Connecting The Dots
Racism, Activism, & Creating a Life
by Storyteller Michael McCarty

African American Storyteller Michael McCarty tells his true story Connecting the Dots: Racism, Activism & Creating a Life.

Racism in Chicago ... the Black Panthers ...Activism and the institution ... Expulsion from High School .... Drugs .... Searching ... Journeys around the world ... Stories and people that shape us ....Ways and paths to self-discovery ... With humor and hope the storyteller "connects the dots" in his life.

Invite your students in to explore their responses to McCarty's challenges, dead-ends and the people and events that shaped his life’s journey.

Let Michael McCarty’s story inspire conversation among your students (and faculty) about the issues of racism, standing up for one’s beliefs, working for change in the world and in our lives and the power of stories to inspire and connect.

Complete text and audio download of this story come in a short version and a long version.

Connecting the Dots is an ideal discussion starter for college age, young adults and justice and peace groups. Lesson Plan provides questions and activities.

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Black History :
We All Have a Race:
Addressing Race and Racism

A lesson plan that helps students to understand the concept of race better, to distinguish between prejudice and racism, and to learn ways to stand up against racism and to act as allies with students of different races.

This is a basic beggining unit to consider race and racism with respect and discovery. Teacher guide and student activities.

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A White Girl Looks at Race:
Davey Crockett,
Us vs Them
The Dr. King March
3 Short Stories
by Storyteller Susan O'Halloran

A lesson plan that helps students to understand the concept of race better, to distinguish between prejudice and racism, and to learn ways to stand up again racism and to act as allies with students of different races.

In these stories, we are not asked to take sides or to vilify white people, but to explore how race  has been used in the Unites States to separate people. 

The themes of these true stories show how an individual can  struggle within a complex of racist stereotypes, get educated, and reach across the “color line.” 

This lesson plan offers an accessible way to talk  about issues related to race and racism, especially  when the people we love are the very ones with whom  we need to disagree if we are to create a just society. 

This is a basic beginning unit to consider race and racism with respect and discovery.  Teacher guide, audio downloads and student activities and handouts.

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From Flint Michigan to Your Front Door:
Tracing the Roots of Racism
by Storyteller La'Ron Williams

African American Storyteller La'Ron Williams tells about his experience growing up in Flint, Michigan.

where he felt nurtured by a supportive African-American community. Yet even at an early age, Williams knew there were threats to his safety when he saw on the front cover of Jet Magazine the picture of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy who had been killed by bigoted Whites in the South.

From that jarring moment onward, Williams describes the experience of growing up in parallel worlds: a Black world that loved and mentored him and a White world that, even in its most benign expression, assumed a "neutral status” that for African-Americans was neither neutral nor benign. Using examples from the media and from his own experiences in a town divided by racial tension, Williams creates a story that tells the truth about American racial hierarchy while also offering hope for all those eager to transcend its legacy. Full text of story, audio downloads and student activities included.

Use this story as a way to introduce topics related to race, to deepen your conversations about the distinctions between personal and institutional racism, to address race and unconscious bias in the media, or to provide another way to celebrate African-American Heritage Month in February.

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