I am all for celebrating math in school. I am all for celebrating school. I am just even more for finding ways to celebrate Black History today, and everyday.  So when Sam’s teacher sent home a blank piece of poster board with the instructions to create your own way to celebrate the #100 in honor of the approaching 100th day of school I realized we had hit the jackpot! I asked Sam who his favorite brown skinned athlete was–because he had already decided he wanted to do something about sports: Jackie Robinson!

How could we incorporate 100 in to a poster about him? Sam was all over the answer; “I bet he had at least that many home runs!”

We did a little research, and came up with the answer. Sam asked if we could use the poster of him that was over his bed. He was referring to the Kadir Nelson painting that came from a book promotion of We are the Ship: the Story of the Negro Baseball League that a good friend of ours went to years back. So we downloaded the image, and gave Kadir Nelson his credit too.

Here are just a few more ways I thought of too–you will have many more:

1. Favorite Black author that I have read 100 pages of/ read 100 times.

2. Favorite song by a Black singer, composer, musician I have listened to 100 times.

3. Number of reasons I have for celebrating Black history (could put 100x infinity there)

4. Number of shows Oprah Winfrey has done (100 x almost infinity here).

5. Number of lines of poetry Maya Angelou has written (100 x almost infinity here too)

Is your wee one celebrating #100 days too? What other ways could you bring in this message too?  I am learning as I go, that inviting Sammy to be a part of promoting a positive message is just as (if not more) valuable then me doing it. He was thrilled by the end product, and that he crossed TWO things off his list today! (He also finished his 25 valentines today! They are ready to go to school/mail!) I know that his teacher will celebrate his work, and appreciate the books he is bringing in to share this month too(including We Are the Ship).

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On another note–because this was so moving and I would love to encourage you all to create the time to view in its entirety-about an hour and half- as part of one’s own adult Black History exploration: a link to an amazing talk by Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary on Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.  It details historically the pathology of race and the transgenerational impact of enslavement. Thank you Sage for bringing this to my and many others attention.