Rudyard Kipling penned the famous words “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” Except in the case of this Fund for Teachers fellowship. Natasha Alston teaches at Mountain Pointe High School in Phoenix, AZ, and Denise Carter- Mataboge teaches at the Neighborhood Charter School: Harlem, NY. They didn’t even know each other a year ago! But they DID know they wanted to teach what was beyond a textbook – particularly African American history. 

Another Kipling quote epitomizes the spirit behind their experience this summer: "If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten." In the case of Natasha and Denise, the story they pursued was one surrounding the first African child born in the English colonies.

Today, we are learning from “Team Sankofa,” the name Denise and Natasha gave their alliance which used a $10,000 Fund for Teachers grant to explore the life of William Tucker, tracing his origin story from the first slave ship that landed in North America in 1619 back to Angola.

Sankofa is a word in the Twi language of Ghana that means “to go back and get,” but Natasha and Denise prefer the interpretation used by the Akan people of Ghana which is "it is not wrong to go back for that which has been forgotten.” The following conversation with Team Sankofa centered around this motivation is to reclaim forgotten chapters of history often omitted from American education and ensure that these crucial early stories of our nation are preserved and shared with students.

(For more information on William Tucker, visit the William Tucker Society 1624 Society.)

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Music on podcast: Scott Harris: Clear Progress