Flint elementary school students honor Black icons through interactive wax museum – MLive.com

FLINT, MI – Nearly 70 students at a Flint elementary school took on the roles of notable figures in Black history this week for the school’s annual “Blacks in Wax Walking Museum.”
The event was held in the gymnasium at Doyle-Ryder Elementary School in Flint on Friday, March 7.
“The kids needed to know more about history,” sixth-grade teacher LaShaunda Warren said. “It’s where they come from.”
Fifth- and sixth-grade students at Doyle-Ryder have been dressing as historical figures for the event as part of a Black history project for the past six years, according to Warren, who has been teaching at Doyle-Ryder since 2015.
The wax museum gives students at the predominantly Black school the opportunity to see and learn about historical figures they can more closely relate to than others.
“They are able to, based on their interests, look at the story of Black figures, both past and present,” Principal Natoya Coleman said. “There’s just so many elements of learning for this activity. That makes it such a transformational experience for the children.”
To hear about each of the represented figures, families and younger students from the school would step on a button drawn on a piece of paper on the ground in front of whichever figure they wanted to learn about.
“Another thing I think is really important is the family involvement,” Coleman said. “The parents that are in our school really do support their children and show up to celebrate their academic success.”
Sixth-grader Jace Boston dressed as Sidney Poitier, an actor, director and activist who served as a trailblazer for Black Americans in the film industry, starring in acclaimed films like “Lilies of the Field” (1963) and “In the Heat of the Night” (1967), according to Boston.
To look like the often sharply dressed Poitier, Boston wore a suit for the event.
“He is an African American actor, and he was the first African American actor to win Best Actor,” Boston said regarding the Academy Award Poitier received for his performance in “Lilies of the Field.” “And he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom Medal award by Barack Obama in 2009.”
While he admitted he was a bit nervous for the event this year, Boston said he enjoyed it.
“I think it’s really good,” he said.
In addition to figures from the past, some students dressed as some more modern-day figures, including Flint native and professional boxer Claressa Shields.
The significance of Shields’ Flint origins was not lost on sixth-grader My’Angel Perry, who dressed as her for the event Friday.
“She got a world record, 16 out of zero, including two knockouts. She held four major world titles in boxing,” Perry said. “It feels great because most people are not from Flint.”
“I think that she’s a great boxer and that she should keep pushing.”
Perry has also watched “The Fire Inside,” a film about Shields’ life that was released in December.
“I think that it’s a great movie, and more people should watch it,” she said.
Other living figures represented at the event included Condoleezza Rice who served as the U.S. Secretary of State under former President George W. Bush. Rice was represented by sixth-grader Mahlaya Triplett.
“I just like to represent her, I guess,” Triplett said. “I learned that she was the first woman to serve as National Security Advisor, and she was the first African American Secretary of State. That’s pretty big.”
Triplett also reflected on the wax museum project, for which students had to research and write about the figure they were assigned.
“I think it’s really nice to do it because we learned a lot of great things about these amazing people,” she said.
Sixth-grader Amaryah William-Spencer represented another Black woman who made history in American politics, former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.
William-Spencer said she thinks the wax museum is “cool” and noted she likes it because it gives students the chance to apply what they learned during Black history month.
She shared some of her newfound knowledge about Harris during the event, including the fact that Harris went from being the district attorney of San Francisco, California to being the attorney general of the state of California in 2010.
In preparation for their Black history project and the event, students have been learning about Black history from the past two centuries, including its dark chapters like the torture and murder of Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old, by a white mob in Mississippi in 1955. The tragedy helped to fuel the civil rights movement.
“A lot of them cried because of the pictures that they saw in regards to Emmett Till,” Warren said. “It just made them feel like, ‘OK, I have to do better in school because people paved the way for me to be able to read books, to be able to sit in the classroom that’s integrated, to be able to use public restrooms that’s integrated.’”
Students also gave presentations on the historical figure they were assigned during class as part of the project, allowing their classmates to learn about them as well.
“Basically, what they’re reciting is something that they personally wrote, and in that process, they’re able to refine their ELA (English Language Arts) skills, their speaking skills. And then also learn information about historic Black figures,” Coleman said.
Each student drew a name out of a hat to decide who would represent each of the figures included in the event.
Before the wax museum project, students would decorate cereal boxes for the project, but Warren wanted to “bring it to life more,” so she, along with staff member Shari Burdt, began organizing the wax museum.
Other notable Black figures represented at the event included James Brown, Bessie Coleman, Simone Biles, Arthur Ashe, Muhammad Ali, Langston Hughes, Rosa Parks, Louis Armstrong, Michelle Obama, and Diana Ross.
“A lot of these individuals are no longer alive, so they’re bringing them to life,” Warren said.
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