Free Frank McWorter, New Philadelphia, Illinois

Unsung heroes

February is National Black History Month. While most people do not think about this, this history has a lot of meaning to all, black and white. Each of the people below changed the lives of black slaves and their descendants for all.

Many can or should recall Martin Luther King, jr and his world changing moral stance on past and current saga of African Americans.  

Many can or should remember Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave who created "The underground railroad".  A movie "Harriet" presented history of this incredible woman.

Tuskegee Airmen from World War 2? History on these brave pilots should be researched by all who find interest in fighter pilots. 

Dorie Miller, a cook on a destroyer in the Pearl Harbor attack, manned an anti-aircraft gun and defended his ship. Then he tended to the injured.  He was the first Black American awarded the Navy Cross. He died in action in 1943.  

We did not and will not get to meet these heroes. But in my home area, another hero made changes in lives.  Free Frank McWorter, a freed black slave, created a town called New Philadelphia, in Pike County, Illinois. I have driven by this monument to him many times over my years at home.

YouTube, about 5 minutes long  

YouTube about 50 seconds long

Only those people outside Pike County Illinois may not have heard of, or even thought about these men. All I can say is that Free Frank McWorter was a hero in every sense of the word. Those from Pike County, Illinois, know and recognize him as important to all around him.

This changed Pike County and its view of slavery.

February is OVER!

This is about the most boring calendar of all.

February has ended, Praise Be to God!

February was also a scary month for me as a teacher. 

Amazing changers of history

 

For a month with Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays, and being Black History Month, February was always the longest month when I was teaching.

Factor in stinkin' Valentine's Day (oh, how I hate Valentine's Day Parties at school), February was awful.  There was so much that could be taught, but limited time.  Time, never enough time, it seemed.

Oh, how I hate school Valentine parties.

By this point of the school year, several levels of learning needed to be reached by my students.  Needed?  Absolutely must happen!   

Some students seemed to reach a glorious epiphany about the end of January, and all the math, spelling, reading, and learning came together in an explosive “AH!  HA!  I UNDERSTAND!”

There would be current of electricity connecting student to student, until the room was alive with this burst of comprehension.  Man.  I cannot tell you how that felt to me as the teacher.  Words cannot do that justice.

But, then…there were other students who had hit a wall in December, and never seemed to come back all the way from Christmas Holidays.  The first days of January were turning back into the early days of September.  They and I would spend the rest of the year playing catch-up. 

Some did catch up, but some did not.

So glad February is over.