NYT Best-Selling Children’s Author Carole Boston Weatherford on Harriet Tubman, Jesse Owens, & Black Heroes

The Learning Curve Carole Boston Weatherford

Albert Cheng: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Learning Curve podcast. I’m one of your co-hosts this week, Albert Cheng. Co-hosting with me this week is Walter Blanks. Walter, what’s up?

Walter Blanks: Oh, just another day in paradise. Really excited to be here with you.

Albert Cheng: Another day in paradise. Also, new office.

Walter Blanks: Yeah, working over at EdChoice now as a policy director, so still in the school choice space.

Really excited to grow my wings a little bit in the policy world and be involved.

Albert Cheng: All right, [00:01:00] well, congrats on that new job. I’m actually broadcasting now officially as a faculty member affiliate with the Ohio State University, so…

Walter Blanks: I will have to say, it’s the Ohio State University, and you gotta put the hard emphasis on the “the” in there.

Albert Cheng: Oh, boy. All right. Well, excuse the faux pas- … and, uh, if that isn’t getting edited out, oh, well. Anyway, we got a great show. We’re gonna have Professor Carole Boston Weatherford on today, bestselling author of more than 80 children’s books, and she has a new one that has just come out called Black Hands: Builder of Our Nation.

So should be exciting episode and interview with her. But before I do that, Walter, let’s talk education news. So what caught your eye this week?

Walter Blanks: Yeah, so mine is from WUNC out in North Carolina, and it’s talking about some really fascinating numbers, eight statistics about North Carolina’s charter schools as the sector grows, and it’s a great article.

I’m not gonna hit every single point, but the [00:02:00] one that I found really fascinating is that roughly, you know, 59,000-plus are being reported with students being wait-listed for charter schools in the state. And so that just shows the demand for, you know, just some kind of alternative option that parents are looking for.

And then another interesting fact, and, and this gets talked about quite a bit in the charter school space, many of them, 96 charter schools have closed, and then 23 of those have relinquished their charter without even opening. And so I think there’s an opportunity here to really study these charter schools and figure out, okay, what’s working great, what’s not, how do we improve them and remain a viable options for students not just in North Carolina, but ultimately across the country.

And we’re seeing rapid enrollment, rapid growth in the charter sector across the country. And so charter schools aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, that’s for sure, and it’s important to continue to have those conversations so that ultimately students are thriving and parents are happy with their educational options for their children.

But it was a really fascinating read. [00:03:00]

Albert Cheng: Yeah, well, thanks for sharing that. And I’m struck by, you know, that figure reported that 59,000 students are wait-listed. And by the way, enrollment’s at 161,000, so we’re talking about, what is it, one-third or more than one-third, you know – Yeah … of, of the current size of the student enrollment in, in charter sector are on wait lists.

So thanks for sharing that article. It’s got some other fun statistics about the sector there. Well, you know, my article is from the 74, and it’s written by Chris Cerf, who I think many of you listeners know, former superintendents of New Jersey’s public school system, among other leadership roles and had.

His article… Now, Wolf, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this policy. This policy is kind of a new take on accountability. It’s called outcomes-based contracting. Does that ring a bell to you?

Walter Blanks: It does not. This is super fascinating to me.

Albert Cheng: Okay. Yeah. It’s new to me. I had no idea that people were seriously [00:04:00] entertaining this.

But essentially, one way to think about this is it’s, you know, we talk about accountability for teachers and schools and maybe even students with exit exams, but this is accountability in people that, you know, publishers, for instance, that provide learning materials. And so Chris Cerf is calling this accountability in contracting with these educational providers.

And so essentially, you know, the way things work now is, look, a school district wants a curriculum or a textbook, they buy it, they pay the money for it, the publishing company ships the materials, and the contract’s done, right? The materials are delivered and paid for. So the idea here is that the publishers actually are on the hook if student learning does not improve.

So I don’t know the specific ways all these things are organized, you know, to the T here, but essentially, you know, if a publishing company sells their materials, say, to a school district, the school district pays some, but they’re [00:05:00] not gonna pay the full price or there’s gonna be some recourse if the learning gains from using those resources aren’t there.

