B.Michael and friend/sister/teacher Rhea Ummi Modeste team-taught a groundbreaking class on HIV/AIDS awareness at City-As-School High School. Here is a draft of their outline.
1993I29-HIV-awareness-classCity-As-School’s principal at the time visited — and was duly impressed by — one of the sessions and wrote a letter to B.Michael’s and Ummi’s files.
1993J26-principals-take-on-HIV-awareness-class
As a teacher at City-As-School High School, B.Michael often invited guest speakers, writers and artists. During one such class, in order to make come alive U.S. History — specifically World War II and the treatment of Japanese Americans — he asked Haruko, a septuagenarian, to read the four-page testimony she had prepared for Congress’ Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians below and engage his inner-city students of all colors around her experience with institutionalized racism. A mic drop, he might say today. He recounts these unforgettable visits at Haruko’s Celebration of Life.
Coincidentally, at the time that Haruko had written her testimony, B.Michael was in his first quarter in law school at Northeastern University.