Difficult Issues (Like Slavery) that Complicate Teaching and Learning about Famous Kentucky Christians

Stories about past Kentucky Christians make history and faith come alive for our students. They also expose controversies and ideologies that are difficult for us modern Americans to reconcile with how we think a Christian should behave and what we think a Christian should believe. The most obvious of these difficult issues is slavery. Today, even people who argue that slavery was a necessary evil for its time do not hesitate to call it evil. Denominations formed and others split prior to the Civil War over abolition and slavery.  White Christians were on both sides of the issue. Some African American Christians were enslaved and some emancipated. 

Elisha Green was enslaved from birth until he purchased his own freedom. When he was sixteen, his owner, a Christian pastor, baptized him in a creek after he made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ (Elisha Green. 1888). Alexander Cross was an enslaved man who was purchased and then emancipated by the North Street Christian Church of Hopkinsville. This was so that he could be sent, with his free wife, Martha, and son, James, to Liberia as missionaries (Jennifer P. Brown. 2001). Alfred Russell was emancipated by his grandmother-owner to be sent to Liberia also. Eventually, he became the tenth president of Liberia (Liberia Info). While the emancipation of Alexander Cross and Alfred Russell may seem good, even godly, the Kentucky Colonialization Society (NKAA) was a veiled strategy to rid Kentucky of freed slaves- in fact, the 1850 Kentucky Constitution prohibited freed slaves from living in the commonwealth. 

Margaret "Peggy" Smith Taylor, First Lady of the United States, and her husband, Zachary Taylor owned hundreds of enslaved individuals. They even, as did eleven presidents before them, brought slaves to the White House, housing them in the attic (Walt Bachman, 2018). Peggy Taylor was a woman of faith. She gave herself to prayer, preferring to delegate her daughter as the host for the gala affairs of State.

Does the fact that Elisha Green was owned by a pastor or that Peggy Taylor owned slaves at the White House diminish the possibility that the pastor or the First Lady were sincerely people of faith? How do we talk about these difficult issues with our students? Can we separate a person's flaws from the Christian message that says no one is good but God alone (Matthew 19:17)? Is it possible for a Christian to hold convictions or to behave in ways that are determined by some later standard to be not good? 

These are the topics that public historians refer to as difficult heritage. There will always be controversies and disagreements even within the Christian community. Some of these issues will be serious enough to cause divisions and even wars. What an educator or a historian should do is explain the issues and present the questions according to the historic context and then, perhaps, trace how the conflict continued, impacted the individuals and the culture, or became resolved. Not all questions that a teacher poses to a student or that a student asks a teacher can or should have easy answers. Some questions may just need to be left uncomfortably unanswered on the table. It can seem easier to judge the individuals from the past than to apply the necessary humility to consider that we may be as guilty of something as grievous as slavery but which we have yet to gain the perspective of hindsight.  

By Lesley Barker, PhD. c. 2021

Works Cited

Walt Bachman. The Last White House Slaves: The Story of Jane, President Zachary Taylor's Enslaved Concubine. 2019.

Jennifer P. Brown. "Church Paid for Slave's Freedom" in Kentucky New Era. ONLINE at https://www.kentuckynewera.com/article_8b681ff0-e111-5a01-a7d4-ca07c905e09c.html ACCESSED 9/8/2021.

Elisha Winfield Green. The Life of Rev. Elisha Green. 1888.

“Kentucky Colonization Society,” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, accessed September 8, 2021, https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/744.

LiberiaInfo. "Alfred F. Russell". ONLINE at http://liberiainfo.co/prd/presidents/alfred-f-russell/ ACCESSED 9/8/2021.

