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Instructor Leslie Jones, middle, poses with college students from Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty’s drama division college students in northern Virginia.
Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty
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Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty
Instructor Leslie Jones, middle, poses with college students from Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty’s drama division college students in northern Virginia.
Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty
After holding Zoom courses for a full yr and discussing with college students the racial reckoning that gripped America in 2020, drama trainer Leslie Jones was decided to make an enduring affect by the artwork she is aware of greatest — theater.
What started with a play about social justice at Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty in northern Virginia was a partnership with social research trainer Ra Alim Shabazz, who heads the Black Pupil Union. Collectively, they launched a venture on the intersection of artwork and civic engagement.
“Once I first began working right here at this faculty, we did not actually have a complete Black Historical past Month program in any respect. Actually, it was relegated to morning bulletins and trivia.” mentioned Shabazz. “My college students, they mentioned, ‘We must always do extra for Black Historical past Month, do not you assume?’ And I mentioned, ‘sure, we must always.’ That’s after I pledged my power to constructing one thing that we may all be pleased with.”
A decade into the initiative, college students carried out this week within the newest version of what is now an annual showcase honoring Black Historical past Month by poetry, dance and theater.
“It is a complete program that actually places the scholars on the middle of the celebration of the historical past and tradition of African-Individuals,” mentioned Shabazz.
Social research trainer Ra Alim Shabazz, middle, poses with Black Pupil Union college students at Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty in northern Virginia.
Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty
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Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty
Social research trainer Ra Alim Shabazz, middle, poses with Black Pupil Union college students at Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty in northern Virginia.
Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty
As a part of this system, a “black field enlightenment lecture sequence” showcased shows by friends together with Olympian John Carlos and musician Gregory “Sugar Bear” Elliott.
Jones says the discussions have been designed to show college students about points of Black historical past typically ignored in a standard classroom setting.
Jones and Shabazz’s efforts obtained a lift final faculty yr by a partnership with a city-wide initiative, the Alexandria Group Remembrance Challenge, to take 32 college students to Montgomery, Alabama to go to historic websites linked to America’s historical past with racial terror.
College students additionally mirrored on how that historical past pertains to their very own neighborhood. The go to impressed senior Yahney-Marie Sangare, 18, to jot down a play about two hate crimes that came about in Alexandria within the late nineteenth century.
“There’s this Lorraine Hansberry quote ‘Oh what I feel I need to inform this world,’ as in there’s a lot that you just want to specific,” mentioned Sangare, who’s been the showcase’s scholar playwright for the previous 4 years. “With artwork, you may take it a step additional with out simply saying it your self, however saying it by tens of characters and a whole plot line and story.”
Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty drama trainer Leslie Jones, left, speaks alongside social research trainer Ra Alim Shabazz
Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty
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Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty
Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty drama trainer Leslie Jones, left, speaks alongside social research trainer Ra Alim Shabazz
Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty
Her newest play explores how Alexandria’s neighborhood grapples with the aftermath of the lynchings of teenage boys, Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas — in 1897 and 1899, respectively. They’re the one two documented lynching instances to happen in Alexandria.
“One other key characteristic of this venture that I feel has been very significant is displaying college students how artwork and, particularly theater, may be an outlet for a few of these points and subjects.” mentioned KD Bectel, a senior who serves because the theater division’s stage supervisor.
Bectel says this system helps them have robust conversations about racism.
“An enormous concern that folks have for some of these things is simply how uncomfortable it’s. I’ve discovered that inside this venture there’s been a very good neighborhood to deal with a few of that discomfort and make it into one thing worthwhile and optimistic,” Bectel added.
Fellow senior Xander Miller co-created a soundtrack for an award-winning documentary made with different college students concerning the pilgrimage. The movie gained a social justice award from the Virginia Training Affiliation.
Alexandria Metropolis Excessive Faculty college students created a documentary about their journey to Montgomery, Ala. The movie gained a social justice award from the Virginia Training Affiliation.
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This system “undoubtedly did affect the best way that I strategy artwork and the best way I strategy music. I would like my artwork and my research sooner or later to mirror how a lot this modified me,” he mentioned. Miller says he now feels extra conscious of historic and present acts of racism.
Shabazz plans to subsequent take his college students on a “mini pilgrimage” to historic websites all through Virginia within the coming months.
The scholars are engaged, and Jones has excessive hopes for his or her “vivid future.”
“Folks don’t give them as a lot credit score as they need to and have to,” she mentioned. “I feel our nation goes to be in good palms.”
The radio and digital variations of this story have been edited by Olivia Hampton.
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