linnposts.com

The observance of Black History Month has its origins in “Negro History Month” that was first observed in 1926 at the urging of African American historian Carter Woodson.

“If a race has no history,” he wrote, “it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”

Black History Month established in the 1970’s serves this very lofty purpose (also celebrated in Canada and the United Kingdom).

But I think Black History Month is for the whole nation and not just the black community. One reason is that we who are white need to learn about the great contributions blacks have made to the nation’s arts, literature, schools, businesses, government, and civic life.

The other reason is more practical and pressing. We are currently witnessing major efforts by Republican state legislatures to roll back the progress we have made in voting rights in our country. These new expressions of political discrimination were set in motion by, of all things, the United States Supreme Court when five conservative justices struck down the key provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required states with a history of suppression to get Justice Department approval for any changes in their voting laws.

Within 24 hours of that decision Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas began the process of writing and passing new voting rights laws aimed at discouraging voting among minorities, the elderly, and young voters. North Carolina raced to catch up with them, with more than thirty other states eventually following suit.

Knowing why passing the original Voting Rights Act was such a major step forward for civil rights for our country helps put the Supreme Court decision and the debacle it has created in historical context. That context in turn exposes the new voting laws for the expression of old racism they are. In the past such laws were explicitly intended to deny black citizens the right to vote. Today that racism goes under the guise of preventing voter fraud, only no one has yet shown any evidence in these state that such fraud actually exists.

More telling, though, is the fact that most of the laws passed will do nothing to prevent any fraud that might occur because they deal with restricting early voting, weekend voting, same day registration, eliminating voting precincts in low income areas, not allowing extended voting hours on election day, or limiting picture I.D. cards to the ones the state issues specifically for voting.

Anybody who knows American history knows we’ve been down this road before as a nation with an ugly landscape we have spent years trying to clean up.

Yet a lot more than that is going on today regarding American black history. There is a kind of naïveté, if not intentional ignorance, on the part of many white Americans about the residual impact years and years of discrimination and underacheivement forced on them by social circumstances have had. This doesn’t excuse anyone from doing their best to overcome whatever circumstances are working against them, but the real need is for those of us who don’t face those circumstances to stop assuming we understand what people of color have been through and how that still affects their lives.

That’s where Black History Month comes in. It is good time to take some time to learn from the lives of black leaders, artists, poets, writers, scientists, doctors, teachers, and high achievers in every field of human endeavor. They have much to teach us. But that will never happen as long as we think Black History is for black Americans only and has nothing to do with the rest of us.

Worthwhile to note, Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin has been working to get the House of Representatives to restore the Voting Rights Section struck down by the Court. Sadly he has thus far been rebuffed by his Republican colleagues.

That tells me that Black History Month doesn’t mean much to them because the actual history black Americans have experienced apparently doesn’t either, at least not enough for them to do anything to prevent history from repeating itself.