The Power of Place - Encouraging Homeschoolers to Explore Place-Based Education

 

When I was the executive director of the Bolduc House Museum in Sainte Genevieve, Missouri, I often introduced fourth grade classes to the National Historic Landmark house built in 1792 in Missouri’s first town this way. The class would be gathered on the front porch of the house, behind the massive stockade fence. “Put your hands on these huge square oak logs,” I instructed. “Then think: these logs were put here when George Washington was the president of the United States.” Many children ooed and awed at the connection they were experiencing. They all knew about George Washington. They had read about him in text books and seen his picture on a dollar bill. They knew he was our country’s first president and that he lived long before even their great-grandparents had been born. Touching the logs made him more accessible, more real. Then, I would insert a riddle. “But George Washington was never the president of Sainte Genevieve,” I would tease. “Huh?” the students responded, puzzled. That riddle introduced the story of that French colonial American site – Thomas Jefferson was the president when Missouri and the rest of the territory included in the Louisiana Purchase was added to the nation.

This shows the power of place-based learning.

For homeschoolers, place-based learning is easy. It appeals to people of all ages – high school students can be encouraged to do some independent explorations or interviews while younger students can be engaged in planned activities. Even the preschoolers in the family tend to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of new places. Students can be included in planning trips, using calendars and budgets, figuring out how to raise the money to pay for the adventure. This introduces internet skills, math skills and communication skills. Trips can be to museums, historic sites, natural history areas, government buildings, or even to visit an expert or to meet someone who can share their life experience and skills. Trips can focus on art, architecture, technology, history, science, religion and more. Writing or creative assignments following place-based learning adventures helps solidify what was learned as well as to take stock of what new questions may have arisen because of the experience.

In Kentucky, there are several places that merit a visit by homeschoolers who are interested in exploring the Christian history of the commonwealth. Visit where the first of the early nineteenth century revivals happened that triggered the Second Great Awakening in America at the Cane Ridge Shrine in Bourbon County, the Red River Meeting House in Logan County, and the Old Mulkey Meeting House in Monroe County. Follow the tour of “The Kentucky Holy Land” in Nelson, Washington and Marion Counties for a great introduction to our Catholic history. Research where the historic African American churches are in Kentucky and visit the many architecturally significant churches in Louisville. Go to the Creation Museum in Boone County and the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky.

Our Kentucky Faith & Public History Walking Trail in Paris, Kentucky, will be open to the public soon. This will be a self-guided walk with information about the Christian history of Kentucky including an interactive eye-spy game that students can play to learn about some famous Kentucky Christians.

We’d love to post short student-written reviews along with original drawings and photographs of their visits to places that connect to our Christian history here. To submit your child’s work, email me at kyfaithpublichistory@gmail.com.

© Lesley Barker, PhD – Director, Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project

 

First Lessons in Entrepreneurship for Homeschoolers through the Life of Harry Clark Karsner

 

Many of Kentucky’s famous Christians were entrepreneurs and innovators. This means that they were the first to recognized opportunities for breaking new ground in their field. They also had the persistence to develop the resources and to involve a network of collaborators that could make their ideas manifest outside of their own heads and imaginations. The ability to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities and then to take action to bring the ideas into being is the core definition of entrepreneurial competence and ability[1]. The goal of entrepreneurship education is to “foster creative skills that can be applied in practices, education and environments supporting innovation”[2]. The most important skill for an entrepreneur is the ability to recognize new opportunities for innovation. By exposing your students to the stories of past entrepreneurs, you can introduce them to this skill. Take the story of Harry Clark Karsner as an example. Share it with your students. Then ask them to think and discuss how Karsner first saw new opportunities and, subsequently, took advantage of them.

Harry Clark Karsner grew up on a farm in Owen County, Kentucky. He graduated from high school in the early 1930’s. He did something very few people had done at that time. He took flying lessons. He loved flying. He became a flight instructor. During World War Two, he taught military pilots. After the war, he turned part of his farm into an airfield. He continued teaching people to fly. He also decided to use his plane to share the Christian message from the sky. He had to figure out how to build a way to broadcast sermons and songs from his plane. He had to collaborate with a preacher and a singer. Many afternoons, in good weather, he flew his plane over southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. People on the ground reported hearing the message and responding to God because of it. Karsner mounted a giant neon sign on the side of his hangar so that it was visible from Highway 127. It said, “Christ is the Answer”. The hangar has been torn down, but the sign has been preserved along with a historic marker that tells Karsner’s story. He went on to become the Kentucky Aeronautics Commissioner. He also served on the Owen County school board.

