Teens Stand Up as Abolitionists

Two years ago, when I was teaching 11th grade English, my students were discussing The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano , a slave narrative. The excerpt we were discussing described the terrible voyage of Equiano to America on a slave ship as a young African captive in the 18th century.  One of my 17 year old  students blurted out a comment, saying,

“I don’t understand slavery. I mean, how could people be so cruel to one another?”

I spontaneously replied,

“Oh, there has always been slavery. It has existed throughout history. It existed in ancient times. We read about it in the Bible during the time of Moses. We read about it in the New Testament in the writings of St. Paul, and we even see it in the world today. It has never been totally abolished.”

I was rather startled at my own response, and I think I startled my students as well. So that evening, when I got home, I began to investigate modern  slavery more thoroughly. I discovered a wealth of information.  There are numerous books on the topic. http://www.amazon.com/Crime-Monstrous-Face—Face-Modern-Day/dp/0743290089/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325079106&sr=1-2 But for a quick understanding of the reality, I turned to  ABC News online. They  had recently spent a week reporting on How to  Buy a Child and there were numerous videos posted showing how disturbingly easy it was for one of their reporters to purchase a Haitian girl for less than the cost of a television! (Unfortunately these no longer seem to be available at their website.)

The real prize, however was this video of Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts interviewing a 15 year old teenager named Zach Hunter who has taken up the cause of modern slavery.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/fifteen-year-tackles-slavery-2953597

Zach said that according to Amnesty International, there are more than 27 million slaves in the world today—more than at any other time in human history! (I have since heard other figures ranging from 27-32 million.) I  modified my lesson plans for the next day and decided to show my students this interview with Zach instead.  A few days later, I was delighted to learn that our school not only had an Amnesty International Club, but we also  had a chapter of Zach’s non-profit organization, Loose Change to Loosen Chains. I encouraged my students to check out these extra-curricular activities, and several chose to do so.

Later in the year, I was able to incorporate this real life issue into our curriculum as we studied the writings of another abolitionist, Henry David Thoreau. For that unit, I asked my students to keep a journal (as Thoreau did); and one of the options they had for a journal reflection was to attend a meeting of the Loose Change to Loosen Chains chapter at our school and write about what they learned from attending.

As a teacher of American literature, I find that students often question the relevance of the literature they are required to study.  Sadly, the topic  of slavery is not an irrelevant issue in today’s English classroom.   But if teachers and students begin to recognize that slavery is a contemporary reality, perhaps it WILL become a blessedly irrelevant topic.  I long for that day.