Celebrating Black History Month 🎉
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Season 2: Episode 67 Description
Ten News Gets Extra: 🎉 It's Black History Month! ✊🏿 For every young Black activist doing big things today, there’s a groundbreaker who paved the way for them, so today we're sharing our top 5 current day movers and shakers, and their pioneering predecessors. 🎵 Learn about the song that generations of Black Americans have cherished most. ✔️ Fun Fact Check: which actor from "Black Panther" bought tickets for 600 kids to see the movie in their hometown? And, test your knowledge about our world's inventors in today's Trivia on the Ten. ✅
Sources
Teens Changing the World in 2021: PEOPLE Magazine's List | PEOPLE.com
Black Panther Party - Legacy | Britannica
Teens Changing the World in 2021: PEOPLE Magazine's List | PEOPLE.com
Black chemists you should know about (acs.org)
Isra Hirsi — THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF YOUTH VOICES
Beach Lady | History | Smithsonian Magazine
Martin Luther King, Jr. | NAACP
Lupita Nyong'o Paid for 1,200 Kids to See 'Black Panther' Because She's the Absolute Best | Glamour
Garrett Morgan - Inventions, Traffic Light & Gas Mask - Biography
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TRANSCRIPT:
Bethany Van Delft 0:03
Happy Black History Month, Ten'ers. This month we amplify the outstanding, amazing, and history-making accomplishments of black Americans of the past and the present. I'm Bethany Van Delft. It's Saturday, February 5th, and this is no ordinary episode of the Ten News. This is the Ten News Gets Extra.
Various Voices 0:25
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Bethany Van Delft 0:33
Black excellence, that's what we're talking about. For every young black activist doing big things today, there's a groundbreaker who paved the way for them. Here are five current movers and shakers and their pioneering predecessors. Number one, 7-year -old Nigel Murray, founder of Clothes for Kids is helping foster kids get new clothes, books, toys, and bags. Sound familiar? Yeah, it does, because in the 1960s, Fred Hampton, a leader in the Black Panther Party, started programs that provided free shoes, medical care, and free breakfast to kids across the nation. Number two is the 17-year-old Dacia Taylor, who created color-changing stitches that tell patients and doctors if a wound is infected. She invented the stitches using beet juice before they were shot over 100 years ago in the 1910s, a female black chemist named Alice ball developed medicine for leprosy, which was one of the scariest and most dangerous diseases of that time. That's incredible. Number three, Read Across America's Ambassador Marley Diaz is 16 and started the organization 1,000 Black Girl Books when she was only 10 years old. Her goal is to find books with black girls as the main character and so far, she's added 13,000 books to her database. Marley is spreading knowledge much like Bob Moses, a civil rights activist who created the Algebra Project in 1982 to promote math literacy in underserved communities. Number four, 18-year-old Isra Hirsi co-founded the Youth Climate Strike and led the student march to fight climate change in Washington DC. She votes for both climate justice and social justice. Before Isra was Marvine Betch, a black environmentalist who fought to preserve American beach on Amelia Island, a Florida beach that was a haven for many black families during the Jim Crow era. Number five, Mary Copani is a 14-year-old activist from Flint, Michigan. When she was eight, she wrote a letter to President Obama about the problems of the water supply in Flint. Her work has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to help kids and families in her hometown. Mark her down as one of my presidential hopefuls. Mary stands on the shoulders of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, one of the most visible leaders of the civil rights movement from 1955 until he was assassinated in 1968. His moving speeches and his dedication to equality and empathy resonates still today, and remind us how much more work we still have to do. Do you know of a black activist whose story we should hear? Let us know. Give us a call at 877-TEN-NEWS. And leave us a voicemail to let us know and we might have you join us on the show. That's 877 T E N N E W S. There is a song that generations of black Americans have cherished. Here's Ten News correspondent Pamela Kirkland to tell us more about this important song.
Pamela Kirkland 4:03
Lift Every Voice and Sing is a song that's been re-upped for a new generation. It might sound familiar, but you might not know some of the historical significance of it. Known as the black national anthem, the song actually started off as a poem. The poem was written by James Weldon Johnson, and then set to music by his brother, John Rosamond Johnson back in 1899, for a celebration of President Abraham Lincoln's birthday, and it was first performed by kids, a group of 500 young black children in Jacksonville, Florida. According to Johnson, after he and his brother wrote the song and moved to New York, they didn't really give it a second thought, but the kids kept performing the song and teaching it to other schools, and it spread all across the country. The lyrics were pasted into church hymnals in the choir started performing it. In 1919, it was adopted by the NAACP as the black national anthem. That's more than 10 years before the Star-Spangled Banner officially became America's national anthem. Now, a member of Congress hopes his bill will make the song America's national hymn. In an interview with the newspaper USA Today, Congressman Jim Clyburn said the change would tell black people, you aren't singing a separate national anthem. You're singing the country's national hymn, no matter how or where it is sung, the song was meant to honor the past of black Americans and inspire the future.
Bethany Van Delft 6:17
This song moves me. We sang it in school when I was your age, and I sure do hope we see Lift Every Voice become the national hymn. Thank you for sharing that Pamela. Maybe you already know that the superhero film Black Panther is one of the most successful movies of all time. But, did you know that Lupita Nyong'o who played Nicaea super spy and T'Challa's crush bought tickets for 600 kids to see the movie in Kisumu, Kenya, her hometown? Another reason Lupita is the queen. Just one more reason why Lupita is a queen. Alright, it's time for...
Various Voices 7:07
What, what, what's the big idea?
Bethany Van Delft 7:10
Trivia on the Ten. The first black man in Cleveland to own a car was Garrett Morgan. He was also an inventor. Can you guess which of these inventions is his? Was it a0 traffic lights b) crop rotation or c) the gas furnace? Did you guess it? The answer is A. Garrett Morgan was inspired to invent the traffic light after seeing a particularly bad car accident at an intersection. Without traffic lights getting around was downright dangerous. Garrett Morgan also invented a gas mask and use it himself to save two people injured in a natural gas explosion. Ah-mazing time's up. But before we go, here's a quick note for the grownups. Thanks for listening to the Ten News. Look out for new episodes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and extras on Saturdays. The Ten News is a coproduction of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts and is distributed by iHeartRadio. The Ten News creative team is appreciating and obeying traffic lights. And includes Tracey Crooks, Pete Musto, Ryan Willard, Adam Barnard, and Tessa Flannery. Pamela Kirkland contributed to this episode. Our production director is Jeremiah Tittle and our executive producers are Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan. I'm Bethany Van Delft and thanks for listening to the Ten News. Now, lift your voice and sing to earth and heaven ring. So much more coming for Black History Month. Stay tuned, Ten'ers!
