I caught the PBS documentary The Bicycle Corps: America's Black Army On Wheels a couple months ago and it was immediately added to my 'recommended media' list. It's one of those great pieces which draws into richer context the complex and dynamic roles that we Afrikan-Americans play in U.S. and world culture.
Our ideas about who we are are shaped by our impressions of history (and in many cases, our families' cellular and emotional memory of trauma). The more we inform our own generations of our true history - vast, varied and always vital to the health, wealth and spiritual well-being of even our so-called oppressors - the more we grow a well-rounded self-image; through acceptance of our individual & collective power and global importance.
Let me just say that this film is just the type of material that needs to be in our public schools' curricula, and thank goddess we can have the wherewithall to work it into the mix of our kids' varied input ourselves.
This is one for the after-school Bike Clubs, not to mention every African-American home.
One.