So fascinating idea. I mean, we don’t have the time to discuss all the potential advantages and concerns that there are to this, but I was just struck about this idea, and apparently there are some states, including Indiana, you know, speaking of yours, where you just got your job at Choice, Indiana is trying this out.

So something to definitely keep an eye on, I think.

Walter Blanks: Yeah, and I think too just with overall quality control of the, you know, specific curriculum, I think it’s gonna be interesting, uh, move forward because yeah, I mean, if students are not progressing when it comes to outcomes, you know, then what’s the point?

And I think up until this point there’s been a lot of kind of just like autopilot. This curriculum’s good, like we’ll buy it, we’ll use it, and everyone just assumes that it’s really good curriculum, but it may not be, and it may not be working for every student. And so I think that, you know, putting the publishers on the hook may be an interesting model moving forward.

But yeah, I have tons of questions about, you know- That’s- … [00:06:00] implementation, who’s tracking it, who says it’s a good curriculum or not. And so we’ll be definitely following this as it rolls out across the country.

Albert Cheng: Well, much more to be learned on that topic. So it’s nice shooting the breeze with you about some news.

Let’s stick around though. We’re gonna invite Professor Carol Boston Weatherford onto the show, so she’s coming up on the other side of the break.

 : It’s METCO

Albert Cheng: Carole Boston Weatherford is a retired professor of English at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina. A New York Times bestselling author, she has written more than 80 children’s books, including Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer-The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, which was the winner of the Caldecott Honor Book, the [00:07:00] Robert F.

Sibert Honor Book, and John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Awards. Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom was winner of an NAACP Image Award, Coretta Scott King Award, and Caldecott Honor Medal. In her verse novel, Kin: Rooted in Hope, and picture book, How Do You Spell Unfair?: Magnolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee, won Coretta Scott King Honors.

Birmingham 1963 won the Jefferson Cup and Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award. And Doll Test: Choosing Equality won the Carter G. Woodson Award from the National Council for the Social Studies. Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins and Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library won the North Carolina Award for Young People’s.

Weatherford is the winner of the Children’s Literature Legacy Award and the American Library Association and is the current Young People’s Poet Laureate. She earned a BA from American University, [00:08:00] an MA from the University of Baltimore, and an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Professor Weatherford, welcome to the show.

Carole Boston Weatherford: Thank you. I’m glad to be back.

Albert Cheng: Let’s maybe start with a background kind of question. You’re the New York Times bestselling author of over 80, I mean, eight-zero, children’s books exploring African American heroes and heroines. How did you first become interested in writing children’s literature?

And might you also offer a brief overview of some of the wider themes and key figures from Black history you write about?

Carole Boston Weatherford: Sure. I got into writing for children in the same way that many people do, by having children. I was already a writer. I was writing for adults, and I began to take my kids to story times at libraries and bookstores, and I began, of course, buying books for my kids because I was raised in a language-rich environment by two educators who surrounded me [00:09:00] with books.

And so I wanted to pass on that love of literacy with my kids. And so we, you know, we’re at library story times, and I began to see that the children’s books that were being shared then, that was in the early 1990s, late 1980s, were much different than the books that I had been exposed to as a child in that the books featured characters who looked like my children.

They featured more characters of color, more BIPOC characters, and I was delighted by the evolution of the children’s book industry at that time. And I did a little research and had found that the industry was in the, in the midst of what was then called a multicultural boom. We now call it diversity.

And it dawned on me that perhaps I could write for children. I was already writing for adults, writing poetry for adults, and I was writing, you know, journal- I was a journalist and a publicist. And I began to research the industry and how to write for children. When my kids were doing s- in story time, I’d, [00:10:00] I would go into the stacks and get books about how to write for children, and it just-

evolved from there. I got my first book contract in 1995, and I’ve been writing ever since. My mission as a children’s book author is to mine the past for family stories, fading traditions, and forgotten struggles that center African American resistance, resilience, rejoicing, remarkability, and remembrance.

