The Undefeated
by Kwame Alexander
We’ve placed this magnificent book in our 4-6 years old category, but it is a book that can be returned to by older children, especially if parents and educators make use of Kwame Alexander’s detailed notes, and his poignant Afterword. Like James Baldwin writing to his nephew in The Fire Next Time, and Ta-Nehisi Coates writing for his son in Between the World and Me, Alexander wrote this poem-story to try to make some sense of America for his daughter – to be both witness and inspiration. On the surface, this is a book with beautiful illustrations, and a message of hope and redemption. But Kwame Alexander also directly confronts the tragedies faced by Black Americans, with three two-sided pages including just the words “this is for the unspeakable” alongside artwork addressing the millions killed during the “middle passage;” the deaths of the four little girls in the 16th Street Baptist church bombing; and the more contemporary murders of Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin. These pages are a sensitive way of introducing the idea of memorialization and tribute to young children. The language and the art is meant to evoke questions but not spark fear.
Each page is linked to historical characters, e.g., “Unforgettable” depicts Jesse Owens; “Undeniable” refers to the institution of slavery; Unflappable” is for Jack Johnson; “who shine their light” refers to a multi-talented group of Black artists, etc. Alexander’s notes offer a paragraph of information about each character, and open the door to a child pursuing more knowledge. One section includes information about Black soldiers during the Civil War (sometimes called Buffalo Soldiers), that may be history that children have never been previously taught. Educators, in particular, will find Alexander’s notes an excellent resource for their classrooms, and a way to address the incredibly rich history of Black Americans in the United States.
Check out ESPN’s TheUndefeated.com (mentioned on the end page). It is a treasure trove of Black history, including this timely video on the history of Blacks getting the right to vote.
Kwame Alexander pays homage to the powerful author Maya Angelou in his Afterword, imploring his young readers to keep rising. To the right is her poem in its entirety, and you can watch a video of her reading it in my write-up for Zetta Elliott’s book, Say Her Name.
Alexander covers so many characters and so many events in this short picture book. It is why it is an absolute “keeper” in a racially conscious home or school library. You can keep expanding on his initial notes, allowing your children to engage more deeply with this material. I would suggest asking kids which page resonated with them most, and then exploring the character and historical events depicted there in much more detail. For adult readers, after you have read the notes, what does it feel like to return to the book, to read it a little slower with your children, knowing how much each page is depicting?
As I’ve written before, my goal with this initiative is to spur the recognition that reading can be an act of resistance; that writing is witnessing; that art is activism. What we do with our knowledge – even at a very young age – can change how we are in the world; it can change the world, in fact, one person at a time. I think Kwame Alexander wrote this poem – with all the lives it encompasses – to make us see that each individual life contained in it has meaning, impact and dignity. There is a saying in the Talmud that “He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” Books like this one afford the opportunity to show your child how extraordinarily precious and unique their lives are, how much potential lives in each of us, and how, unfortunately, that same recognition has not been afforded often enough to Black Americans. We chose The Undefeated for the exemplary way it honors Black lives and insists that Black lives matter in very profound ways.
In my write-up on Hosea Plays On, I included links to many of the musicians cited in Alexander’s notes on “this is for the unbelievable” (Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, etc). Please play their music for your kids! Here’s one more – a lullaby sung by Sarah Vaughn.
“This is for the unlimited and the Wilma Rudolphs” is devoted to great Black American athletes. I want to call particular attention to the phenomenal social justice work being done by LeBron James and his foundation, with its focus on at-risk education for children in his hometown of Akron, Ohio. James’ I Promise Program is a local mission and is changing the lives of the children it serves. We may be featuring his children’s book in 2021.
Because my own work is focused on the arts, especially literature, I want to include a little more information on each of the artists referred to by Alexander’s words “who shine/ their light for the world to see/ and don’t stop/ ‘til the break of dawn.” I often feel like I am going down a rabbit hole when I do research like this – I never know where it will lead me. I encourage you to Google some of the many events and characters cited by Kwame Alexander, and see where they take you. I ended up on museum sites, looking at art I had never seen before, reading about children’s books I hadn’t known about, and learning more about poets I already love. Share what you learn with your kids. What a gift this book is!
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Romare Bearden, (1911-1918), visual artist .
He teamed up with poet Langston Hughes on the book The Block, with collages by Bearden and poetry by Hughes, depicting the scenes of a block in Harlem. Small versions of Bearden’s panels for this book can be seen on this page devoted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.
Zora Neale Hurston, (1891-1960), writer and anthropologist .
Their Eyes Were Watching God was one of the most important novels I read in college. I had never read anything like it before, had never heard a voice like hers. Her work was “rediscovered” in the latter half of the 20th century by Alice Walker. Hurston collected folktales, and some of these can be found in the childrens’ book Lies and Other Tall Tales, adapted and illustrated by Christopher Myers, and What’s the Hurry Fox and Other Animal Tales adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas.
Jacob Lawrence, (1917-2000), painter.
Lawrence’s work was just featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in an exhibition called Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle. You can read an interview there of Lawrence “discussing the importance of centering Black contributions to U.S. history.”
Here is a video introduction put together by Khan Academy on Lawrence’s Migration Series.
“Such as I am, I am a precious gift.”
— Zora Neale Hurston
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), painter. The Smithsonian calls Tanner the “most distinguished African-American artist of the 19th century” and the first to achieve international acclaim. He often painted biblical images, but I am particularly taken by this one I found online:
Augusta Savage (1892-1962), sculptor. Jacob Lawrence was one of her students. I love this sculpture of her nephew, made out of plaster and then painted (with shoe polish!)
"What's so remarkable about this work is that, quite simply, it presented an African American child in a realistic and humane fashion," Ikemoto [the art curator] says. Thousands of kids came to see Gamin on exhibit, and "they saw themselves as fine art."
Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), painter and graphic design artist. He illustrated poet James Weldon Johnson’s collection God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. This website has wonderful samples of Douglas’ work, and includes a family guide to a museum exhibition held in 2007 at Kansas University’s Spencer Museum of Art – well worth looking at with your kids!
Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), poet. She was a slave, and the first Black woman to have her poetry published.
“On Being Brought from Africa to America” is perhaps her most famous poem:
'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
Langston Hughes (1902-1967), poet. Hughes was a major contributor to the Harlem Renaissance. A number of his poems have been made into children’s books (and may be featured by us in 2021). This is a wonderful one to end on, and seems appropriate to the intent of The Undefeated in its joyous celebration of Black life.
My People
Dream-singers,
Story-tellers,
Dancers,
Loud laughers in the hands of Fate—
My People.
Dish-washers,
Elevator-boys,
Ladies’ maids,
Crap-shooters,
Cooks,
Waiters,
Jazzers,
Nurses of babies,
Loaders of ships,
Porters,
Hairdressers,
Comedians in vaudeville
And band-men in circuses—
Dream-singers all,
Story-tellers all.
Dancers—
God! What dancers!
Singers—
God! What singers!
Singers and dancers,
Dancers and laughers.
Laughers?
Yes, laughers….laughers…..laughers—
Loud-mouthed laughers in the hands of Fate.