Our teach-in on Thursday May 5th will introduce the following illustrated content:

1) How our oversimplified history block-outline fails to look for and teach massive escapes as a critical dynamic of US history (5 minutes)

2) How oppressed and tortured Africans seized the opportunity to escape when the Whites were fighting each other (5 minutes)

3) Four Basic coverups:

• Black people knew how to find the British
• The Tories offer freedom and work (the Dunmore and Phillipsburg Proclamations)
• British were winning the Southern Campaign (1778-80)
• Black people escaped in groups (10 minutes)

4) Where did the Africans go?? (5 minutes)

5) The “Book of Negroes” (10 minutes)

6) Utilizing my original map (1775-1783) to highlight these events. (5 minutes)

The teach in will be led by Dr. Daud Watts, who is a specialist in both African and African American history. He earned his Ph.D. in African American Studies from Temple University in 2011, his M.A. from Indiana University in 2000, and his B.A. from Trinity College (CT) in 1972. He has also studied at the University of Ghana and Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone. He taught and produced films for the DC Public Schools, authored materials in the African American History course mandated in the Philadelphia School system, and taught summer courses at the Smithsonian. He most recently taught at Dillard University in New Orleans before the covid-19 pandemic. Dr. Watts is also a photographer and musician. He has five children, ten grandchildren, and two great grandsons.

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