And so within that realm, I’m able to look at the accomplishments of African American individuals like Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American Supreme Court justice, Paul Robeson, and many others, and also look at events, like the seminal events in the freedom struggle, like the sit-ins at the Woolworth’s lunch counter that took place in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960, like Tulsa Race Massacre in my book Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre.

I have remained committed to that mission, and I like to say I write books that affirm a sense of justice [00:11:00] and joy because I don’t- Hmm … think you can have one without the other.

Albert Cheng: Wonderful. Well, what are some of the joys about writing children’s literature, and what are some challenges? A- and you don’t just write, you know, in prose all the time.

I mean, many of your works are in poetry. So yeah, what are some joys and challenges?

Carole Boston Weatherford: Well, I love poetry. I, I fell in love with poetry myself as a child. And when I first started writing, the first poem I ever composed, which was in first grade, was a poem. I, I, I don’t say I wrote it because I dictated it to my mom.

I couldn’t spell all the words. But I loved poetry. I believe that poetry is … It really is, you know, the language and part of the music of early childhood. Poetry, I think, tickles the tongue and trains the ear to ultimately trains the ear to listen and gets kids ready to read. So it’s heartening for me that I’m writing something that can contribute to their development as readers and as perhaps their lifelong [00:12:00] love of reading.

At the same time, it’s entertaining for me to write poetry. I still read poetry. Now I read, you know, I read not only children’s poetry, but I read poetry that’s intended for adult audiences. I don’t condescend to kids when I write. My poetry for kids often deals with tough topics. It’s just as likely to deal with tough topics as it is to deal with, you know, a group of boys playing in a neighborhood on a summer afternoon.

I don’t believe that kids are too tender for tough topics, but I do try to present those topics in a kid-friendly manner, in a manner that leaves room for hope, and that will spark conversations between children and adults. Another heartening part of writing children’s books for me, particularly nonfiction children’s books about hidden history, is that although my intended audience is young people, I have found that many adults, teachers and parents, are not [00:13:00] aware of the history either.

So my books are introducing some of the hidden history to adults as well. And thus my books do double duty, not only enlightening kids, but also educating adults, and particularly teachers who will go on to teach generations of children. So it’s, you know, kind of a domino effect

Albert Cheng: Well, I, I, you know, I appreciate that.

I think that point, you know, doesn’t get enough attention, you know, that great children’s literature actually teaches the adults a lot, and I can say that from my own personal experience too. So, you know, glad you have the adults in mind as well.

Carole Boston Weatherford: Yeah. Um- And ultimately, I want my books to cultivate empathy- Mm

among the children. I mean, if it can cultivate empathy among adults too, that’s great. It’s never too late to learn something new. But I really want my books to cultivate empathy and to foster humanity.

Albert Cheng: Well, I have a few questions about Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. In it, you write, quote, “On a summer, Harriet gazes at the [00:14:00] sky and talks with God.

‘I am your child, Lord, yet Master owns me, drives me like a mule. Now he means to sell me south in chains to work cotton, rice, indigo, or sugarcane, never to see my family again.’ God speaks in a whip-poor-will’s song.” All right, well, first of all, could you just maybe offer a brief overview of the life of Harriet Tubman?

And then I, I guess I’m intrigued by, you know, you chose Moses to title it, and, and the quote I just read also maybe suggests that religion played a role in her story. So tell us about Harriet Tubman, and what was the role of religion?

Carole Boston Weatherford: Well, Harriet Tubman was born enslaved in Dorchester County, Maryland, which coincidentally is the same county where my father’s father was born.

Hmm. She fled enslavement in 1849 and went on to become a legendary conductor, perhaps the most legendary conductor on the Underground Railroad. She led perhaps three dozen people to freedom. [00:15:00] Many of those were her family members. She went back and forth to Maryland several times to lead people to freedom in Philadelphia and farther north to New York and Upstate New York, and even to Canada.

During the Civil War, she was a spy for the Union Army. She eventually settled in Auburn, New York and fought for women’s voting rights alongside other famous suffragists, and she managed a brickyard, grew crops, and opened the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, where she cared for elderly and poor African Americans.

