Page 16 The Skanner January 13, 2016
Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Introducing School Children to ‘Friends of Dr. Martin Luther King’
Retired educator’s books for middle-school readers feature key players in Civil Rights Movement
By Jazelle Hunt
NNPA Washington
Correspondent
WASHINGTON – Over
the course of a 32-year
teaching career, Jac-
queline James noticed a
glaring problem: Black
history was slowly but
surely being ignored in
the schools where she
worked. When it was
outright dropped from
her required curricula,
she got creative, using
Black history calendar
factoids for penmanship
lessons.
“Now, Black history is
watered down to them
teaching about [Martin
Luther King Jr.] in Janu-
ary,” says James, adding
that teachers today are
under so much pressure,
they don’t have time to
truly teach.
“Even now…I really
think children need to
know who helped him.
Because they think Mar-
tin Luther King did ev-
erything from free the
slaves to help Lebron
James. It’s crazy.”
Now retired, she’s on
a quest to re-educate the
nation’s Black children.
In 2009, she founded JAX
Publications to write,
self-publish, and mar-
ket a children’s histori-
cal non-fiction series of
books, called Friends of
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The sepia-toned hard-
covers feature key play-
ers in the Civil Rights
Movement who support-
ed and worked with Dr.
King. They are written at
a middle school level, and
each book has accompa-
nying lesson plans and
enrichment activities for
teachers. James’ lesson
plans are also in line with
the Department of Edu-
cation’s Common Core
educational standards,
which have been adopted
by almost every state.
But more important-
ly, the project allows the
self professed “histori-
cal-accuracy fanatic” to
get up-close and person-
al with the figures she so
admires. Take C. T. Vivi-
an, the subject of the first
book in the series, for
example.
“
man
[Shuttlesworth]
did eight-nine years be-
fore that. Just talking to
him—” she says, express-
ing how excited she was
to get to know him. “And
then the next year he was
saying, ‘You know I’ve
got a brain tumor, right?’
And I said, ‘What do you
mean, brain tumor?”
And he goes, “Well that’s
from all those White
people beating up on my
head for all those years.’”
A few months after
that conversation, Shut-
tlesworth began having
strokes. And a few years
after that, his wife called
to ask James to rush-de-
liver his book in the se-
ries. A few hours after
reading the un-illustrat-
ed, unpublished man-
I remember hearing Rosa
Parks’ name, and not riding
the bus, but I was nine then.
And I vaguely remember
the dogs on those children
in Birmingham. But every-
thing else I found out be-
cause of my own nosy self.
“When I was 17…I
saw this man standing,
talking to this White rac-
ist sheriff. He wouldn’t
stop talking, and the
[sheriff ] hit him and
knocked him down. And
then he got right back up
and kept talking. They
picked him up and took
him to jail,” she remem-
bers. “Then I saw the
same scene years later on
[PBS documentary] ‘Eyes
on the Prize’, and I said,
‘That’s the same man
from those years ago!’”
Forty years after that,
James was a guest at an
event to commemorate
the 40th anniversary of
the Selma-to-Montgom-
ery, Ala. march and Rev.
Vivian was also in atten-
dance.
“I went and introduced
myself, saying, ‘You don’t
know me but I’ve known
you for years. I’m glad to
meet you now,’” she says.
“We shook hands and
talked, and I said, ‘Some-
body needs to write a
book about you….’ He
said, ‘Well, here’s my
number.’”
Since then, she’s be-
come acquainted with
other civil rights lumi-
naries such as Dorothy
Cotton, Rev. Fred Shut-
tlesworth, and many
more (even becoming
good friends with the
latter’s daughter, Ruby
Shuttlesworth Bester).
“You only hear about
Martin Luther King in
Birmingham, you don’t
know about what this
uscript, Shuttlesworth
died at home.
“They had a chance
to read it together and
that just meant so much
to me,” James says. “He
couldn’t speak by then,
but [his wife] said she
could tell he was really
pleased.”
James says that if she
hadn’t been the kind of
voracious reader who
has read the newspaper
cover-to-cover
since
grade school, she might
have never known about
these key figures.
In fact, when she first
met Shuttlesworth at an
awards ceremony, she
had no knowledge of who
he was or the contribu-
tions he had made until
he gave his keynote ad-
dress.
Today, the Friends of
Martin Luther King, Jr.
series consists of 28 ti-
tles, including A. Philip
Randolph, Bayard Rust-
in, Dorothy Height, and
more. Her books can
be found in Georgia’s
DeKalb County library
system; in a few schools
in Michigan, DeKalb
County, Atlanta, and
Durham, N.C. and can
also be purchased di-
rectly from her website,
w w w.jaxpublications.
com. In addition to add-
ing to the series, she’s
also seeking financial
partners to launch a
children’s magazine, and
dipping her toes in pub-
lishing other like-mind-
ed authors’ works.