Teacher Seeks Balanced Portrait Of History

Teacher seeks balanced portrait of history

By KEITH A. OWENS
NEWS STAFF REPORTER

For Ray Pipkin, an artist and intermediate school teacher at Clague Intermediate School, the study of history is one of the most important tools one can use to pry open the truth about the legacy of black people throughout the world.

Convinced that this legacy has been greatly distorted and watered down over the years, Pipkin not only teaches his students about this legacy (and anyone else who will listen), but he also uses it as the primary inspiration behind many of his paintings which hang along the walls of his classroom.

“I specialize in the history that’s been frozen out,” he said.

Queen Charlotte Sophia, wife of King George III of England, is the subject of his most recent painting. What intrigued Pipkin the most about the woman was not that she was the Queen of England, but that she was black. Pipkin pointed out that very few people know there was a black Queen of England.

“I wanted the girls in my class to see that,” he said with a broad smile.

Pipkin said that he wants children, particularly black children, to see other more positive images of black people than those of slavery or suffering under some other form of oppression.

“I’m not saying ignore slavery, I’m just saying why can’t they give it all to us?” he said.

“I just want to paint a balanced picture.”

Pipkin said that he discovered Queen Sophia was black when he saw a picture of her in “Sex and Race,” by J.A. Rogers. Born in 1744, Sophia married King George in 1761 and bore him 15 children, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. During the King’s two bouts with mental illness in 1788 and 1810, she was put in charge. She died in 1818.

"Queen Charlotte Sophia was not isolated. There were a lot of black aristocratic families in Europe,” he said.

Pipkin said that further research showed Sophia to be a Moor, a black race of people that ruled Spain between 700 and 1492 A.D., then spread throughout Europe. During that time period they built 17 universities in Europe, and also introduced toilets, bathtubs, raised sidewalks and streetlights there during the same time period. Ivan Van Sertima, winner of a Nobel prize in literature and author of "They Came Before Columbus,” gave Pipkin permission to use the latest information he had on the subject, said Pipkin.

Pipkin also emphasized repeatedly how important it is for black children to know their African heritage and for other students to know the richness of that heritage as well.

“We invented chemistry, we invented math, written language, arts and sciences, you name it. Our people invented that stuff and that’s what we gotta get into the history books.”

Ray Pipkin, artist and a history teacher at Clague Intermediate School, with his painting of Charlotte Sophia, a Queen of England that hangs in his classroom. Pipkin said he wants to "paint a balanced picture" of history that more accurately reflects the many positive contributions that blacks throughout the world have made, including the first written language and the first universities.
NEW PHOTO • ROBERT CHASE