Ed Allison has been teaching history for more than 20 years. But he only recently started teaching a class dedicated to African American history, as Virginia approved changes to its social studies curriculum in October.
His African American studies class, now in its second semester at Granby High School, has been working with Fort Monroe, a ‘site of memory’ with UNESCO’s slave route project, where the first enslaved Africans in British North America landed in 1619.
On Thursday, his students will share what they’ve learned. They’ll be presenting at the UN’s 12th Annual Global Student Conference, where over 500 students from 30 countries will attend. The theme is “Ending Slavery’s Legacy of Racism: A Global Imperative for Justice.”
“It’s American history,” Allison said. “It’s not new or surprising history, but it’s history that has not really been taught.”
Cathrine Gonzalez, Patricia O’Shea and Kirah Whitney Coppage, three students in Allison’s class, will be presenting about the history of Virginia’s transatlantic slave trade, focusing on Fort Monroe.
Every student in Allison’s African American studies class completed a capstone project on Fort Monroe. Allison said he chose Fort Monroe as the subject because of its linear history, from the “20-and-some-odd negroes coming over in 1619 all the way to the contraband, the freedom of the slaves.”
Students visited Fort Monroe and worked with an archivist to complete their projects.
O’Shea, a junior at Granby, said she’s been able to learn more about local history, like how former slaves Frank Baker, Sheppard Mallory and James Townsend were received contraband, which led to Fort Monroe being the “Freedom’s Fortress.”
“Until last year, slavery was pretty much just barely even talked about or maybe at most one unit long, but for African American studies, it’s several units, and also has other details about before and after slavery,” she said.
Another one of Allison’s students, junior Aren De La Rosa, made a video focused on the arrival of the first Africans at Fort Monroe and the Angolan slave trade. The video will be featured on the UNESCO website.
“I feel like one of the biggest things I learned from the project is that there can be a lot of history that’s hidden,” she said. “I know a lot of people who have been to Fort Monroe including myself, who just had no idea about the rich history hidden in the port.”
De La Rosa said in past social studies classes she’s mostly learned about the U.S., so she is excited to hear students from other countries.
Other student presenters are from St. Andrew, Jamaica; Lagos, Nigeria; Panama City, Panama; and Coventry, England.
Phyllis Terrell, director of communications for Fort Monroe Authority, said this work is important because it might be one of the first times these students are interacting with international history.
“Teaching history of different cultures is pretty important to survive in this world,” she said. “Kudos to folks in Virginia for taking some first steps, ensuring that what we are doing is the right thing to do.”
Allison said he hopes collaborations like this continue into the future.
“I think it’s where education needs to go,” Allison said. “We’re working with the community, we’re working with museums, we’re working with the national parks, we’re working with UNESCO. To me it’s really refreshing, as an educator for 20 plus years, to be able to be a part of this and create this in my course curriculum.”
The conference, organized by the UN’s Outreach Programme and the Decade for People of African Descent, with support from the Fort Monroe Authority and the National Park Service, will run Thursday from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. It can be viewed at http://webtv.un.org/.