So she dedicated herself to community service throughout her entire life until her death in 1913. Harriet Tubman believed that she could talk to God as friend to friend. She was a, a woman of great faith, thus I structure Moses as… Well, first of all, she was not given the moniker Moses by me. She was referred to as Moses during her own lifetime because she led so many people to freedom [00:16:00] on the Underground Railroad.

So her story was equated with the Biblical exodus story of the Jews being led to freedom. So she had this moniker, Moses, and as I said, she believed that she could talk to God as friend to friend. So the book Moses unfolds as a poem that is written in three voices. Hmm. God’s voice, Harriet’s voice, and the narrator’s voice.

And then there’s even a fourth voice which is unspoken, but the narrator makes note of that voice, and it’s the voice of nature. So nature plays a very prominent role in the text, which focuses on Harriet’s first escape, her first successful escape. She did try to escape earlier, prior to 1849, with her brothers, but was unsuccessful.

Her second escape, and which was successful, she escaped alone to Philadelphia, and it was in Philadelphia that she experienced the spiritual reckoning that led her to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Albert Cheng: Well, speaking of her [00:17:00] journey to freedom, I’d like to hear you speak about that a little bit.

But in particular, I mean, you use poetry and images from nature, as you’ve just alluded to, to really draw young people into that journey. And so I’m gonna ask you to discuss it in a moment, but I do wanna read for our listeners a snippet from it. So this is from Moses. “Quote, running through the swamp, she hears the frog croaking and her own heart pounding.”

“Lord, I can’t make it alone.” In the moon’s reflection on the creek, she sees God’s face. So tell us about your use of poetry and imagery to really draw people into this, this story

Carole Boston Weatherford: Well, I think poetry is extremely powerful, not just to entertain, as I mentioned earlier, but also to evoke emotions and to draw readers in.

So poetry is really my first literary language, and so I turn to poetry again and again to tell stories that, you know, others might not [00:18:00] think would lend themselves to poetry. But because Harriet’s story parallels the Biblical Exodus story, and so much of the Bible is poetic, and there are even, you know, poetic chapters of the Bible, I, again, turn to poetry to tell her story.

And of course, the passage that you read mentioned the frogs croaking and the moon’s reflection on the water, and so nature is the way that Harriet experiences God when she is making her escape, and nature, these signs and messages from, images from nature remind her that God is always with her along every step of that journey.

Albert Cheng: Well, you know, at the end of that book, Moses, you write, quote, “And Harriet heeds God’s call, goes south again and again, keeps her bands of runaways moving. ‘It wasn’t me. It was the Lord. I always trust him to lead me, and he always does.'” End quote. The last question here before I turn it over to [00:19:00] Walter, what would you say is Harriet Tubman’s larger legacy as a pivotal figure in American history?

What is it that you want young people and all, I mean, young and old alike to take from her?

Carole Boston Weatherford: Well, first and foremost, Harriet is a freedom fighter, was a freedom fighter, and what she did was almost larger than life. And I think that as in the American story, we need legends, and she’s one of them. And what I would say to young people who hear Harriet’s story is, “Look at what she did without benefit of money, without benefit of knowing how to read and write.”

All she had to rely on were her wits and folklore that her dad had passed down to her about, you know, how to read the stars, and how to tell whether you’re going north or south by which side of a tree has moss on it, and, you know, how to make cures from natural plants that you find in the wild. So young people should be [00:20:00] empowered by her story, because they have so much more going for them than she had to work with at that time.

But look what she did, you know? She freed other people, and she, she gave of herself, and I think you’re never too young, you’re never too poor to have something to give to others, and you can be a leader in your own realm.

Walter Blanks: Hey, Karen, Walter Blanks here, and l- first off, just let me say that this is absolutely incredible.

I’m getting ready to, you know, do a, a massive order on, on a lot of these books for myself and for my son. Because all this is just, like, super fascinating, and being able to preserve such a rich history is very, very important to me. And so kind of transitioning a little bit, I’m gonna read this quote. It says, “Go from cotton fields to city sidewalks, from sickly child to keen competitor, from second-class citizens to first-place finish.”

