Afrocentric Puzzles Teach Children About Culture

     Kevin Dunn, a 52-year-old Bronx resident and father of five, has created Afrocentric crossword and word-search puzzles to teach children young and old about African and African-American culture and history. Marketed under the “Puzzles For Us ... the puzzles with a purpose” label, Dunn’s puzzles have started appearing in New York City public school classrooms – a nice turn of events, since that’s where the first one appeared more than 15 years ago.
He’s also under contract to create puzzles for both the American Civil Liberties Union on racial profiling and the legendary Apollo Theater. “I call these cultural entertainment,” Dunn said in a New York Daily News article. “The idea is to whet people’s appetites so they want to know more.”
Though schoolchildren are the focus, the scholarship behind each puzzle is more college-level. Dunn’s puzzle clues are taken from history, culture and popular culture –  solutions to one puzzle include a speech by Sioux Chief Sitting Bull, ancient Egyptian ethics and an award-winning recording by local radio personality Gary Byrd. Dunn found himself energized by the favorable public reaction to his puzzles.
The warm reception gave him the impetus to keep going. “I spent a lot of time at the New York Public Library and at the Schomburg [Center for Research in Black Culture],” he said.  By 2001, Dunn had a collection of puzzles and was looking for ways to expand his business. He turned to Project Enterprise, a nonprofit with offices in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx that provides advice and seed money to budding entrepreneurs looking to get businesses off the ground. That group helped Dunn launch “Invision Publications” his puzzle-making company.
Last month, Dunn was named Project Enterprise’s 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year.  Public school teachers can order his puzzles from the Education Department’s Web site, www.shopdoe.com. Others can get it from www.puzzlesforus.com, or by calling (718) 538-6102.

— Teachers of Color