ALD Afro-Germans

Excerpts from the African Diaspora by John Long

Black History Month: A German Perspective

Making Connections Black History and German by Dr. Leroy Hopkins

Afro-German Links:

  • "Africans in Germany" by Dr. Leroy Hopkins in 1997

    http://www.aicgs.org/publications/pubonline.shtml
    This article runs about 70 pages but can be downloaded - not currently available.

  • Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German Volume 25, Number 2, Fall 1992

    Published by the AATG, this issue focused on diversity and includes many excellent articles. Specific to Africans in Germany are two articles, one by Dr. Leroy Hopkins, Jr. "Expanding the Canon:Afro-German Studies" and the second article By Reinhold Grimm, "Two African Saints in Medieval Germany." Access through www.jstor.org.

  • German Life magazine, December 1996/January 1997
    www.Germanlife.com     Contains an article about Africans in Germany over the past 1000 years. This article includes colored pictures of paintings that can be made into overheads.

  • "Eine Geschichte von mehr als 100 Jahren" by Paulette Reed-Anderson
    This is one of two booklets written by this author for the Berlin Senate. This is part of a series of booklets describing the history of many groups of people who have emmigrated to Germany and Berlin, including from China, Iran, Sweden, etc.. This series is very cheap and the Senate is very accommodating in mailing these items.
    http://www.berlin.de/SenGesSozV/auslaender/veroef.html     - not currently working

    The contact information below is from 1995 and may be outdated:

    Die Ausländerbeauftragte des Senats
    -Barbara John-
    Potsdamer Strasse 65
    D-10785 Berlin
    Tel.: (030) 26 54 - 23 51
    Fax: (030) 2 62 54 07

Afro-German Links

These links will connect you to several different sites that will give you and your students a great deal and variety of information regarding the African Diaspora in Germany.

  • Texte des Interkulturellen Rates in Deutschland zum Europäischen Jahr gegen Rassismus
    Von schwarzen Frauen und Migranenorganisationen
    http://www.dir-info.de/dokumente

  • Die Interessen schwarzer Menschen in Deutschland zu vertreten

    Report/African Village in Augsburg Zoo
    http://www.isdonline.de

Teaching Ideas for the Ika Hügel-Marshall Video

ACTFL 11/22/2002
Anita Ratwik (ratwi001@umn.edu)

The Ika Hügel Marshall video, entitled "Readings from Daheim Unterwegs-Ein Deutsches Leben by author, Ika Hügel-Marshall", is available for purchase from the AATG. Click here for more information.

This video of Ika Hügel Marshall was taped at Ramsey Junior High in St. Paul, Minnesota Feb.25, 2002. Ika read from her book in German, Dagmar Schultz than read the same passage in English. After about 30 minutes of this, the author answered questions from the junior high students for the remaining video. The books referred to are Daheim Unterwegs-Ein Deutsches Leben, by Ika Hügel Marshall, ISBN 3-929823-52-7, Orlanda Frauenverlag and this same book in English, Invisible Woman, ISBN 0-8-264-1294-7, The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc., 370 Lexington Ave., New York, NY, 10017

Although this video is of Ika Hügel-Marshall, it also reveals an audience that came to the reading knowing that the author was Afro-German, a label that meant very little to them and certainly did not reveal the experience that they were about to have. These urban students found a woman with whom they could simply connect. Reading from her book set the stage. When the students began asking questions, her answers bridged beyond the specific details of her childhood to topics to which these students could relate. Race plays an ongoing part in the author's life, but when one student asked if she hated Whites, the author replied that she did not, that she had many White friends, but that some Whites did things she did not like. Answering another question, she told the students that the only difference between Blacks and Whites is the color of their skin. She responded to other questions, telling the students she was satisfied with her life and that everybody deserves respect. Ika Hügel-Marshall arrived as a stranger from a distant land but left having enabled students to see that they had more similarities than differences, a model for them in their daily lives here in the U.S..

This tape may be used for a variety of objectives. Various possibilities include helping students to:

  • develop the perspective that people have far more similarities than they have differences, that we need to see the person first, not what is "different"
  • learn that every person has the right to be treated with respect
  • have an increased awareness of people who are Afro-German in Germany
  • better understand what it feels like to be perceived as "different" and how being treated as different can impact a person's life
  • have a better understanding that differences perceived by people vary according to their culture and values, that differences that are small, arbitrary, or still have a major impact on a person's life
  • learn to treat others as they themselves want to be treated

Teachers may develop many activities to accompany this video, depending upon their objectives. Here are just a few ideas that are targeted at students in the middle school ages.

BEFORE THE VIDEO, a teacher might begin with a discussion about something from the students' own experience, that is easier for students to understand and relate to. These questions might be discussed with the full class or in small groups. Answers might be oral or written. A graphic organizer, such as a Venn diagram, might be useful. Some sample questions are:

  • In what ways might people think they are different from each other? The same?
  • Can you imagine others thinking you are different than everybody else around you? How?
  • Have any of you felt different from those around you? When? What made you "different"?
  • Can you imagine what you would feel like if people treated you poorly because they thought you were different from them? Students could write out their responses. Afterwatching the video, the students could see how many of their responses were also mentioned by Ika.

DURING THE VIDEO students might watch for information about a particular question and make note of it. Such questions might include:

  • What experiences did Ika have that told her she was different from the other children?
    (ex.-response of people to her, things they said, how they treated her mother, experiences in the boarding school, etc.)
  • What experiences or responses does Ika describe that you have also experienced?
    (ex. love of her mom, some teacher who cared or was kind, a special friend, being good at something, experiences that bring joy or sadness, losing a loved one, etc)
  • Would Ika's experience have been the same if she had been born in the U.S.A.? In a small town in the U.S.? In a large town in Germany? Today instead of in 1947?
  • Have children ever been taken from their parents and put in boarding schools in the U.S.? (Native American children all over the U.S. were put into government schoolsin the past century. There may be other examples also.)

POST VIEWING

Students might also discuss the following questions:

  • Did anything in the video surprize you or stand out? If yes, what?
  • What differences do students in this school tease other students about? ( Possible answers, glasses, clothes, size, weight, grades, hair style, parents, etc)

Students might create a list of:

  • similarities that they share with Ika
  • similarities Ika shares with African-Americans

Students may wish to write directly to the author.

Students may also discuss any of the introductory questions again or go back and review their earlier responses. Would they change anything?

This video may also be used to introduce Afro-Germans, as well as the whole topic of how diverse modern Germany has become. In small groups, students might read short pieces about Afro-Germans from various periods in history and report their own group's information to the full class. The teacher may find these reference materials or have students look for them.

Students might research the names of people such as:

  • St. Maurice, medieval saint, introduced into Germany by Otto I, around 965
  • Pesne, the Prussian court painter in 1710
  • Anton Wilhelm Amo, from Ghana, professor of philosophy around 1727-47
  • James W. C.Pennington, a fugitive slave, described in "The Fugitive Blacksmith", received an honorary degree in Theology from the U. of Heidelberg around 1850.