You write that in Jesse Owens: Fastest Man Alive. “Go, [00:21:00] Jesse, go, trounce Jim Crow. Run as fast as your feet can fly.” Can you give us, like, a brief overview of the life of the Olympian Jesse Owens and how you chose to write about him?

Carole Boston Weatherford: Jesse Owens was born in 1913 in Alabama, and his family was part of the Great Migration, and he wound up in Ohio, where he went to school and eventually became a track star, first in high school and then at Ohio State University.

He went on to global fame at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which Hitler had hoped would be a show of German might. And Jesse Owens won gold medals at that Olympics, blew in the face of rising Nazism. And Nazism, you know, was, was on the rise, but it was kind of out of view. Nevertheless, his success at those Olympics, his victories really were a slap in H- in Hitler’s face.

Hitler would not salute him After his historic track career, [00:22:00] Owens did not receive the lucrative endorsements offered to white athletes. At one time, he even raced a racehorse for money. So those were the kind of opportunities that he was given. But he eventually traveled the world as an international goodwill ambassador for the US government, served as a director for Boys’ Clubs, and advocated for youth sports programs.

He also was a businessman. He ran a public relations firm and became a motivational speaker before he passed away in 1980. So Jesse Owens is another hero, someone whose fame, whose accomplishments have, you know, somewhat been forgotten. What I try to do is bring people from the past and remind young readers or teach young readers about some of the figures from the pantheon of African American history and American history, and Jesse Owens certainly fits the bill.

Walter Blanks: Yeah, and I totally agree. So I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, [00:23:00] and every opportunity that I had to do a book report or some kind of project, it was always built around Jesse Owens. And then my senior year of high school, our track team made the national qualifications. And so of course, the national competition is held at Ohio State’s track and field stadium, which is, you know, also named after Jesse Owens, which I thought that was just, like, the coolest thing for me to be able to run there.

And so-

Carole Boston Weatherford: Did you know that his name was not really Jesse? Did you know that?

Walter Blanks: No.

Carole Boston Weatherford: His name, his birth name is J period C period. But when he got to Ohio with his Southern accent and, and his teacher asked what his name was, he probably said, “J.C.” And she wrote Jesse down.

Walter Blanks: Ah. Wow.

Carole Boston Weatherford: So that’s how he became Jesse Owens.

Walter Blanks: Wow, that is, that’s incredible. And so kind of on that same vein, you, you mentioned the complexity of the Olympics in 1936 with, you know, Hitler’s belief and plan to really show that strength [00:24:00] from that side of the world. In this book, you also wrote, “Hitler does not want your kind here, does not believe you belong.

Prove him wrong.” And kind of with that kind of in the background, could you discuss how the difficulty of conveying what was really going on that time of racism and language that younger people, particularly today, would really be able to comprehend and understand? Like, what was your approach for that?

Carole Boston Weatherford: Well, first of all, the book is written in second person, which you may have noticed from Walter’s reading from the book. The word you is used throughout. So Jesse’s not telling his story. A third person narrator, you know, is not telling the story. But what second person does is it puts the reader on the boat with Jesse Owens when he’s going to, you know, traveling from the US to Europe.

It puts them on the field, on that track field with Jesse when he’s running and when he’s passing the baton, when he’s crossing the finish line. It puts them, you know, on the streets with Jesse when he receives adoration from [00:25:00] local youth, you know, who fawn over him. So that’s one technique I use. I put the reader in the person of Jesse Owens so they can kinda see what it felt like to have to navigate this.

Well, he not only had to navigate, in his lifetime, not only had to navigate the beginning of Nazism in Germany, but of course he, there was the color line right in the United States that he was born under in Alabama. And then when he came back, the kinds of opportunities that he deserved were not afforded to him because of the color of his skin.

The kind of opportunities he deserved as an quadruple gold medal winner. A lot to navigate for Jesse Owens

Walter Blanks: And on that note too, with the four gold medals, you write, “You spring forward, striding in perfect rhythm, keeping your pace with the other five, pumping faster and faster, crossing the finish line in just over 10 seconds.

