SPEAKER_00 0:23

It's important that before we teach our students about the slave trade, that we teach our students who the Africans were, how the Africans lived, and what the Africans contributed to America. Hi, my name is Miss Ayres. I am certified an elementary school teacher for 15 years here in the state of Virginia and a 20-year Navy war veteran. Welcome to my new classroom, Dr. King's class. I became an educational activist and started this podcast with just one mission, to add African contributions to the elementary social studies curriculum. In Dr. King's class, we infused African contributions during our students' Foundation of America lesson. When we introduce our students to the Greek culture and the Roman culture, in this class, we also introduce our students to the African culture, who the Africans were, how the Africans lived, and what the Africans contributed to America. I created this podcast because when I was in elementary school, my teacher infused African contributions into his lesson plan. And it made a difference in my life then because I decided to become an educator, and it made a difference in my life now as a public school teacher and now an educational activist. In 2004, after I completed 20 years in uniform, I returned to Virginia because I knew I was becoming a public school teacher. And as I was preparing for a social studies lesson, I was doing the research on the Greek culture and the Roman culture, and it was then that I realized African contributions had been omitted from the elementary social studies curriculum. I was disappointed because I know the importance of laying the foundation early in our students' elementary experience. During the foundation of our students' learning. So in 2020, when COVID closed down in-person learning in the public classroom, that was when I started preparing for a new type of classroom, Dr. King's class. And our mission is to petition the Board of Education, petition your local government official to add African contributions, to infuse African contributions into the elementary social studies curriculum. Because social studies is one curriculum that's routinely updated, depending on the needs of the parents and local community. Africa is such a superpower. I can understand why the world wants to claim all the contributions. I can understand why white America or European America want to take credit. We understand why European Europeans do not want to credit Africans' contributions. That was when miseducation laid its foundation and the power of miseducation. You ask any American, any American, whether black or white, some, who built the pyramids. And if their response is white people built the pyramids, then that is an example of miseducation in the public classroom. Because that's where it all starts. I was raised in the public schools, and I did not know any positive things came out of Africa for the slave trade. But also in school, I learned from my elementary school teacher, he balanced the curriculum by teaching me who the Africans were before they were forced into slavery. Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, a writer and a historian, he says, and I quote, the Greeks had frequent contact with chemists. They had frequent contact with the Europeans, the European civilization located on the Nile Valley River. These same scholars have declared that the eyewitness accounts is consistent when they describe the Egyptians as black skinned and woolly hair. And because of the miseducation, many Americans, both black and white, think that the Greek and the Roman culture developed outside of any contributions from the African civilization, and that's a lie. Shame on America for continuing to want to perpetuate this lie. It's time to put your pride aside and acknowledge the atrocities of the slave trade and how that laid the foundation. I understand how you want to erase history because you're ashamed of your ancestors. Many Americans are so ashamed of the atrocities that we're learning about the slave trade, that critical race theories, 44 states as we speak, are altering American history, trying to continue to whitewash education because it was based on racist principles. Listen, history, whether painful, represents what it represents what really happened, what really occurred. And telling the truth is crucial for building a solid foundation for our students. Our students are ready for the truth. First we lie, then they steal and omit. Now they want to erase African contributions altogether.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

History won't tell you that. The Greeks didn't just admire Eden, they studied under African Pythagoras, so-called father of geometry, spent 22 years in Egypt learning philosophy, geometry, and medicine. Alies, Greece's first philosopher, studied there for seven years. Stephen Plato, one of history's greatest thinkers, stayed in Egypt for 13 years, absorbing its ancient wisdom. And Hippocrates, so-called father of medicine, admitted that Emotep, an African multi-genius, was the real originator of medical knowledge. The famous Pythagorean theorem, Egypt had been using it to build pyramids 1,000 years before Pythagoras was even born. Plato himself said Egyptian education made students sharper and more humane. He even told his own students, if they wanted true wisdom, they had to go to Egypt.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

