Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits
Grades 6-8
This lesson can be used in a unit on the Civil Rights Movement or as a part of a Character Education unit focusing on discrimination and stereotyping. It is a modified version of a lesson developed for an exhibition organized by the International Center for Photography in conjunction with the National Museum of African American History and Culture . The exhibition features works drawn exclusively from the collections of the National Portrait Gallery. Exhibition website: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/motto/index.html
Learning Standards
U.S. History 5–12 (from the National Center for History in the Schools)
- Era 9 Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)
Standard 4 The struggle for racial and gender equality and the extension of civil liberties
Language Arts K–12 (from the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association)
- Standard 2 Understanding the Human Experience
Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience. - Standard 4 Communication Skills
Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes. - Standard 8 Developing Research Skills
Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge. - Standard 12 Applying Language Skills
Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).
- Students will examine the images using a guided looking activity to make inferences about the people in the portraits.
- Students will learn about contributions of African Americans during the twentieth century.
Duration Two 45- to 60-minute class periods, plus final project
Materials
- Large portrait of teacher’s choice for demonstration in Part I, Step 2
- Copies of five portraits (in Reproducibles)
- Muhammad Ali, 1966, by Gordon Parks (click here )
- Romare Bearden, 1980, by Arthur Mones (click here )
- Lorraine Hansberry, 1960, by David Moses Attie (click here )
- Judith Jamison, 1976, by Max Waldman (click here )
- Leontyne Price, 1953, by Carl Van Vechten (click here )
Background Information
On August 16, 1843, abolitionist and clergyman Henry Highland Garnet spoke to a group of northern free blacks gathered to discuss the future prospects of black America. Frustrated by the lack of progress, he advocated action with these words:
Strike for your lives and liberties. . . . Let your motto be Resistance! Resistance! RESISTANCE! . . . What kind of resistance you . . . make you must decide by the circumstances that surround you.
In their beauty and power, the featured portraits resist the stereotypic depictions that fueled racism in America.
Directions
Part I Discussion of portraiture
- Ask the students to define the word “portrait” and lead them to a definition that includes the following: The representation of a person in a work of art, which is usually meant to capture essential or important qualities. Important things to consider when examining a portrait include: pose, facial expression, clothing, setting (objects and area surrounding the person in the portrait), activity of the person, and how (or if) these visual facts create a mood or intangible quality for the image.
- Using a portrait of your choice, do a “think aloud” for your students in which you address the aspects of a portrait outlined above.
- Divide the class into five groups. Give each group a copy of one of the five portraits provided in this lesson. Ask the groups to examine their assigned portraits and make at least three hypotheses about the subject. Have one person from each group report back to the class.
- Have the groups research the individual in the assigned portrait. How does the biographical information support or refute the hypotheses they made about the portrait subjects?
- Using the information gathered in their research the group will create a poster that includes the portrait and facts, quotes, short phrases, and descriptive words drawn from their interpretation of the portrait.
- Each group will make an oral presentation to the class about their portrait subject using the poster as a visual aid.
Information for the Teacher
About the Portraits
Muhammad Ali b. 1942
Few American athletes have possessed talents comparable to those of boxer Muhammad Ali; none with such abilities has equaled him for charisma and bravado. Born Cassius Clay, he first made national headlines after winning gold at the 1960 Olympics. Turning professional, he began his assault on the boxing ranks, attaining the heavyweight crown in 1964. But as powerful as he was in the ring, it was his words and actions outside the ring that made him a larger-than-life figure. His outrageous boasts—often in verse—won him a large following. But he became a controversial figure when he joined the Nation of Islam in 1964 and changed his name. His refusal to serve in Vietnam further angered many Americans and led boxing officials to strip him of his crown. Ali would reclaim the heavyweight crown, lose it, and regain it again before retiring in 1981.
Romare Bearden 1912–1988
While best known for his collages, Romare Bearden used a variety of media to express himself as an artist. In addition to paintings and drawings, he created murals, tapestries, and posters, and in several instances he composed music to accompany his works. A gregarious man with a passion for jazz, he described art-making as “a kind of divine play.” Bearden grew up in Harlem and in Pittsburgh, and studied with George Grosz at the Art Students League in New York City. Following service in an all-black regiment during World War II, he returned to New York, where he became immersed in a thriving art scene. Bearden’s work reflects many influences: the places he lived and traveled, African American history and literature, and religious traditions and community rituals that bound people together. In 1987 President Ronald Reagan awarded him the National Medal of Arts.
Lorraine Hansberry 1930–1965
Lorraine Hansberry never finished several early attempts at playwriting. In 1956, however, she began work on a drama about a black family’s attempt to buy a house in a white neighborhood. This time she completed the play, fired by memories of how a similar experience had scarred her own family. Titled A Raisin in the Sun, it opened on Broadway to glowing reviews in March 1959. The following month Hansberry became the first African American playwright to win the coveted New York Drama Critic's Circle Award. A longtime civil rights activist, Hansberry soon emerged as an outspoken supporter of the movement’s increasing militancy. Declaring that African Americans had “a great deal to be angry about,” she warned that chaos could result if the federal government failed to move decisively to combat racial injustice.
Judith Jamison b. 1944
This 1976 portrait shows thirty-two-year-old dancer Judith Jamison performing her signature role in Cry. The ballet—described as "a hymn to the sufferings and triumphant endurance of generations of black matriarchs"—made Jamison an international celebrity in the world of dance. It also marked a crowning moment in her partnership with Alvin Ailey, who had first recruited her to his dance company in 1965. About their collaboration, the New York Times dance critic raved, "Rarely have a choreographer and a dancer been in such accord." Jamison served as the principal dancer in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater until 1980, when she left to perform with Gregory Hines in the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies. In 1989, just prior to Ailey's untimely death, Jamison was appointed the artistic director of his company, a position she holds to this day.
Leontyne Price b. 1927
Soprano Leontyne Price was the first African American opera singer to achieve stardom at home and on the international stage. Following vocal studies at the Juilliard School, she earned glowing reviews in 1952 for her performance as Bess in a popular revival of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. She went on to star in NBC's 1955 production of Giuseppe Verdi's Tosca, becoming the first black singer to appear in an opera telecast. Her career steadily gained momentum with acclaimed performances in opera houses from San Francisco to Milan. In 1961, when she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore, Price received a thunderous, forty-two minute ovation. For years she remained one of the Met’s brightest stars and one of the opera world's most admired performers.
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