wikipediaEvery year when Black History Month rolls around, I cannot help but think of it as a joke. Its goals are admirable, but ultimately it fails, and, in my opinion, insults black history as a whole. By reducing black culture to a few key figures and never expanding the repertoire of black pioneers we are essentially promoting the ignorance of black history.
During Black History Month in elementary school, I recall being taught about Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington Carver, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman and other similar heroes. Yet when the same cast reappeared in February school year after school year, I began to wonder if there were any other influential blacks.
Was that it?
Was that the extent of my heritage?
I was a black boy who knew very little about his own heritage. Aided little by a national school system where African and African-American history is nothing more than Ancient Egypt, slavery, colonization and the civil rights movement, if classes even bothered to examine those subjects. Therefore, promoting the exploration of the diversity of black history is imperative.
Is not the goal of Black History Month to expand awareness of the black experience? Black history cannot be summed up in a slave narrative, some peanut-butter tales and an “I Have a Dream” speech.
Not to repudiate the various contributions of these black heroes, but the pantheon needs to be expanded.
When has an English class ever taught about Jupiter Hammon, a slave who became the first published black author in the United States?
And before Oprah there was Madame C.J. Walker, who went from cotton-picker to the first female American self-made millionaire.
Every time a fireman is protected from smoke or a car is saved by a traffic light we can thank Garrett Morgan.
How many art students have studied the work of Faith Ringgold, whose seamless fusion of sewing, painting and storytelling has blurred the lines between fine art and craft?
And this is only the beginning of a rich though largely unexplored cultural tapestry.
Another limitation of Black History Month is in its inception as a specific month, segregated from the rest of the year and American history as a whole.
The diaspora has spread blacks and our culture across this nation, making our experience as valid as the white majority’s. The black experience, and those of other minorities, is indelibly intertwined with the history and fate of our nation. As long as black history remains separate and labeled by race, then the struggle is for naught. The sacrifices are in vain. The blood and screams of the past are spent on deaf ears.
This brings me to my final point: How can schools and the American public possibly understand the history of an entire culture in twenty-eight days?
It’s a na’ve and foolish task.
Black History Month needs to be abolished.
By constraining the black experience within the confines of a month, a time limit is established, making it appear as if once February is over, black history hibernates until next year.
Black history is American history.
Blackness is American.
The African Experience is not twenty-eight days.