Entrepreneurship education begins with observation. Your student is being an observer by noticing and discussing how Karsner displayed the traits of an entrepreneur and an innovator. It progresses “from observation to participation”[3]. You can assist your students to move towards participation in entrepreneurship by extending the discussion of Harry Karsner and making it personal. Use a Venn Diagram (see https://www.theschoolrun.com/what-venn-diagram). Draw two intersecting circles. Label one circle “Harry Karsner”. Label the other circle with your student’s name. Fill in the circle for Karsner with the ways he saw and took advantage of opportunities to do things that most people had never even thought of doing. In the circle with your student’s name, write how they have done creative things that came from their own imagination or thoughts. In the space where the two circles intersect, write a list of qualities the student shares with Karsner. Then, challenge your student to act on an idea they have. It may mean they need to earn some money to buy needed materials. It may mean they need to do research online. They may need to involve other people as advisors or helpers. 

This is an activity that can be repeated whenever your curriculum involves an innovative entrepreneur. It will build your student’s ability to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities. It will help them to develop the skills and disciplines needed to respond creatively when an entrepreneurial opportunity occurs. Perhaps it will lead them to the passion and purpose for which they have been born.

© 2021 By Lesley Barker

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[1] Xingjian Wei, Xiaolang Liu, andJian Sha. “How Does Entrepreneurship Education Influence the Students’ Innovation? Testing on the Multiple Mediation Model”. Frontiers in Psychology. 2019. ONLINE at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6636545. ACCESSED 3/23/21.

[2] IBID.

[3] IBID.

How well are we doing introducing homeschooled students to objectivity, bias, inclusion and the analysis of competing truth claims?

 

Objectivity, bias, inclusion, and truth claims are important concepts whenever we study history. Often, we feel so strongly about our own positions that we fail to investigate alternative claims and evidence. Sometimes we swear that what we have always been told is the absolute truth and the only way to think about an issue or event. Decisions can be made based on the force of an argument without necessarily probing the root ideas upon which the argument was founded. As King Solomon said, “God requires an account of the past”[1]. An investigation is warranted before we die on the sword of an opinion that we refuse to nuance or debate.

Mark K. George, professor of religion at the Iliff School of Theology, wrote about how the Bible models an approach to recording history that includes both sides, that shows the flaws of the heroes, and that does not shy away from controversy[2]. Here at the Kentucky Faith and Public History Project, we have committed to objectivity when we discuss the Christian history of Kentucky. We are involved in rigorous historic research. Our bias is that we are faith-based and unapologetically Christian, but we refuse to be dishonest or disingenuous when dealing with historical, cultural, and individual failures and atrocities perpetrated in the name of the church or of God.

George’s article provides a good analysis of how the American story is being treated as a tug of war between our flaws and our triumphs. The question is whether we are willing to undergo the rigorous scrutiny of our past that is necessary to sift the truth from hyperbolic wanna-be-renditions. For homeschooling parents it is especially important to introduce students to multiple points of view, to historic archival research methods, and to the Socratic debate that can elicit enough information about each perspective for them to respectfully present, defend and critique the arguments. How well are we each doing?

©2021 By Lesley Barker PhD

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[1] Ecclesiastes 3:15. The Holy Bible, New King James Version.

[2] Mark K. George. “What the Bible’s Approach to History Can Teach Us About America’s Glory and Shame”. The Conversation. 2021. ONLINE at https://theconversation.com/what-the-bibles-approach-to-history-can-teach-us-about-americas-glory-and-shame-151394 ACCESSED 3/2/2021.

Making Paint from Petals - A Homeschool Lesson Inspired By the Life of Helen LaFrance

Do you have paint and paper at your house so that if your students wanted to paint a picture they could just go to the cupboard, get the supplies and get started? When the folk-artist, Helen LaFrance, was a little girl she did not have this luxury available but it did not stop her from developing her gift.

