Catherine C. Blackwell
Educator, Storyteller, Historian
Catherine C. Blackwell is a native Detroiter. Her father, Burrell Carter, was a chiropodist (podiatrist) who opened the first black-owned four-chair barbershop in Detroit, and her mother, Beulah Carter, became one of Michigan’s first black social workers. They were one of five founding families of St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church on 28th Street where Catherine was the first baby to be christened. After graduating form Northwestern High School Catherine attended Howard University where she met and married George Blackwell, a dentist, while they were still students.
Catherine credits her grandmother, Catherine Draper, with fostering an early interest in Africa and its peoples. Consequently, in 1955 when she began teaching in Detroit Public Schools, she recognized a lack of Black History throughout the curriculum. Thus began Blackwell’s resolve to learn about Africa firsthand and to infuse the curriculum with positive references of African Americans and Africa.
Beginning in 1960, and for more than four decades, Blackwell traveled to Africa 65 times visiting 50 of its countries while studying at African universities and witnessing African countries gain their independence. During these travels Blackwell collected hundreds of artifacts that she uses to enrich learning for her pupils and to help them understand the vastness and complexity of Africa, “The Motherland”, as the continent of origin for African Americans.
Much, of little known knowledge about the peoples and their cultures, has become the basis for many of the stories she shares with children of Africa and in the United States. Blackwell dons her famous “Storyteller’s Hat,” to tell children the stories of B’rer Rabbit and Anansi the Spider about life originating in the heart of Africa. Her vast travel and study have earned Blackwell the informal title of Ambassador to Africa. Her knowledge of Africa and storytelling genius places her in high esteem throughout Michigan and the United States. Catherine and her husband have helped many children, whom they met in ther travels, to attend colleges and have become lasting friends.
Of many awards and honors, Catherine Blackwell cites the Detroit Public School named in her honor, Catherine C. Blackwell Institute of International Studies, Commerce and Technology, as her most endearing tribute.
