LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It's been posted less than a week, and already, a music video created by local students is gaining attention. The video, created by JCPS students as a final project in an extra-credit summer course, uses music to explain reparations and the civil rights movement.
Now, the teacher behind the video is using it to teach students not only about history, but cyberbullying and compassion.
“This is just a visual way for the students to learn and understand the history and to break down that history. This is a video with heavy content,” Nyree Clayton-Taylor, a resource teacher at Wheatley Elementary, said.
When she assigned her students the end of the summer hip-hop video project, she knew she would get some backlash.
The video is to illustrate their support for the movement on slave reparations –the effort to have the government pay the descendants of slaves for the past injustices.
“I told them some people don't believe in reparations, and that’s fine, but I didn’t think they would get attacked. They’re babies,” Clayton-Taylor said
While the racial slurs and negative comments were used toward the kids, others had concerns with the use of guns in the video.
Though Clayton-Taylor stands firmly in her belief that her students who wrote the lyrics and produced this video are in the right, she does have a warning.
“If this video is being shown, then these are the conversations you have watching the video. You don’t put the video in front of a student and expect to unpack it themselves,” Clayton-Taylor said.
Dr. Kevin Cosby, the president of Simmons College, has also been a leading voice for reparations. He told WHAS11, "We should applaud these kids for going beneath the surface of American history that is taught on a superficial level."
Dr. Cosby was so impressed with these kids and their new age approach he invited them to perform next week at Simmons College during their forum week on reparations.
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