Published February 4, 2013 by Lafayette Journal & Courier
As director of Purdue
University’s Black Cultural Center, Renee Thomas has a bird’s eye view
on the importance of Black History Month, as she sees how revelations
and information of past events affects current students of all races.
But Black History Month, created in
1926 as Negro History Week to bring attention to the accomplishments of
blacks, seems to be in trouble. In an era where the U.S. just
re-elected its first African-American president, a growing number of
people — including some prominent blacks — are questioning the need of
such an annual recognition.
None of those people, though, sits where Thomas does.
“When individuals understand their
history and culture it empowers them to fulfill their potential and
contribute to society,” Thomas said of the need for Black History Month.
“We must take a look at how we are preparing our current student body
to be successful Purdue alumni. We must prepare all students to succeed
in an increasingly global economy.”
Still, the Black History Month
boo-birds persist. The problem with Black History Month is that some see
it as passé, amounting to little more than ethnic cheerleading. Nearly
every Black History Month detractor has already retreaded Morgan
Freeman’s 2005 interview with the late Mike Wallace of “60 Minutes,”
where he seemed to blast the concept. In the interview, Freeman called
Black History Month “ridiculous” when responding to Wallace’s question,
and added: “You’re going to relegate my history to one month? I don’t
want Black History Month. Black history is American history.”
Charles C.W. Cooke, of the
conservative National Review Online, says Black History Month, Hispanic
Heritage Month and similar recognitions, do nothing more than build the
wall of separation rather than bring people together.
“But a profusion of multi-culti
months doesn’t improve things any more than a profusion of wrongs make a
right. In a country that is supposed to be a melting pot, are we truly
supposed to take comfort in having our complex history cut up into
little slices and distributed with varying emphasis to students
throughout the year?”
Looking at the largest point,
Freeman is right. It is ridiculous to think anyone can contain the
contributions of African-Americans to one month. He is right when he
says black history is American history.
Where he is wrong is that Black
History Month doesn’t “relegate” black history to one month. From the
very day Carter G. Woodson birthed the original concept, it was never
meant to separate black history from American history. Actually, it was
designed to do just the opposite.
Woodson’s creation was in response
to the shameful dispensing of black contributions in America society and
sounding out about the critical role blacks played throughout history
around the world. Black History Month makes sure black contributions are
part of the conversation about American history.
When you really think about it,
adding up the roughly 250 years of legal slavery in North America,
followed by “separate but equal” laws in the South after the Civil War,
while many in the North practiced something akin to Jim Crow-lite, the
relative freedom African-American enjoy in the U.S. today is still
something rather new. Through that time, black history was often
ignored, dismissed and deemed unimportant.
Noted educator Ravi Perry,
assistant professor of political science and Stennis Scholar for
Municipal Governance at Mississippi State University, said incorporating
black history into all facets into American history remains a work in
progress — one that won’t end anytime soon.
“We need Black History Month
because the ‘social revolution’ taking place that defined and continues
to define the agenda of blacks in American history and to the present,
continues,” Perry says. “The country’s election and re-election of the
first black president is not an indication of racial progress meriting
the end of the study of black history. If anything, the president’s
election and re-election creates an opportunity to re-engage black
history and remember that black history is, in fact, American history.”
Would it be nice to think one day
that the accomplishments of blacks were so apart of American history
that Black History Month would be obsolete? You bet. But we are not even
close to that point yet. Now, that’s ridiculous.
Hughes is a member of the Greater Lafayette Commerce’s Diversity Roundtable.
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