The Essence

“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” – El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz b.k.a. Malcolm X

Thanks to Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the Black United Students at Kent State University and President Gerald Ford, February is Black History Month. This is somewhat controversial, with some, for instance Morgan Freeman, saying it diminishes us to have a month to celebrate our history when no one else does so and others saying it is a slight that we get the shortest month. Some even argue that there is no need for it anymore. I personally feel it is still an important part of American tradition and that it actually should be magnified even more, especially in schools. It is not about singling out one race, it is about including the most neglected and mistreated race in the same American history we worked so hard to help create. It is not about saying black people are better, it is about saying that we are just as important and that we helped contribute to the America we know today.

In regards to Morgan Freeman, I don’t agree with his logic. Yes it is true that Black History Month is unique in that other races don’t have a specific month to celebrate their history, but there is a reason for that. White history doesn’t have a month because it has the entire school year. Most American schools did, and still do not, teach African-American history. The most many students learn of is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and now Barack Obama to a lesser extent. I have actually spoken to people outside my race who informed me that the most they learned about slavery growing up was that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. African-American history and contributions to the building of America, and the world, have often been ignored or kept from the public. Not to mention many of the items we use daily were invented by African-Americans such as refrigeration, the cell phone and the door knob to name a few (Google it, seriously, it will surprise you). Madam C. J. Walker was the first female self-made millionaire in America by selling hair products in the early 1900s (what makes this even more remarkable is that her parents and older siblings were all slaves, she was the first one born after the Emancipation Proclamation). Many of these contributions go unnoticed, or ignored, when speaking of American history.

We should also make sure we acknowledge the contributions still being made today by individuals and organizations that are still working to get the equality we deserve. I think when we only acknowledge the people in the civil rights movement and prior, it gives the illusion to some that the fight is over. People fail to realize that we still have not reached the dream King had, nor the promised land he spoke of. We have not become the society that Malcolm X envisioned for us. We have yet to realize the intellectual aims of Dubois nor the industrial aims of Booker T. There are still people fighting for these visions, but they are not shown in the media as they have been in the past. Most of the civil rights leaders that were making strong changes, black or white, have been killed in the name of justice, so it has been hard to find willing replacements. I think if we show the people making changes today, it can encourage more to make change today and tomorrow.

To sum it all up, I find it part irony and part atrocity that African-AMERICANS are not celebrated enough for our contributions to society. African descendants, globally, have impacted the history of the world more than any other race. We were literally the first humans. We created society, art, philosophy, science, math, religion, astronomy and culture, just to name a few. We created the essence of what it means to be a human being. Many of these feats were done by the ancient Egyptians alone. Egypt, which in essence was a colony of Ethiopia at first, created many factors of life we use today but some even try to take that history away from us saying they were Arabian, or depicting them as white in pretty much every movie about ancient Egypt, but fail to mention the fact that their monuments that depicted them showed/shows traditional African features. They even drew themselves as black in the hieroglyphics, and by looking at other hieroglyphics, u can see that they had an array of colors they could use, including white. Seeing as how our history as Africans has been diluted and ignored so many times during history, I feel having a Black History Month is a small step in the right direction. Now when our history is taught interwoven into American history, as it should be, then we would have made sustainable progress.