Record time. You won the race [00:26:00] and untold hearts.” And you mentioned, you know, kind of in that last question just how you, you really try to put the reader right there with him in those moments. How did you do that in such a, a vivid way when it comes to Jesse, you know, breaking records, and ultimately his legacy as arguably one of the greatest athletes in track and field?

Carole Boston Weatherford: Yeah, you know, he had … Not only was he the fastest man alive, but he carried such a huge burden. He ran faster than anybody else, but had the weight of, when you’re in the Olympics, you got the weight of the entire country on your shoulders. Yeah. You know, the country that you represent. But he also had the weight of racism in his own country and the weight of Aryanism, Nazism on his shoulders when he was there.

And I think that, again, using second person helps young people to feel that weight, and also to feel the speed and the grace with which he navigated all that and prevailed as the victor. So that was [00:27:00] actually my first time using second person. That’s the first book I, I had used second person, and I’ve done it in a few others since then.

Most notably You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen, which is a verse novel, so not longer than Jesse Owens: Fastest Man Alive. But that was where I kinda taught myself how to write in second person.

Walter Blanks: Yeah, I think that’s just so, so fascinating. And I wanna switch gears a little bit here to your most recent book, Black Hands: Builders of Our Nation.

In that book, y- you write, “It celebrates the countless contributions of African Americans, from building the White House, birthing jazz, and landing a man on the moon. Black excellence has too often been overlooked.” I really agree with that sentiment through and through. But could you provide or offer a brief overview of your book and explore, you know, a few of the, the major Black figures and events you reference across American history?

Carole Boston Weatherford: Sure. I think more than any other book that I’ve written, this book [00:28:00] really encapsulates my, you know, entire mission, and perhaps even my entire oeuvre as a children’s book author, because I touch on some of the same themes that I have in other books, but it spans, of course, 250 years of American history.

And so I didn’t want the 250th anniversary of our independence to go by without acknowledging African American contributions to that history, and just to underscore that African American history is American history. This is an American story. So some of the people who were in the book include, there’s a Harriet Tubman figure.

There’s someone who served in the US Colored Troops, and of course, 200,000 African Americans served in the US Colored Troops. There are people who are enslaved or sharecroppers who are working the land. There are people who laid tracks for railroads and created inventions that advanced [00:29:00] industry. There’s Bessie Smith, who was a blues singer.

There are nameless blues guitarists, and there’s a jazz musician. There’s Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Renaissance writer, as well as her contemporary, Langston Hughes. There’s Augusta Savage, who is a sculptor, Black nurses. There is Mae Jemison. Ketanji Brown Jackson is in the book. I wanted to make sure that there were some contemporary women.

And there are African American suffragists. There’s Florence Griffith Joyner. Jesse Owens is in here. Looks like Venus Williams or Serena. I’m not sure which one. The illustrator, you know, got to tell part of the story as well through the illustrations, because I don’t name people in the text, but the illustrator had leeway to choose people to depict the history that I had written about.

And then there’s Martin Luther King, of course, is in here, Thurgood Marshall, Shirley Chisholm, and then there’s a little boy who depicts the present and the future. And so it tries to [00:30:00] be as inclusive as possible of figures within African American history without naming everybody or showing everybody because, hey, it’s a fiction book.

It’s not that long.

Walter Blanks: Yeah. Right.

Carole Boston Weatherford: It’s not an encyclo- it’s not an encyclopedia. It is a tribute.

Walter Blanks: And I think that’s just such a great way to really bring that, all that history into the present, right? Because a lot of students, including myself, or adults, that history gets lost pretty quickly as generations go by, and so being able to preserve that is really important.

And so in this book, also, you write, “Black hands penned literary testaments that have stood the test of time.” Just briefly, can you talk about the Harlem Renaissance in your own prolific career, using the printed word to educate young Americans about Black literary and historical excellence?

Carole Boston Weatherford: Well, the Harlem Renaissance I think was when Black creatives really began to come into our own and to write for [00:31:00] ourselves, to write about ourselves in our own vernacular, and to celebrate our Blackness and our, and our Africanness.

