The Art Of Empowering Black Youth Through The Arts: The Wakanda Education Curriculum

Medum - January 09, 2024

There were two boys in the group who struggled with developing their stories for this workshop. I spent enough time with them to affect their approach and to help them create what spoke best to them. I had the same encouragement when I was their age at Haskell — and in other spaces where creativity and imagination was central to the activities. Dorothy Paige-Turner, Antar and I’s music teacher at Haskell — who is a Black educator, singer, and playwright instilled it in me to be that kind of professional, that kind of person.

Writing about Wakanda or about T’Challa, the lead character in “Black Panther”, provided these young people a clear pathway to opening up their minds and producing pieces of creative writing that could affect them for the rest of their lives. When it comes to arts in education, young people need opportunities to stimulate their thinking and to show them they have gifts and talents they can use to land them jobs and create careers.

The Art Of Empowering Black Youth Through The Arts: The Wakanda Education Curriculum