Helen LaFrance is a famous Kentucky Christian who only finished the fifth grade. She grew up on her parents’ farm in Graves County and went on to become a significant folk artist whose paintings are about Kentucky farm life, African American country churches and illustrations based on biblical stories and imagery. Her paintings can be seen in museums and in private collections including Oprah Winfrey’s. Helen LaFrance lived for 101 years, 1919-2020. Helen’s mother showed her how to make paints using berries, flowers and bluing. The first picture she painted was a rabbit. For paper, she used an old piece of wallpaper.[1]

Homeschoolers can easily make their own watercolors from flowers. The project can become the inspiration for lessons in botany, chemistry and art. It provides an opportunity to introduce the scientific method to elementary and middle school students because this always begins with the formation of a hypothesis. Here is a basic lesson plan along with the time you should allot and can count for your students to complete each task.

1.    Send the students to pick some flowers. (15-60 minutes)
2.    Use botanical guides to help the students identify the flowers. Press one of each type of flower between pieces of wax paper – cover the wax paper/flower sandwich with a cotton towel and use a hot iron to press and seal the flower. Mount the flower on a poster board or in an album and label it neatly. Draw a small rectangle next to the flower to be used with paint made from its petals (60 minutes)
3.   Ask the students what color paint they think each flower will produce. This is the hypothesis, a big word for guess. Write down what they predict. (15 minutes)
4.  Test the hypothesis. Use a glass bowl for each type of flower. Put the petals in the bowl. Mash them. Boil water and cover the petals with two or three inches of boiling water. Allow the petals to steep, like tea, for an hour or even overnight. Strain the liquid and discard the petals. The liquid is the paint. (60 minutes plus time to steep)
5.  Add challenges for older students. Older students can be asked to predict what happens to the pigment when the steeping time changes. They may be asked to come up with additives like salt or vinegar or bluing liquid, for example to enhance the pigment. Older students can keep a log of their trials and results. (1 to 2 hours)
6. Paint each rectangle with the pigment that came from the flower. (30 minutes)
7. Return to the original hypotheses. Ask the students to remember their predictions and to evaluate or judge how close they came to being right. (10 minutes)
8.  Use the paints to make a picture. (30-60 minutes)
9.  Write a summary of what they did from going to pick the flowers to painting their picture- for students grades 1-4 assign them to write one sentence per grade. For 5-8^th grade students, assign a maximum of five paragraphs. Revise and edit the summary until there is a final draft that is ready to be turned in. (30-60 minutes)
10. Share the summary, the poster and the painting with another student or relative. (10 minutes)

c. 2021 by Lesley Barker

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[1] https://kchr.ky.gov/Hall-of-Fame/Pages/Helen-LaFrance.aspx 

Say His (or Her) Name

 

What would you think if no one ever called you by name? This is what happened to Peter and Dinah Durrett. They were famous Kentucky Christians who arrived in the Lexington area in 1781 with a group of nearly 500 people known as the Traveling Church. The Durretts were enslaved African Americans owned by one of the Baptist pastors, Joseph Craig. In most of the books and other documents written about the Traveling Church, the pastors are always named as are some of the other leaders. Very occasionally, Peter Durrett is named. Usually he is called “Uncle Peter” or “Old Captain”. One of the best accounts of the Traveling Church talks about Peter Durrett but it never calls him anything but “Captain”. His wife is not named at all[1]. However, had it not been for Dinah Durrett, Peter might never have moved to Kentucky. 

It was not because Peter and Dinah Durrett were unimportant that their names were not recorded. Peter Durrett was the first African American man to preach a sermon in Kentucky. He and Dinah started the first African American church in Kentucky. Peter was one of the scouts who prepared the way and led the Traveling Church over the mountains from Virginia. Do you think it could be that the fact that Peter and Dinah were enslaved that kept historians from naming them? Peter even had a white father, his former master. 

Dinah’s likelihood of being named was even less than Peter’s. She was an enslaved African American and she was a woman. Not naming people makes doing historical research very difficult. We need names to search for individuals in plantation records, municipal and county records, and census records. We need names to connect parents to their children and grandchildren and to find marriage and death certificates or records of military service. 

