Saturday November 23, Harvard University’s Center for African Studies was filled with former students and their family members from Waltrina Kirkland-Mullens’ third grade class at New Haven’s Davis Academy of Arts. They were there as part of a panel at the African Studies Association’s Teacher’s Workshop. With her teacher colleague Mary Khuduge (Regents Park Primary School, Johannesburg), who participated in the panel via Skype, Waltrina highlighted some of the work her students had accomplished last year. The children demonstrated their proficiency in South African history, education, religion, and culture, performed a traditional dance, served the audience a traditional dish that they’d cooked, sang the South African National anthem (in Xhosa), and finished with a performance of Hugh Maskela’s “Ibala Lami.” Waltrina and Mary are participants in the Gilder Lehrman Center’s Transatlantic Histories program, and Saturday’s panel was a moving example of the fine work that has grown from these international partnerships.
