Happy Black History Month: 

We’ve come a long way and still have much work to do

by Kimberly Harris, M.Ed.

www.DistinctiveVoiceConsulting.com

Imagine a planet in a faraway galaxy where there are three types of organisms: we’ll call them alpha, bravo, and Charlie.  All of these organisms live in their respective habitats. One day the alpha organisms began to have differences among themselves and some of these alpha organisms decided to search for another habitat. They sent a party to seek another habitat and the party found a habitat far away. The only problem was that it was not a vacant habitat, but rather a habitat inhabited by the bravo organism. When the alpha organism took this information back to the other alpha organisms, it was decided that they would travel to this other habitat and force a share of it. This share attempt turned into a takeover of the bravo organisms by the alpha organisms and the alphas were content that they had a new place to live away from the oppression of their fellow organisms in their homeland. Sadly, the bravo organism was relegated to live in habitats of a specified region and lost their land against their will. The alphas set up community in this stolen land, but among them they could not agree upon a hierarchy.  So they decided they needed to force the immigration of another organism from another habitat, the Charlie organism. The Charlie organism would then perform free labor and ironically be subjected to the very oppression from which the alpha organism escaped at their original habitat. The Charlie organism endured nearly two and a half centuries of brutal enslavement. In spite of this subjugation, the Charlie organism survived, endured and thrived. By now I am certain that you have recognized the habitat of the United States of America, the alpha organism as the British, the bravo organism as the Native Americans and the Charlie organism as Africans. This month we honor African-Americans with Black History month, the history of stolen bodies from their homeland and the resilience of a people who have risen in spite of mountains of adversity.

 

The concept of Black History month began with Carter G. Woodson in the summer of 1915. Woodson attended an event in Chicago that aimed to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation sponsored by the state of Illinois. The event was attended by thousands of African Americans from nationwide who travelled to see exhibits highlighting the progress of their people made since the destruction of slavery. From this event Woodson was inspired to form the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) which led to the 1916 creation of The Journal of Negro History. Woodson continued to urge black civic organizations to promote black achievement which led to the creation of Negro History and Literature Week in 1924. The month of February was chosen for this celebration because February is the month of the birthdays of two great Americans who played a prominent role in the support of black Americans: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas. Though Woodson attributed these men to contributing much to the advancement of black life, he did not want Negro History and Literature week to be about these men but rather the history of black people and their triumph and survivalist spirit in spite of the atrocities they overcame in America.

 

Rising racial pride and consciousness in a post-World War I generation gave rise to the decade of the New Negro in the 1920’s. Industrialization gave rise to migration of Southern blacks to the North for opportunities that produced a new black middle class. Black history clubs emerged and black history education and literature was highly desired. As the black population grew, mayors issued Negro History week proclamations and Woodson began to promote the idea of black history month in lieu of a week citing that black history was much too important to be limited to seven days.  It wasn’t until 1976, sixteen years past the death of Woodson in 1950 and fifty years after the first celebration, that his vision of Black History month would become a reality.

 

And today in America, the land that promises freedom and opportunity for all, we face a different reality. A reality that Ibram X Kendi calls America’s “dueling duality” in his book, Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. This duality is explained as a dance between racial progress and racist progress. He notes this pattern throughout history and explains how America can go from President Barack Obama to President Donald Trump. How can we go from a leader that promoted policies of equity and inclusion to a leader that promoted policies to divide and oppress? Kendi chronicles the history of racist ideas from their origins in fifteenth-century Europe to when the early British settlers carried their racist ideas to America. I submit to you that it is the foundation of the racist ideologies inherited by these settlers that still haunt us today because America has never dealt with this original sin: a sin that was on full display at our nation’s capital building on January 6, 2021. “How can this be? This is not who we are. I thought we were beyond this,” were the cries of many on social media. Well this is who some of us are and until we reconcile with our past and make amends to groups who were systemically subjugated and exploited, our racial divide, and that hate that we saw on full display by people who believe the lies of a leader who gave them hope to continue the belief in white supremacy and the ideas that were brought to America by this nation’s British forefathers, will continue to grow leaving unity out of reach like a carrot dangling on a string in front of a wagon’s mule. In other words, unity can only be achieved with the acknowledgement of our nation’s past mistakes, a promise not to continue the behavior and a repair. And while President Bill Clinton did the first component of this trilogy, we appear to be years away from dismantling systemic racism and reparations.

 

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with much work to do. We need to be allies to work to dismantle systems of oppression for marginalized people. We need to be courageous to withstand the pressure of the hate that is permeating our society and work to dismantle it with love and education. We need to stand up to fear because this fear paralyzes us from doing what is right. We need to continue to educate ourselves on what systemic racism and oppression is. And we need to heed the words of Amanda Gorman, the first ever youth poet laureate when she stated at the Biden/Harris inauguration that we need to “come together and leave behind a country better than the one we were left.”