Naming people continues to be a way for justice to be served. Think about the contemporary cries for racial justice such as the protest call to “Say his (or her) name” after the death of George Floyd or Brianna Taylor, for example. As we at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project continue to research the Christian men and women whose public affiliation as Christians made them succeed, we are committed to find and call them by name. We won’t be content to speak in generalities or to use pejorative nicknames or to call people by their roles. We will say their names and we will do our best to find verifiable information about their lives. That will bring recognition to previously lost or marginalized stories as well as honor for their memory.

©2021 By Lesley Barker PhD

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[1] George W. Ranck. The Traveling Church. Louisville, KY 1910

How Tony Snow's Life Poses a Question About the Relevancy of Faith

At the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project, when we identify a Kentuckian whose public statements indicate that he or she was intentional about their Christian faith, we attempt to pinpoint how and when this commitment started. We look for evidence that the person stitched their faith into every aspect of their life, both personal and professional. We search for what Christians may call their “testimony”. Our hope is to demonstrate how Christianity is embraced and walked out in the normal everyday lives of its adherents. Unfortunately, this search for public proclamations of past Kentuckians’ Christian faith is  quite difficult. Take what we can find about Tony Snow, for example.

Tony Snow was born in Berea, Kentucky. He became a prominent journalist on radio, a television anchor, a syndicated writer, a speech writer for the first President Bush and the press secretary for the second President Bush. He was not shy about writing or speaking about his faith, especially after he was faced with the cancer that took his life in 2008 when he was just 53 years old. He wrote an essay about the blessings of cancer for Christianity Today in 2007 in which he said:

                “I don’t know why I have cancer, and I don’t much care…Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out. But despite this – because of it-God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don’t know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face to face.”[1]

Snow wrote many articles for The Jewish World Review in which he was explicit about his faith. In 2005 he wrote this: “the last few months — my time of surgery and chemo — have been the happiest and most thrilling of my life. They have confirmed lessons that seem at once too good to be true, and too important and vital not to be. Here is a short inventory: Faith matters. Prayers heal. Love overcomes.”[2]

However, after his death, few of the many eulogies celebrated his faith.  Mollie Hemingway wrote: “While the New York Times and the Washington Post found room to include Snow’s salary at his White House job, neither of them mentioned his strong religious views that were so integral to his outlook on life”[3]. The conclusion of her article notes that: “Considering all of the material that could be drawn on, it is somewhat surprising that most major coverage failed to mention Snow’s Christian faith”[4]. Perhaps what CNN journalist William Schneider said is true and “The press… just doesn’t get religion.”[5]  Perhaps it would be more accurate to think that the press mostly does not see the relevancy of religion. Some do. One journalist, Bill Kristol, posed his own question as he thought about his decades-long friendship with Tony Snow. “Watching him, and so admiring his remarkable strength of character in the last phase of his life, I came to wonder: Could it be that a stance of faith-grounded optimism is in fact superior to one of worldly pessimism or sophisticated fatalism?”[6]

Our project and its purpose is to show that religion, and specifically how the Christian religion is, for its practitioners, as Bill Kristol surmised, a superior grounding both for living and for dying. Hence, we bring Tony Snow’s faith forward as an example of Kentucky’s parade of Christians whose lives and contributions were enabled and strengthened because of the centrality of their religion. For us, it speaks to an essential question of relevancy.

©2021 By Lesley Barker, PhD

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[1] Tony Snow. ”Cancer’s Unexpected Blessings” in Christianity Today. July 20, 2007.

[2] Tony Snow. “Counting Our Blessings and Passing Them On” in The Jewish World Review. Sept. 16, 2005. ONLINE at www.jewishworldreview.com/tony/snow091605.php3 . ACCESSED March 12, 2020.

[3] Mollie Hemingway. Tony Snow, Catholic, Dead at 53. ONLINE at https://www.catholiceducaton.org/en/faith-and-character/faith-and-character/tony-snow-catholic-dead-at-53.html. ACCESSED Jan. 28, 2021.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Get Religion.org/contact. ACCESSED Jan. 28, 2021.

[6] William Kristol. The Character of Optimism. The New York Times. July 14, 2008. ONLINE at https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14kristol.html?hp ACCESSED Jan. 28, 2021.