Black History Month Concludes

Since I spent the last four weeks writing fake essays, maybe I should share my experiences with a Black History Month that took place when I was about 10 or 11.

This particular grade seemed to always devoted the entire month to Black History. Things were kicked off with long list of fill-in-the-blank questions. Some of these were easy but many were hard, like the one question about the North Pole. I asked my mom for help and we did our best, but I think I still did poorly on this.

The big event was that we were all suppose to pick one character, do a small report, and make a poster. This was all in preparation for our video report, all done on one day. We were to dress like the person we chose and do interviews as if we were that person.

I chose Frederick Douglass, mostly because my mom convinced me that he would be a good choice. When I told the teacher who I would be, one of my classmates was dismayed when he heard me. However, he was also allowed to be Frederick Douglass. I let the report sit for a few weeks because I'm lazy and like to wait till the last minute. When I finally sat down to do it, I had not read the book I got. I skimmed through the first chapter and wrote my first paragraph about that first chapter, which was basically about Frederick's childhood. My mom saw that paragraph and convinced me that wasn't the way to go. I eventually just went to the back of the book and wrote a report based on a list of dates and accomplishments. At that poin it was the best I could do.

On the day of the "interviews", we all had to change first. I only had to put on some sort of tie and whatever combo, but I went to the bathroom with the other boys as they changed because I wanted to put off this whole thing. When I returned I learned that my interview was towards the end. The interviews were split into four parts, and they couldn't decide if I would be in part three or part four. I was in the intro for both parts! In part one, I sat in the back next to the video camera. Of course, I would just have to start sneezing. They eventually had to move me away.

Finally my turn came. Sadly, as you can tell, my research was kind of lacking. I don't think I got a terrible grade, but I basically played Frederick Douglass as myself. Usually he isn't portrayed as a smiley guy. I also said "I forget" more times than I should have. In hindsight the other guy who did Frederick did a much better job since he played it seriously.

The tape was finished and was supposed to be passed from student to student. I'm sure you could see the problems this could lead to, so it may not be surprising that I never got a chance to see the tape myself. (Actually, we may not have even had a VHS VCR yet, but we had relatives who did.) It's probably for the best. I probably looked as silly as anyone who would have copied one of my silly essays and turned it in as their own.