There was still the white gaze at that time, a, a concern about the white gaze, but Black writers began to realize at that time that we’re writing for ourselves, you know, so it doesn’t matter. The white gaze doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t matter. At least it didn’t matter as much as it had prior to that. So I was really influenced by writers of the Harlem Renaissance because I had to study them in school.

Langston Hughes was the first Black poet whose poetry I was introduced to. And that was in elementary school. I can remember having to memorize the poem I, Too. And then in middle school I was introduced to the poetry of Countee Cullen, and I really was just captivated by his command of the English language and of poetic forms.

And one poem that resonated me was Incident. That was set in Baltimore, where I grew up, and it [00:32:00] was about a visit that the narrator had taken to Baltimore when he was, I think, eight years old or 10 years old. And during the visit, the little Black boy who’s narrating the poem saw a white boy who was his same age, and rather than the white boy speaking to him, the white boy stuck out his tongue and called the little Black boy the N-word.

And the poem ends with the, you know, that’s all that the Black boy remembered of that whole trip. So it shows how the negative experiences stick with us, how being called out of your name can be so hurtful, and we’re still discussing the N-word to this day, you know? Who can use it? Who can’t use it? Should anyone use it?

But that poem really resonated with me when I was in eighth grade, and it really did empower me to use my writing to uplift and to document African American history and culture.

Walter Blanks: So Karen, we’ve talked a lot about all of the books that you’ve written and just the impact that it’s really [00:33:00] having, you know, in our country.

We’d love for you to read a couple passages here as we wrap up this interview.

Carole Boston Weatherford: Okay. I’m going to be reading from Black Hands: Builders of a Nation. And if any educators are listening, or parents, I want them to know that the book is really made to be interactive. And so one voice I intend… This is, this is not written in the book, this is just the author talking to you.

One voice is supposed to say Black hands, and the other voice reads everything else. So whenever Black hands comes up, I want you to imagine a different voice. And I may try to switch up my voice a little bit Black hands scored victories and shattered records, passing the baton on down. Black hands clenched fist, claiming power and pride.

Black hands went up to say that we matter. Black hands cast ballots electing legislators, mayors, governors, and presidents. Black hands pounded gavels to lay down the law. Black hands point the [00:34:00] way for more to follow. Black hands uplift the young who own tomorrow. Black hands hold strong through the struggle, prodding this land to live up to its promise, liberty and justice for all.

Albert Cheng: Well, wonderful, Carol. Thanks so much for sharing your work with us and discussing, you know, all the literature that you’ve written for us. Um, this was really, uh, a privilege to have you here, so thanks for your time.

Carole Boston Weatherford: Thank you, Albert and Walter.

 : It’s been a long-

Albert Cheng: Well, Walter, I really enjoyed that interview. I just feel so encouraged. I mean, Professor Weatherford, you know, her work to celebrate and elevate particularly African American voices in her case, I think it just helps tell the story of our country and, you know, our shared humanity and [00:35:00] all the things that kind of tie us together.

So really appreciate that.

Walter Blanks: Yeah, I’ve learned s- so much during this conversation, and I definitely have to go and brush up on my history because there were some things in there that I had no idea about. So really enjoyed this conversation.

Albert Cheng: Well, thanks, Walter, for co-hosting this week.

Walter Blanks: Of course. Glad to be here.

Thank you so much.

Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah. Well, come back soon. And then for everybody else, let me leave you with the tweet of the week before I ask you to come back soon. Tweet of the week this week is from Matt Barnum at The 74, or at least it’s an article he wrote for The 74, “How a yearslong rise in teacher turnover reshaped American classrooms”.

A lot of fascinating data about teacher turnover since the pandemic. So take a look at that. And then, as I said, I’m gonna ask you listeners to check us out next week and visit us again because for next week on The Learning Curve, we’re gonna have the former US Secretary of Education for President Barack Obama, Arne Duncan.

So it should be a [00:36:00] fun and exciting episode. We’re glad to have Secretary Duncan join us for The Learning Curve. So come back soon, and we will see you then.