Innovative Black History Month Activity at Westerville North HS

In recognition of Black History Month, Westerville North High School is infusing a school-wide activity in which significant African-American figures are introduced, discussed and voted upon by students.  Merging the spirit of the March Madness NCAA tournament brackets, the newly formed Big Ten divisions "Legends" and "Leaders," and the Electoral College process, WNHS has developed its own daily competition among historical African-American figures.

To begin with, 16 historical African-American figures were selected and divided into two divisions.  The "Legends" division contained those people who are no longer living while eight living icons were selected to be in the "Leaders" division.  Once the selections were made, each division was seeded 1-8.  The final seedings are:

LEGENDS
1. Martin Luther King, Jr.
2. Rosa Parks
3. Frederick Douglass
4. Thurgood Marshall
5. Malcolm X
6. Harriet Tubman
7. Jackie Robinson
8. George W. Carver

LEADERS
1. Jesse Jackson
2. Barack Obama
3. Colin Powell
4. Condoleezza Rice
5. Maya Angelou
6. Oprah Winfrey
7. Muhammad Ali
8. Michael Jordan

Each day, the students at Westerville North meet for several minutes in an Advisory period where this activity takes place.  Like the NCAA tournament, the #1 seed is paired of against the #8 seed and so on.  Students are given a brief biography of the accomplishment of each "contestant" and then discuss and vote within the classroom on the figure they believe have made the greatest historical impact.  Like the Electoral College concept, the icon that wins the most votes in the class receives the entire singular vote for that class.  After adding up the votes of all the advisories, the figure with the most votes moves on to the next round of competition.  Each day the competition rotates divisions until a champion is crowned at the end of the month.

Displayed on a large bulletin board at the entrance of the school is the bracket shown below along with the biographies of the icons pitted against each other for the day.  Those figures selected, their seed placement and the outcome selected by students are far less important than the daily discussions of historical figures along with their impact on our country, and the interest over the course of the month that stokes anticipation for coming matchups.  Many schools display posters or read famous African-American quotes during the month of February, but this activity fosters rich discussion over the course of an entire month that hopefully will introduce deserving people to students and help all students realize that there is no such thing as black history or white history, but a history of all peoples that are interwoven to tell the story of AMERICAN history.

As you can see from the bracket, there has already been several upsets!