Black History Month: Why it Still Matters

By DON ROLLINS

“If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.” — Carter G. Woodson, co-creator of Negro History Week, precursor to Black History Month.

Few sustained initiatives for racial parity have provided a platform for African American champions on par with Black History Month (BHM). Widespread white cluelessness and tokenistic tributes to all things black be damned; there is a case to be made that while BHM is yet to reach anything approaching its full potential as a tool against white supremacy, it’s worth keeping.

Three Reasons:

One: Over the four decades since the Ford administration officially sanctioned Black History Month, students and willing adults of all identities have been introduced (and in some instances, reintroduced) to black artists, inventors, activists, orators, teachers, soldiers, politicians - as well as lesser known African Americans who orchestrated multiracial populist movements against workers’ exploitation: factory by factory, farm by farm, coalfield by coalfield.

Bottom Line: BHM is a counter to the supremacist paradigm of a one- or two-dimensional black “community”.

Two: In order to be effective, white allies need to broaden their knowledge of black history — as interpreted and presented by African Americans.

Black feminism. Black theology. Black economics. Black politics. Black music. Black education. Black journalism. These are sweeping components of black history deserving of in-depth treatment, as well as looking into their relation to one another.

White folks on the whole struggle to appreciate the true role of say, the black church or the black press. Yet each has a story all its own.

Bottom line: BHM provides an opportunity to explore black history (per black authors and others) in an interrelated fashion — its parts, not just the whole.

Three: Any opportunity for healthy dialogue and healing is worth a shot.

While African Americans will always bear the brunt of Diaspora and residual slavery, social scientists posit the nation on the whole suffers from Postraumatic Slave Syndrome — a state of chronic negative emotions caused by slavery’s deep trauma, then passed across generations without sustained opportunities for healing.

This theory is at once helpful and daunting, for until there is a critical mass accepting black and white histories as belonging one to the other, we should expect the suffering to continue.

Bottom line: BHM is as good a time as any to be about the awkward but worthwhile business of anti-racism on the micro level. If we’re all waiting to feel comfortable about race before we get serious, that day will never come.

So in a perfect America, Black History Month would be a time of celebration. In a better America, it would last 365, not 28 or 29 days. In this America, it’s a still worthwhile reminder we can use all the help we can get.

Postscript: There are models aplenty for facilitating micro and macro dialogues on matters of race and white supremacy. A simple online search will get you started.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister and substance abuse counselor living in Pittsburgh, Pa. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2018

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