There's also advice and guidance for future Black students and faculty at the university to help them flourish. It also highlights recent milestones, such as reestablishing the university's Black/African American Cultural Center, Africana studies program and more. The book covers the Black community's contributions to the university starting in the late 1890s with the University of Idaho's first Black graduate. The Seminal History and Prospective Future of Blacks at the University of Idaho is the second volume of the Black History Research Lab and the University of Idaho Library's Black History at the University of Idaho project and is now available to read online. The most rewarding part of the process for Courtney was seeing the physical manifestation of her work and reading it for the first time.Īnother local book celebrating the region's Black leaders was recently published. The book also includes a resource guide so readers can connect with those highlighted within.Ī lthough Our Community: Black Leaders in Spokane was originally released in digital-only format in fall 2021, Courtney decided to also print physical copies late last year due to an outpouring of positive feedback. Our Community: Black Leaders in Spokane highlights a variety of local artists, business owners, educators and public officials, such as the late Sandy Williams, former Spokane NAACP president Kiantha Duncan, and politician Natasha Hill. "I reached out to my network and many other people around Spokane that were doing amazing things, and I asked them to be a part of a children's book where not only children can learn about different people, but also educators could read about these different individuals and how they're making a difference in Spokane." "An educator had shared that they had not met really any Black people in the community and they weren't really sure of how to share that information with their students in the classroom," she says. The book was born from working with educators around Spokane through her business the Learning Project Network, founded in 2015, which focuses on creating solutions to health equity and social justice issues through the lenses of art, conversation, policy and strategy.ĭuring a training last year with local early childhood educators, Courtney's team tasked the teachers with informing students about what Black leaders in the community are currently working on. "I realized that there was nothing and I had to create it." "There's just no content around these spaces for voices to be elevated and for us to learn about our current history," Courtney says. It's one of few books on local Black history, a gap that both erases a crucial part of the city's story and undermines the impact the Black community has had and continues to have in Spokane. Telling the stories of what's currently happening in our world allows us to ask questions and gain an understanding of issues that we may otherwise be oblivious to, and that's what makes books like Stephaine Courtney's Our Community: Black Leaders in Spokane important. W hen we think of history, it may conjure images of ancient civilizations, colonial settlements and even wars of centuries ago, but something that happened yesterday or last week is also part of the same irreversible past. Celebrate Black History Month with Stephaine Courtney's book and many local events.
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