New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Black History Month not just for Black people
In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to study our new country to see what lessons could be learned for the benefit of the new French republic. His book “Democracy in America” was an insightful look into the character of America with all its strengths and flaws. A century later, Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economist and Nobel laureate, gave us the perspective of an outsider in his classic 1944 book, “The American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy.” Both authors and scholars pointed out the central role of the relationship between dominant whites and exploited Blacks in the political, economic and social life of the country.
I wonder what an outside scholar would think if they saw a former president calling the Black district attorneys in Atlanta and New York racist because they are prosecuting his criminality. What would that scholar think if they were witness to governors from several states promoting laws that ban historical truths about how Blacks were treated during slavery, Jim Crow and today? How would they interpret the bomb threats at 20 historically Black colleges and universities? What would they say about the highest court in the land about to overturn affirmative action programs in other citadels of higher education? How would they explain to the world a senator from Mississippi’s claim that the nomination of a Black woman to the Supreme Court would lead to an inferior jurist?
G. Carter Woodson, an American scholar and historian, created Black History Month in 1926. His goals were modest and important given the sad state of race relations after World War I. Dr. Woodson was nearly killed in race riot by returning white GIs in Washington, D.C. Woodson’s goal when he created Negro History Week was to share the accomplishments of Black Americans with Black Americans that had been hidden by white educators and the media. Everyday Black Americans needed to witness their humanity in a society that was hell-bent to deny it and destroy it. While Dr. Woodson might have hoped that all Americans would share in this celebration of Black accomplishment and pride, the goal was to uplift the spirits of a race that was beaten down at every turn and people made to believe they were inferior and undeserving of full participation in the American experiment.
Today feels different than any time in our recent history. Never in my lifetime have I felt the simultaneous support of institutions that recognize my abilities, and at the same time what I can only say feels like hatred and terror. While I did not know her, I can understand why a 30-yearold Black beauty queen with a law degree, a TV show and so much to give would throw herself out of a 30th-floor window. It did not surprise me that another beautiful Black woman would die in the presence of an older white man, and authorities would not investigate until the righteous outrage of the family and a community forced the city of Bridgeport to act. Being Black today, regardless of your degrees, your income, your connections, your personality, your looks, or your neighborhood is a burden that is too heavy for some to carry.
Black History Month should be celebrated across this country this month. It is an opportunity to celebrate and learn the familiar and dramatic stories of Crispus Attucks, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Sojourner Truth, Bessie Smith, Nat Turner, Jackie Robinson, Mary McLeod Bethune, Josh Gibson, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hammer, Maya Angelou, Madam CJ Walker, Ralph Bunche, Edward Brooke, W.E.B. DuBois, Hiram Revels, James Baldwin, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Ralph Bunche, Fred Hampton, and thousands of other notable Black Americans who courageously overcame the odds and made a mark on the sands of history.
I am concerned for the mental health and the continued development of Black children today who in some towns, cities and states are told only the stories about their past that make white people laugh and smile, but do not bring tears to their eyes.
It is ironic that those who would ban books and censor history in their effort to protect instead make us less safe, less democratic and less human.
America needs a good cry. Are Republican governors or the local school boards that ban books afraid of the truth, of history, of the ability of their children to learn, or to have a basis to develop
empathy? Do they think that white children are incapable of distinguishing a pablum of lies from the truth plain to their eyes? And while Black children need to know their history, so too do
white children need to know the history of Black people in this country — not the diluted history, the real history.
In the 1960s movie “Inherit the Wind” based on the 1925 Scopes trial, the fictional town of Hillsboro, Tenn., fired and jailed a local high school teacher for teaching his students the theory of evolution. An out-of-town newspaper man covering the case wrote, “I don’t know whether the town leaders had a hole in their heads or their heads in a hole.” It looks like Ron DeSantis and
Glenn Younkin have holes in their heads and want the people of their states to put their heads in a hole. Black history, like the teaching of evolution, or the teaching of the Holocaust, is tough but necessary material for a mature society, and even the children of that society need to learn it. It is ironic that those who would ban books and censor history in their effort to protect instead make us less safe, less democratic and less human. This is a struggle that must be fought and must be won.