Reclaiming Black History Month

Theme Song: Finally in 1941 by Don Byron

Last week as my daughter and I were riding in to work/school we were listening to a national black radio show where they were playing a “Black History Month” styled game show.  Three callers were on the air as the contestants and the radio jocks asked them questions like, “What is an HBCU?” or gave them clues to identify black entertainers and public figures.   After listening to what seemed like five minutes to the players trying to find the answer to easy clues about Billie Holliday my daughter turned to me and asked, “Are these really black history facts?”

“Well, they are facts,” I said.  “More like trivia, really.”

“Then maybe this should be Black Trivia Month.”

I can see what she means.  Black History Month has become a chore, remembering big events and important people which have been boiled down to Martin Luther King, The Peanut Guy and DuBois.  We don’t remember anymore than that because it doesn’t relate to us; just because those black people have been able to do something it doesn’t mean anything to the average black student.  That was them, their time, that person. 

Tonight the 2nd half of African American Lives 2 comes on PBS.  The documentary does a genealogical search of famous African Americans with this year including just one “every day” African American.  While revealing information about long forgotten members to them Professor Henry Louis Gates helps to put the past into context.  With actor Don Cheadle he tells him he’s one of the few African Americans who can’t blame white people for the enslavement of his people because his long lost greats were owned by the Chickasaw nation.  In talking with Linda Johnson Rice, president of Johnson publishing company, he tells her of how her 4th great grandfather was intentionally orphaned at the age of 8.  From the revelation her tears begin to flow for the little boy she never knew.

But I think my favorite was when comedian Chris Rock learned that he his 2nd great grandfather served in the union army and became a state assemblyman during the reconstruction era.  The look on Rock’s face said it all.  He then revealed that as a teen he wanted to become president but it was an aspiration his mother steered him away from because in the volatile 60s being a black leader (like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X) meant a short life.  Rock wondered aloud where he would have ended up if he had known that someone he was related to had achieved what he could during that tumultuous time period.

I understand where Rock is coming from.  I remember in the 80s often being told that I, along with other African Americans, were descended from Kings and Queens of Africa.  And it felt good the first couple of times hearing it but after awhile one becomes numb to it because you look around and think, if that is true then why am I where I’m at now?

And it’s easy to look at the achievements of those studied  African Americans in our black history pantheon but if you personally don’t know an inventor like Granville T. Woods or a strong educator like Booker T. Washington then it might not mean a thing.  Some people can take those examples and think, “If they can do it, I can do it too!”  But unfortunately far too many people feel those achievements are beyond their grasp.  They don’t understand how they got there, let alone how they ended up where they are.

Sadly its because we are disconnected from our past.  Not just our lored African greatness but our own individual family histories of who we are in this country.  What happened to our great, great Uncle?  Why does cousin Shay walk with a limp?  Our parents and grandparents and great grandparents didn’t like to talk about themselves.  To ask something simple as “Where did you live?” could get you hushed up quickly with a “Mind your own business.” That is if you even thought to ask.  There is so much shame and pain in the African American past that it’s not surprising that it effects us today.   I remember growing up in the 70s and one of the biggest insults you could give someone was that they were an African (African booty scratcher).  Even though I heard the mantra “Black is Beautiful” and James Brown’s “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” I was still getting mixed messages from the community.  Nappy was shameful, dark skin a travesty and to have been a slave –well, how low can you go?  So our grandparents didn’t tell us about their hard times, probably because they were still living it and we are left to think we have sprung off the top of someone’s head instead of being connected to the past.

Although I haven’t had time to thoroughly search so I havent’ come up with anything new I am still searching.  And I am telling my daughter so she will know and placing them on the Black History Timeline, to personalize it for her.

My father, her grandfather, fought in World War II.  My grandmother came up to Cincinnati during the big Black migration right after the war but then she died of tuberculosis.  My mother used to take me with her to vote when I was little and made me go register to vote for the 1988 election because although sometimes she’s complacent she still believes in change.  This is where we are on the timeline and I’m trying to reach back to bring to her some little known Black History Facts of who we are.

Who are you on the black history timeline?  What are little known facts about your family?  Share.