African-American Hero Memory Game

 

            Today's snack: Since we're talking about heroes, let's make a HERO sandwich. Take a hoagie bun or slice a small loaf of Italian bread lengthwise. Put a "bed" of shredded or torn-up lettuce on the bottom. Line with at least two types of sandwich meat: ham, turkey, prosciutto, pepperoni, salami, whatever you like. Add slices of cheese: American, provolone, Swiss, cheddar, or whatever. Top with a few roasted peppers, sliced onion, chopped onion, chopped pickle, a few jalapenos - and with a dash of vinegar and a dribble of olive oil. What makes this a HERO sandwich is that your MOUTH has to open HEROICALLY big to eat it!

 

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 Have fun and mark the accomplishments of African-Americans with this simple game. Here are photos and vignettes about 10 famous black Americans. Print out two copies for each student, on cardstock if it's possible, and then cut each face into equal-sized squares. If you're using paper, then tape the pictures onto cardstock squares so that the photos aren't the least bit visible from the back. Cut them apart into individual squares the same size - two for each hero.

 

            Shuffle these 20 cards so that they're not next to each other. Lay them out in four rows, five cards in each row, face down, and play a little game of "Memory." You turn one face over, try to remember where the matching face is, and turn over one other card. If it matches, remove them from the game and keep both. Keep going until you miss. If the second card you turn over doesn't match, it's the other person's turn.

 

            Whoever has the most matches wins the game. Which is what we all hope African-Americans do in their continuing quest for equality and liberty: WIN!

 

You can add more heroes to the game. Google for images of these heroes: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, Louis Armstrong, Crispus Attucks, James Baldwin, Shirley Chisholm, Frederick Douglass, Dr. Charles R. Drew, Mae C. Jemison, Scott Joplin, Barbara Jordan, Thurgood Marshall, Jesse Owens, Dred Scott, Sojourner Truth and Ella Fitzgerald . . . and on and on and on.

 

Students can learn more about these and other famous black Americans, in sources such as this listing in the African American Web Connection, www.aawc.com/paa.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

W.E.B. DuBois

1868-1963

Writer, historian

Founded the National Association

for the Advancement of

Colored People (NAACP)

First black with a Harvard Ph.D.

 

 

 

 

Harriet Tubman

1820-1913

Helped free hundreds of slaves

through the "Underground Railway"

 

 

 

 

 

Booker T. Washington

Orator, professor, writer

Believed education was the road

to racial equality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marian Anderson

1897-1993

Opera Star

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Ben Carson

1951-

Neurosurgeon

Separated Siamese twins

20 honorary doctorates

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toni Morrison

1931-

Author, "The Bluest Eye," "Beloved"

Won the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarence Thomas

1948-

Lawyer

Justice, U.S. Supreme Court

 

 

 

 

 

Oprah Winfrey

1954-

Talk show hostess, actress, producer,

magazine publisher

World's most influential woman

World's only black billionaire

 

 

 

 

 

 

George Washington Carver

1865(?) - 1943

Agricultural chemist and inventor

Amazing range of applications for

peanuts, adhesives, dyes

 

 

 

 

Rosa Parks

Civil rights activist

Refused to give up bus seat to a

white man in 1955 in Montgomery, Ala.;

ensuing furor helped end racial segregation