Episode Details

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is a mobile exhibit which features educational, inspiring and informative traveling displays, highlighting local and national Black History. On this episode of the Supercast, we take you to Valley High School where students participated in Black History Month activities involving music, art, fashion and food along with a special stop from Utah's Black History Museum Bus.

Liz Lambson:
Hello, my name is Liz Lampson and I'm the director of the Utah Black History Museum, which is a mobile popup museum, as you can see. So how I got involved in this, I was asked to paint a school bus. So I painted this side of the school bus and another artist, Gretel Tam, painted the other side. And on it, we put some Utah Black Historical figures. We’ve got Jane Manning James, Wallace Henry Thurman. Ruby Bridges is a national figure. Have any of you heard of Ruby Bridges? Who can tell me who Ruby Bridges was?

Student:
Wasn't she like a kindergartener that was going to a white school?

Liz Lambson:
Yeah, she was. During the time, schools were desegregated and she was brought to a white school and there was a huge uproar. She was just a great example of courage in that time. Take some time to look at our artifacts and display, and I hope you learn a lot. If you have any questions, let me know. And I hope you enjoy the museum experience.

Drummer:
We always begin a drum circle by acknowledging the four directions and all drumming begins with a heartbeat. So what I would like you to do is pick up your drum and we will begin with a heartbeat. We may overwhelm your mic. So the first sound any child hears is the beat of their mother's heart. So the heartbeat is always the center of who we are as human beings. So we begin with a heartbeat. I will do it once. Then you do it. This is called sound and respond.

Anthony Godfrey:
We're here at Valley High School with Tiffany Rasmussen who has organized all of today's activities. Tiffany, thanks for taking some time to talk with us on a busy day. Now, first of all, this is one of the activities that is done on a Friday at Valley High School. Valley meets Monday through Thursday, and there are all day activities on Fridays. So students can earn credit doing that. Tell us a little bit about how that works and how that's been set up for today.

Tiffany Rasmussen:
So we put together some packets and then the packets tend to go with the activities that we're doing. So if we're going on a field trip, in this case the field trip came to us. Since it is February, and it is Black History, I decided to do it on Black History. There is this new bus that is the Utah Black History Museum. And so I wanted to focus more on Black joy, because oftentimes we talk about, we use history or Black History Month to talk about slavery and to talk about like civil rights. And I wanted to focus more on the joy. So while they are getting the history aspect and especially Utah Black History aspect with the museum, I invited some friends from the community that I know to come in and talk to them about what they do.

So I have some musicians here, so they're talking about Black culture's influence on music. And then I have some people here with fashion, and they're talking about Black culture's influence on fashion. I have a friend of mine who has a PhD in therapy and counseling. He's talki