As part of my continued intention to learn more about Black history and the Black experience in America, I started watching two different PBS documentary series, "Eyes on the Prize" and "African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross." "Eyes on the Prize" is focused entirely on the history of the civil rights era, a time in American history I have been most fascinated by for some time. Notice I said American history, not Black history. When I think of the lessons I learned about Black history and even those I taught myself while an educator, they almost entirely focused on this era and its celebrated heroes, especially MLK and Rosa Parks. Occasionally, Harriet Tubman or Fredrick Douglas would also be talked about or even a George Washington Carver (whose story we have wrong by the way - spoiler, he did not invent peanut butter) but that was the extent of my exposure to Black history. "Many Rivers to Cross" covers Black history back to Africa and the dawning of slavery in America. As I watched the first episode, I just couldn't stop thinking about all the new things I was learning, of all the things not included in our history books, of all the things I was ignorant of until last night. Why am I this many years old (I won't say how many but it's quite a few!), when I am first learning these things for the first time? Why does it take me intentionally engaging in this journey of anti-racism education and activism to finally learn what should already be covered in our American history books?
I remember growing up and hearing conversations around the fairness of there even being a Black history month for, after all, there is no "white history month." As I grew older and further along in my journey, I became increasingly aware that all we have is white history. American history books were written by white people for white people. Why do we have a separate month for what is essentially American history? This question leads to so many more questions. Why do we focus on slavery only a little in our history books and only as a issue of the 1800s when, in fact, it had been in America since the very first ship landed at Jamestown in 1619. When we learn about Jamestown, why don't we learn this? Our country was literally built by slaves. When we learn about George Washington, why don't we learn that Mt. Vernon was a plantation and there were over 300 slaves on it? Why are all the white men heroes of the stories yet we also hold in high regard those that had to rebel against them to overcome their oppression (i.e. Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglas, MLK, Rose Parks)? If it wasn't for the institute of slavery, founded by the settlers, furthered by our founding fathers, there would have been no oppression for these heroes to overcome. How can we reconcile that in our history books and in our minds?
Black history is separate because it makes it more comfortable for white folks who don't want to believe that the history they were taught their entire lives has been "white washed," painted in a way to portray Europeans as explorers rather than the exploiters they actually were. They want to believe that our founding fathers really espoused equality for all while they "owned" other human beings, forcing them, often brutally, to build their wealth and the very country on which we now stand. They want to believe that their families weren't in this country at the time of slavery, didn't own slaves, and that they have benefited at all from the institution of slavery. But they have, we all have.
As author Isabel Wilkerson so eloquently explains in her book, "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, "Not one of us was here when this house was built. Our immediate ancestors may have had nothing to do with it, but here we are, the current occupants of a property with stress cracks and bowed walls and fissures built into the foundation. We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now." Our history books paint over the cracks, ignore the water dripping between the walls, turn a blind eye to the sagging foundation. Ignoring this history will not make it go away. As I've said before and I will say again and again, Black history is American history. Until we acknowledge it, weave it into the tale we tell ourselves, the story we teach our children, we will need February to remind us. I look forward to the day when we don't need Black History Month or any of the special months including my own Women's History month. But, until we are ready to tell the true history of how this nation came to be, we need them. I just hope we can bring to light those cracks, fissures, and failing foundations before our house crumbles to the ground.
Comments