People ask me what race for the ancient Egyptians, and you heard me and Jonathan talking last time, uh saying that race is a socially constructed concept, it's not something we can really use. Um, but it's it's um it will use the term ethnicity, okay, fine, but let me put it this way: if you need to choose and you need to identify, you need to understand what it would be today. Why we need to do that, but that's interesting. Um, and I need to do it too. I think a lot of us need to understand how light the people were, how dark the people were, how they represented themselves. I would encourage all of you to look at the so-called mannequin of Chudokaman from his tomb and look at the dark skin color that's that's used for his own face, um, an understanding of ethnicity from the Egyptian side, certainly without all of the complications of chattel slavery from Africa and a much more um white versus black, literally understanding of power and economy and colonialism. Um but if I have to pick a race, whatever that is, or an ethnicity of the ancient Egyptians, I would call them people of color. And for an American audience, I would say that if they were in Alabama in 1955, they would have had to sit at the back of the bus.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

After you have shackled and enslaved people, branded, castrated, litched, burnt, and tortured them, you've called them three-fifths of a man, subspecies, an ape, a monkey, and a general inferior creation. How can we then admit that they are our teachers and the ones who gave us civilization? How would we admit that we descended from Greece and from Rome, and that Greece and Rome stole everything, everything they knew from Egypt? How to admit that? There's no room in a white supremacist psyche for black contributions to civilization or world progress. This reaches too far into the consciousness of the so-called objective white scholars of academia and their black skinned counterparts. This is like asking a Nazi to accept the Jewish origins of Nazism, and Hitler, if that were the case. They couldn't accept it if it were true any more than the white supremacists can accept the African origins of civilization, the African origins of Christianity, the African origins of science, the African origins of everything. Philosophy originated in Egypt. Philosophy originated in Egypt. Letters originated in Egypt. Everything started there.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

But lies have been exposed now, and so let's repair, let's do reparation in elementary social studies curriculum. Reparation is not always monetary. But the power of miseducation, if you believe that the Europeans built the pyramids in Africa, then you've been miseducated. And if you're ready to face our history, acknowledge the truth, and allow that truth to be taught to our children. What is the truth? Africa was a thriving civilization before the slave trade. And that knowledge, that truth must be taught in schools. We understand why America don't want to teach about Egypt, the Nile Valley civilization, after the government has shackled and enslaved Africans, call them three-fifths of a man. How can government then admit that the Africans are the original creators? The Africans are our teachers. They gave us civilization, and that truth must be taught in schools. These are hard truths, but even the Greeks acknowledge that Africans were the teachers and they've learned a lot through the African contributions. But America has been miseducated, not just black Americans, all Americans. The power of miseducation. If you think Cleopatra is European, you have been miseducated. She was an African from the culture to the geography. She was an intelligent woman, sophisticated, spoke multiple languages. I understand why other countries and European American want to take credit. Dr. Naeem Akbar says the government is so ashamed of the brutality during the slave trade, thus critical race theory. These fears and concerns have Americans taken their concerns to the school boards and state legislators, not to have to teach certain parts of American history. Having the power to miseducate is a crime, a crime against humanity. And our students are so aware as they see all these crimes being committed in their classrooms, and students are seeing the world fall apart. Government can't agree, hate and discourse across political lines, constant fighting. But when it comes to the truth in the classroom, our students must see parents, local communities come together for their future. We must lay the foundation in elementary school. Show our students black, white, young, old, male, female, Africa was a thriving civilization, and it must be taught in elementary school when we introduce our students to the Greeks and the Roman culture. Got a great idea. Let's use this the shame to propel change. Enough lies. We need courage. Instead of erasing the truth, let's teach our students that systemic racism was morally wrong. And together, our students, side by side in the classroom, can connect the dots together. They will learn that hate was not the driving force behind the slave trade. When we teach our students the truth, they learn that the slave trade wasn't a I hate black people campaign. Hate came later to justify. But my generation may not have the courage, but our students, we can end racism in this world starting in the classroom, one class at a time. The hate started in the classroom and it should end in the classroom. Our students are ready for the truth. And this is not a time to sit idle because our students are being lied to. So instead of removing books, let's try, let's try telling the truth by teaching our students that each culture had its classical period of greatness. The Greeks, the Romans, and the Africans,