February 21, 2024
Page 11
BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2024
Black History on the Go
Continued from Front
website states. “He’s been a health
and physical education teacher,
a drug and alcohol counselor, a
student advocate, and integration
specialist and a mentor.”
Carline also donated his
$5,000 coaching award from
NBC Comcast to sending low-in-
come student athletes to sports
summer camps.
To start on his current endeav-
or, Carline began collecting items
to enhance teaching about Black
history while he was at Fort Van-
couver, and he encouraged other
classes to do the same.
“But they didn’t do anything,”
he said. Not one to be put off,
Carline decided to do it all him-
self and go from school to school
teaching about Black history,
bring with him what looks like a
truckload of posters, books, pho-
tographs, magazine and literature
on Black history.
“I’ve got stuff I collected over
the years, and borrowed stuff from
the library,” he said.
During the covid pandemic,
he wanted to do something while
stuck inside, so he took his exhib-
it first to Emmanuel Church and
then to Fort Vancouver High, and
from there, the idea took off.
“After that, and word getting
out, I got calls from schools,
so I turned it into a business,”
he said. “I also got a call from
the state about (sharing it with)
youth corrections.”
Carline hasn’t stopped in the
past several years, and through
a contract with Portland Public
Schools, he regularly takes his ex-
hibit to local schools. He also goes
to schools in the area, recently to
Woodburn High, as well as all
over the state.
“I went to Benson this week,
then on to Burns, then Grants
Pass, then for Women’s History
Month in March, I will go to Al-
bany,” he said.
The African American Mobile
Display, its website and Facebook
Dennis Carline
page by the same name are all a
family affair, Carline said.
“My son-in-law is a coder and
creates things that teachers can
use, and my brother and daugh-
ter helped with the Facebook
page,” he said. “And my other
daughter is a videographer and
does the video.”
The website contains a wealth
of information and links to other
sources on the Civil Rights strug-
gle, slavery and abolition, segre-
gation and Jim Crow. It also has
links to a wider range of topics,
including African, Asian and Eu-
ropean history, Latin American
history, and much more. It even
has all of Martin Luther King,
Jr.’s speeches. The Facebook page
is also full of informative links,
like a recent post, with photos, of
the history of Black Mardi Gras in
New Orleans.
Carline’s website also has
links to the Zinn Educational
Project, which “promotes and
supports the teaching of people’s
history in middle and high school
classrooms across the country,”
the Zinn website (zinneproject.
org) states. The Zinn project of-
fers free downloadable lessons
and articles.
Given the climate of repres-
sion of African studies by some,
Carline believes his work is more
important than ever.
“You can’t teach critical race
theory, but kids are anxious to
learn this, so (in his display) I put
in Civil Rights and how the Na-
tion of Islam did a lot of good, and
the Black Panthers did, too.
“And all those organizations
like the NAACP, they contribute
to the success of Black people to-
day, but people don’t know about
it,” he said. “They think Black
history is not important, that we’re
not important.”
Carline is exposing that nega-
tive propaganda, shining the light
of truth on the vitally important
role that Blacks played in the
founding of our country and con-
tinue to play today.
It’s a lesson that everyone
needs to learn, including white
kids. Carline said he presented his
exhibit for a school in the Clack-
amas School District, where stu-
dents are predominantly white,
and they were shocked.
“Some of those kids were in
tears and said they never knew
any of this stuff,” he said. “That’s
why I’m giving this information
to kids, so they can make bet-
ter decisions. Some people still
want to live in the ‘60s, but that
doesn’t work.”
Carline doesn’t just put up
a display, he talks to the kids,
shows them movies to involve
them in learning about African
American history.
“Another thing that really gets
them is that I bring a record play-
er, and play Marvin Gaye, Diana
Ross and MLK speeches, and then
answer any questions to enlighten
them about the true history of race
relations in America.
“Some are tough ques-
tions,” he said. “We’ve
changed some minds, and
some we don’t, but at least we
give them the opportunity.”