Children's Play - Asheba's Story for student assembly

Asheba's Story - For grades 3 - 7

Asheba answers the question: “Why study African
American History?”, in a play for 12 to 30 voices.

Sample...

ASHEBA OR SHANTI
I am Asheba, your griot. What’s a griot? I am my village story teller. I keep the
history of great heroes and I put them in this box. Then one by one I pull out
the history and tell it to my children, like my father before me. Come my
children and let me tell you the stories that are held in this box.
MARY
Asheba, do you have any stories in that box that tells how Black History Month
began?

ASHEBA
Yes, little Mary. And I will pull out this magic leaf and put it to your ear. It will
tell you the story in your ear and you can tell all of us.
MARY
(Mary listens to the leaf and begins to speak)
Carter G. Woodson is known as the father of Negro History. His organization
the Association for the Study of Negro life sponsored the first Negro History
Week in 1926. Now it is celebrated all over the United States for the whole
month of February.

RANDOLPH
Was that real magic? I don’t believe it. Can I tell a story too? I want to tell the
story of the men who worked on the railroad. I think I was named for some
one back then.

(Asheba places a leaf in the hand of Randolph)
The leaf is telling me, A. Philip Randolph started the Brotherhood of Sleeping
Car Porters in the 1920’s. It became the most successful union for African
Americans. Back then, most people rode trains everywhere, and the men who
worked in the trains worked under difficult conditions with little security or
safety. Once the union was formed the men organized and won equal
treatment like the White American train workers.

ASHEBA
Wow, the leaf told you all of that in your ear?

RANDOLPH
No, it is written on the back of the leaf.

ALBERTO
What’s a union?