Cobble Hill
Budding poets third-grader Amina Rodriguez and kindergartner Denver Hinckson recited a poem Denver wrote called “I Am the Future” at the Black History Month celebration at Success Academy Cobble Hill.
Students at the school shared poems and sang songs, including “Amazing Grace,” to honor “African-Americans in Times of War,” marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I as well as honoring the roles that black Americans have played in warfare, from the American Revolution to the present day.
Black History Month began in 1915, half a century after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.
Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson and the prominent minister Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, an organization dedicated to researching and promoting achievements by black Americans and other peoples of African descent.
Today, the organization is known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. The group sponsored a national Negro History Week in 1926, choosing the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize local celebrations, establish history clubs and host performances and lectures.
Success Academy Cobble Hill [284 Baltic St. between Court and Smith streets in Cobble Hill; (718) 704–1459].