1960, a federal judge decided that New Orleans public schools had to be integrated. Ruby was chosen with six other children to integrate previously all-white elementary schools. Though Ruby's mother was excited for her, Mr. Bridges was afraid Ruby might be treated badly at her new school. She was the only African American student chosen to attend William Frantz.

A group of policemen and federal marshals helped escort Ruby safely into her school.

 

HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS DAY – JANUARY 11, 2020

Family Across the Sea, Part 3

Anthropologist Joe Opala has studied the history of slavery from the African side of the ocean. He has tracked a remarkable series of connections that end in Charleston and trace back to Africa. Bunce Island, a quarter-mile long island, twenty miles from Freetown, was the furthest point inland where slave ships could travel without being grounded, and was the location from which Africans were boarded on ships and taken to Charleston and the slave market. A reading from the diary of Anna Marie Falkenbridge reveals her observations, on looking through a window at the back of the manor house that stood on the island and was the home of the chief agent, who became wealthy from the trafficking of human beings. John Newton, a slave ship captain, later denounced slavery, became a clergyman in England, and wrote "Amazing Grace." READ MORE and VIEW VIDEO.

Breaking down the definition of human trafficking. VIEW VIDEO.

*** If you believe you know of someone who may be a victim of human trafficking, please contact local law enforcement or the NHTRC (National Human Trafficking Resource Center) Hotline at 1-888-373-7888. *** 

 

MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY - JANUARY 20, 2020

This Collection honors the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and relays much of the history of the Civil Rights era. The Collection includes: 

African American History Month on Periscope

This collection honors our history and the African Americans who made strides in the advancement of African Americans.

  1. The Father of African American History
  2. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
  3. Ruby Bridges
  4. South Carolina Portraits

Penn Center: A Legacy of Change

This program tells the story of the Penn Center’s inception in 1862 as a school for freed slaves to its involvement in the Gullah community today. Today the center collects, documents, preserves, and disseminates information related to cultural heritage of the Sea Island and Lowcountry African American culture.

Road Trip! Through South Carolina Civil Rights History

Designed to help teachers and students to learn about the people and the events, and the importance of the civil rights movement in South Carolina from the 1940s to the early 1970s. 

  1. Places
  2. People
  3. Facts
  4. Television Series

 

MARTIN LUTHER KING RESOURCES

Be sure to check the individual resources in this collection, including these and more!

 

AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY COLLECTION

Knowitall's African American History Collection provides these resources—all in one place! Use them now for Martin Luther King Day and in February for African American History Month.

SERIES

TOPICS

 

JANUARY 27, 2020 – INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COMMEMORATION IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST

There are seven overview sections. Each provides a short summary of a topic related to the Holocaust. Teachers can summarize these mini-lectures for their students or share them with more able readers. The overviews are intended to supplement the information in students' textbooks on each topic and provide a background for teaching the lessons that follow each overview. A Holocaust timeline and glossary are also included.

​Trace the events of the Holocaust through the testimony of survivors who settled in South Carolina. Interviews are combined with dramatic archival footage for a powerful and moving record of the inhumanity that was experienced during the Holocaust.

Full interviews with South Carolinians who survived the Holocaust and those who liberated the concentration camps or witnessed the atrocities that took place. 

The Holocaust Forum was a collaboration between the South Carolina Council on the Holocaust, ETV, and the South Carolina Department of Education.

 

NOW AVAILABLE ON KNOWITALL! 

THESE INTERACTIVES FROM ARTOPIA WILL NOW PLAY ON YOUR MOBILE DEVICE! TRY THEM OUT!

Find more interactives in our ALL INTERACTIVES COLLECTION!

MOBILE-FRIENDLY INTERACTIVES ARE HERE IN OUR ACTIVITIES (TABLET FRIENDLY) COLLECTION!

 

 

KNOWITALL FACTOIDS FOR JANUARY

Throughout the month, be sure to visit Knowitall Factoids for resources you may not have thought to look for—here on Knowitall!

 

VISIT THE KNOWITALL BLOG

For helpful information on using Knowitall all through the month!

 

CONTACT US

As always, we welcome your comments and questions! We would love to hear from YOU!