COURTLAND
On Wednesday night, a group of Southampton County students got to travel back in time to George Washington Carver’s laboratory.

The event, which was at the Walter C. Rawls Memorial Library in Courtland, was all part of the Black History Month program put on by the Bright Star Touring Theatre of Asheville, North Carolina. Dorothy, played by Emily Hubbard, was working on a book report for school, and she travelled through a book to Carver’s lab to get some help completing a Black History Month report for class.

Along the way, she met a number of his friends, including Jackie Robinson, the first black Major League Baseball player; George Crum, who invented the potato chip; Madame C.J. Walker, who was the first woman to become a self-made millionaire; Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, who performed one of the first successful open heart surgeries in 1893; Booker T. Washington, who founded Tuskegee University, a Historically Black College in Alabama; and Thurgood Marshall, the first black person to serve as a Supreme Court Justice.

And the play helped more than just a book report. When Britnee Lyons, 8, returned from the lab, she knew what she was going to do for her school’s upcoming science project.

“I’m going to do a science project based on George Washington Carver,” she said. “I learned that he made makeup out of peanuts.”

One of the approximately 50 children present, Trinity Cromwell, 11, also didn’t know that peanuts were used in beauty products. She was also excited to see Jackie Robinson and learn more about him.

“I think it was very fun,” she said. “They were funny, and I really liked it.”

Brian Mayberry, who played all of the historical figures, said that he thinks theater can be a great tool for teaching.

“It’s different than reading it in a book or hearing about it in class,” Mayberry said. “Theatre really brings history to life. It can be a really good complement to class because of that, and sometimes, the kids see things that are not in the books.”

Rebecca Wyche, the youth programer with the library, said they wanted to do something a little different with Black History Month, so they brought in the acting troupe.

“The children seemed really impressed,” Wyche said. “The actors were able to hold their attention, which was great. They are very interactive with the children, and they participated very well.”

On Wednesday, Feb. 11, the Southampton County Historical Society will present a program on African-Americans in Southampton County starting at 5 p.m.

The Walter Cecil Rawls Library will bring in another acting group, The Children’s Theatre of Hampton Roads on Feb. 18. The show, which starts at 5 p.m., is titled, “Let My People Go: A Journey on the Underground Railroad.”