Travel with the “giants” of the Harlem Renaissance

PurposeHarlem Renaissance Party by Faith Ringgold follows a young boy and his uncle as they visit the “giants” of the Harlem Renaissance. Lonnie and Uncle Bates travel through Harlem to meet historical figures, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Madam CJ Walker and others. They also visit historical venues where Black artists performed. Such venues included the Cotton Club, the Harlem Opera House and the Schomburg Library.Design/methodology/approachAs students study the end of the Civil War and the early 1900s, they should learn about the causes of the Great Migration that led Black artists to flee from the south to larger cities in the north. In addition, Jim Crow Laws and other discriminatory practices prevented Black artists from performing their crafts. The Harlem Renaissance has had lasting effects on arts, music, literature and dance. In addition, students should use credible sources to gather information and documents about historical events and people.FindingsThese inquiry-based activities also integrate arts education and history to reach diverse student populations as they gain meaningful experiences interacting with authentic documents.Originality/valueAs students study the end of the Civil War and the early 1900s, they should learn about the causes of the Great Migration that led Black artists to flee the south to larger cities in the north. In addition, Jim Crow Laws and other discriminatory practices prevented Black artists from performing their crafts.

Krasnoyarsky-IV kurgan cemetery of the Great Migration Period

The paper presents the materials of the Great Migration Period from the Omsk Irtysh region, obtained during the excavations of the Krasnoyarsky-IV burial ground. In total, eight burial mounds with 13 burials were examined in 2009 by the expedition of the Omsk State Pedagogical University led by M.A. Grachev. The aim of this work is to determine regional features and chronology of the Krasnoyarsky-IV burial complexes , as well as some details of the historical and cultural development of the local population in the transitional period from the Iron Age to the early Middle Ages. The research methodology is based on comparative and typological analyses of the material complexes, morphological and constructional specifics of the burials, and on anthropological studies, including methods of odontology. According to the results of the study, the chronological interval of the functioning of the necropolis spans the end of the 4th — first decades of the 6th centuries A.D., which corresponds with the appea-rance of the Karym type monuments in the territory of the southern taiga of Western Siberia. The signs of artificial skull deformation, erection of small embankments, cremations, and Eastern-European and Central Asian imports suggest involvement of the Karym population in the epochal historical and cultural processes, as well as contacts with neighboring forest-steppe and southern taiga cultures of the Ural-Siberian region. Characteristics associated with the heritage of the cultures of the Early Iron Age, particularly, the Sargatka and Kulayka Cultures, were noted: orientation of the buried; location of the goods in the grave; ornamental and morphological features of the ware; and specific types of bronze decorations. The symbiosis of innovations and traditions of the previous epoch is partly confirmed by the anthropological characteristics in the ratio of the longitudinal and transverse diameters of the crowns of the permanent lower first molars.

Iron Arrowheads from Objects of the Xianbei Time of the Karban-I Complex (Northern Altai)

The article presents the results of a study of iron arrowheads discovered during excavations of objects of the Xianbei time of the Karban-I funerary complex. This site is located on the left bank of the Katun river, 1.7 km north-west of the Kuyus village, in the Chemal region of the Altai Republic. During the excavation of the Great Migration period burials, a collection of 14 iron arrowheads was discovered at this necropolis. As a result of the classification of these items, one group, one category, one section, two departments, five types of products with several options are distinguished. The analysis of the available materials allows us to assert that the three-bladed tiered arrowheads of types 1a, 2a belong to the Xiongnu military tradition and date back to the 2nd — 5th centuries AD. A specimen with equalsized layers of type 3a can be an early «transitional» to the South Siberian tradition. Iron arrowheads with a geometric feather of asymmetric-rhombic (type 4a) and rhombic (type 5 a) forms without support existed during the Xianbei-Rouran period (2nd — 5th centuries AD).

“Negroes Plan to Kill All Whites”

This chapter, which covers the first three decades of the twentieth century, begins with an account of the life and career of W. E. B. Du Bois, the most influential Black intellectual and social scientist of that period. A classic insider/outsider in American society, Du Bois earned a Harvard PhD in sociology and wrote a pioneering study of systemic racism in The Philadelphia Negro. He was also an outspoken activist in the Socialist Party and NAACP. Du Bois’s work placed him at the forefront of struggles against racism, especially in northern cities into which 1.5 million southern Blacks moved in the Great Migration, lured by the prospect of steady, well-paid factory jobs. These Black migrants, however, were outnumbered two to one by southern White migrants to those cities, who forced Blacks into ghettos with rundown, overcrowded housing and inferior schools. Tensions between the races intensified after World War I, sparking the “Red Summer” of 1919, with major race riots—instigated by Whites—in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, leaving dozens dead and thousand with burned-out homes. The bloodshed culminated that fall with the massacre of some two hundred Black tenant farmers and their families in the town of Elaine, Arkansas, followed two years later by another massacre, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The decade of the 1920s offered northern Blacks little respite from the racism that kept them from escaping poverty.

Traces of the Dahaean and Sarmatian Cultural Legacy in Ancient Turan and Old Rus

This study examines the migrations of the Dahae and Sarmatians—the two related early nomadic peoples of Middle Asia and Eastern Europe—directed to the south and west of their homeland. Archaeological, written, and folkloric sources make it possible to trace the migrations of the Dahae and Sarmatians over several centuries preceding the spread of Islam in Central Asia and of Christianity in Old Rus. The study focuses on mortuary monuments, temples, and sanctuaries, cross-shaped in plan view, of migrants and their descendants. A detailed analysis of the major southward migration of Dahae from the Lower Syr-Darya in the late 3rd to early 2nd BC is presented. This migration had a considerable effect on ethnic and cultural processes in Middle Asia. The migration aimed at conquering the lands of Alexander the Great’s descendants, who were rapidly losing control over them. Features of Dahaean culture are noticed in town planning, architecture, mortuary rites, armor, etc. over the entire territory they had captured. Southward migration of the descendants of the Dahae—people of the Kaunchi and Otrar cultures—from the Syr-Darya, led by the Huns, was part of the Great Migration. The Kaunchi people headed toward the oases of Samarkand and Kesh, the Otrar people toward the oasis of Bukhara, and those associated with the Dzhetyasar culture toward the Qarshi oasis. It is demonstrated that while the cross-shaped plan view of religious structures turned into the eight-petaled rosette, the fu neral rite did not change, remains of burials and charcoal are observed everywhere. Relics of the ScythoSarmatian legacy are seen in the culture of Old Rus. For instance, remains of the sanctuaries of Perun are walls and ditches arranged in a cruciform or eight-petaled fashion, fi lled with charcoal and bones of sacrifi ced animals, with a statue of the supreme Slavic deity, in the center. Early sanctuaries of Perun in Kiev and Khodosovichi were cruciate in plan view, while later ones on the banks of the Zbruch and the Volkhov rivers had octopetalous plans. Apparently they were infl uenced by the architectural traditions of Dahae and Sarmatians, who took part in the ethnogenetic processes in both Old Rus and Turan.