Black History Month is an opportunity to discuss and reflect on the role Black Americans have played in shaping the United States.
Its roots go back to Negro History Week founded in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson. Son of a slave, Woodson earned a Ph. D from Harvard and chose February for Negro History Week because it was the month in which Abraham Lincoln was born and the month Frederick Douglass who as a slave never knew his actual birth date chose for his birthday.
Woodson believed that black Americans should be proud of their heritage and that both white and black Americans should understand the largely overlooked achievements of black Americans.
When President Gerald Ford officially designated February as Black History Month in 1976 he said our nation should “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
That is the hope, and I suspect it is realized more every year as white and black students in elementary through high school learn about the achievements and leadership of black men and women who have made America and the world better ((I say the world because England, Ireland, and Canada also celebrate Black History Month).
That is a good thing, but it has not and will not solve the evil of racism. Racism is an infection of the soul that poisons people’s perception of themselves and other people.
Many white Americans prove the persistence of racism by their dismissal of the need for Black History Month. Many of them believe it opens the door to school curriculum that includes ethnic based history courses whose aim is to promote hatred of white people.
Nothing could be further from the truth, but the real question for me is to wonder what these people are so afraid of when it comes to the history of racism in America. I learned about it by growing up in a racist culture in Virginia. Learning the truth didn’t damage me. It helped me to grow beyond racism and to commit myself to doing more for racial justice.
Nor as a father was I ever afraid that in school my children would learn the truth about America’s pervasive racism. Neither am I concerned about my grandchildren learning the same truth. I believe racism itself is the source of such irrational and unfounded fear of a full and candid study of American history.
It is ironic that the Jesus so many of these white people who are afraid of honest history claim to believe in said that truth would set people free, but I suppose their racism is too strong for even his words to penetrate.
Black History Month is an appropriate emphasis on the contributions of black Americans to our nation’s development that have for too long been ignored and, if understood, can dispel the conspiracy nonsense surrounding things like Critical Race Theory and undermine the exploitation of it by scurrilous politicians.
That white people can believe they are superior because of their race while others are inferior because of theirs is so patently absurd that it can only be described as senseless nonsense.
Black History Month won’t cure the exploitation of racial fears in America today, or even advance the cause of racial justice itself as much as is needed, but it can, as it always has, exalt the lives of great black Americans who serve as models for others to follow, black and white alike.
Dr. Mae Jemison is one such example. In 1992 she became the first black woman to go into space. Later when talking about space and her becoming an astronaut she said the lesson she had to learn was this: “Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.”
That is something every child should learn regardless of his or her skin color. Back History Month increases the chance of that happening.
It is needed more than ever.
linnposts.com 