Portland Museum of Art, Portland schools partner on Black history lessons

Bowdoin College Assistant Professor Jonathan Tunstall discusses the history of Black music with Portland 7th-graders at the Portland Museum of Art. (Photo courtesy of the PMA)

PORTLAND – Approximately 23 seventh-graders from Portland’s Lyman Moore Middle School sat in the front rows of the Portland Museum of Art’s auditorium on Thursday as Jonathan Tunstall, assistant professor of education at Bowdoin College, took kids through a presentation on Black music, spanning spirituals to hip-hop.

“Black music is a living archive of Black history,” Tunstall said.

As the musical journey took the kids from spirituals to the blues and then to funk, the kids gradually became more energized and engaged. By the time Tunstall arrived at hip-hop, they were pointing at the screen, moving along to the music snippets and yelling out the names of celebrities they recognized.

“That’s Cardi B,” yelled one seventh-grader.

A few minutes earlier, a group of 10 students was on the second floor of Portland Museum of Art’s gallery, standing around a display of sugar bowls when their tour guide, Museum Educator Beth Walker, asked a question: “Did anyone have sugar this morning?”

After a few children raised their hands, Walker explained the connection between the sugar trade of the 19th century, which relied on slave labor, and the way in which Portland economically benefited from that system. She wanted students to understand the brutal history behind what looked like just a beautiful piece of art.

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Since Oct. 1, nearly 425 seventh-graders from Portland schools have visited the PMA to learn about Black history through a gallery walk, an interactive music history presentation and a printmaking activity with local artist Jordan Parks. The partnership is part of Portland Public Schools’ new Black history curriculum, which was created to comply with a 2021 law requiring all K-12 schools in Maine to teach African American studies.

For the last three years, the Portland Museum of Art has hosted similar sessions in January centered around teaching fifth-graders about Wabanaki history.

“We wanted them to understand the contemporary connections about what they’re learning in the 19th

century and how that is playing out in various kinds of artwork today,” said Fiona Hopper, social studies projects coordinator for Portland Public Schools.

Hopper said the work that students have done inside and outside the classroom, including their visit to the PMA, has prepared them to walk Portland’s Freedom Trail, which documents the city’s Black history, next week.

“This is a very, very long time coming, and it’s a super important moment for Maine to finally be acknowledging and teaching about its African American history,” said Hopper.

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Portland educator Beth Walker talks to 7th graders at the PMA on Thursday. (Photo courtesy of the PMA)

Students visiting the museum were exposed to many pieces of art spanning the 19th century to the Civil Rights Era and the present day, including two pieces by Portland-based artist Daniel Minter; a video installation by Adama Delphine Fawunda that highlights the history of Malaga Island, where a mixed-race community off Phippsburg was evicted and destroyed in 1912; and a painting by David Driskell titled “Ghetto Wall #2.”

Sarah Timm, the Peggy L. Osher Head of Education at the PMA, said the museum wanted the program to center around finding creative expression through history lessons.

“Kids don’t often have opportunities to express themselves, so how can we use our collection to really inspire learning, but also just let kids have a moment and permission to be creative?” said Timm.

Tunstall hopes that the kids’ excitement over the hip-hop music will translate into better learning and engagement with Black history.

“(I’m hoping) that I can play a small part in undoing the erasure of Black histories that is happening right now,” said Tunstall. “And hopefully get them excited so when they do the curriculum with their teachers, they have something concrete to grab onto.”

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