Why Black History Month still matters in the 21st century

African-American Millennials say they never really learned anything useful during Black History Month activities at school, and they fret that having a formal, month-long observance gives the nation a pass to ignore black history the rest of the year.— Shreveport Times

Today's black youth are so far removed from the events recapitulated during Black History Month that some may question whether Black History Month is still relevant to them?. Obviously, those who think this way have never heard of George Santayana who famously said:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

What self-respecting people throws away its history? It would be foolish to do so. Every generation needs to know from whence it came in order to determine its future course. No one questions if the Revolutionary War or the Holocaust are still relevant today? Black History Month serves to remind blacks as well as whites of how far we've come as a nation since the dark days of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation. Not only that, Black History Month gives blacks a chance to tell their history from their own point of view with no holds barred.

Without a doubt, blacks have an important place in American history whenever the story of America is told. Black History Month plays homage to this fact, and documents it. And while it may be inspiring, indeed, instructive to look in the rear view mirror of black history from time to time, each generation is responsible for confronting the vexing issues of their day, finding their own solutions, and taking their place alongside history. For 21st century blacks, this means speaking out about resurgent issues of racial inequality and social injustice that are not unlike those endured by earlier generations of blacks some 100 years ago in America. Black History Month should motivate 21st century blacks to continue confronting American society until these conditions no longer exist. We can't afford to take the pressure off. Freedom is too important a right to accept anything less..

Up from slavery, black lives have always mattered.

To do away with Black History Month would be like "cutting off our nose to spite our face." Black youth need Black History Month to understand their rightful place in the struggle for racial equality and social justice for their own generation.  The freedom mantle has been passed to a new generation. The question these 21st century blacks must ask themselves is not how far they've come, but where they're headed?

Black History Month recitations must move beyond reciting Dr Martin Luther King Jr's, "I Have A Dream" speech to the question King himself posed in his last book, "Where Do We go From Here: Chaos or Community? "  In that 1967 book, Dr King described the then state of black people in America as follows:

• Half of all Negroes live in substandard housing
• Negroes have half the income of whites
• There are twice as many Negroes unemployed
• The rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites
• In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites
• One twentieth as many Negroes as whites attend college
• Of employed Negroes, 75 percent hold menial jobs

The question blacks need to ask of themselves is "How much has changed since Dr King made those observations?"

According to former Harvard professor and theologian Cornel West not much has changed from 1967 to now, despite having a black president in the White House. West has been critical of President Barack Obama for what he says is "a perceived lack of quantifiable social and economic progress in poorer black communities."

Black people have suffered more in this age than in the recent past. Empirical indices of infant mortality rates, mass incarceration rates, mass unemployment and dramatic declines in household wealth reveal this sad reality. How do we account for this irony? It goes far beyond the individual figure of President Obama himself, though he is complicit; he is a symptom, not a primary cause. Although he is a symbol for some of either a post-racial condition or incredible Black progress, his presidency conceals the escalating levels of social misery in poor and Black America. —Black Prophetic Fire (Beacon Press) by Cornel West.

In 2014, The National Urban League released the 38th edition of "The State of Black America"  a report that details economic disparities impeding black progress— unemployment and underemployment, two strong indicators of growth and progress. Without question, there are large disparities between blacks and whites on all social and economic indices.

In the short span of 50 years, the outcry of blacks has gone from "We shall overcome" to "Black lives matter" reflecting a worsening of social and economic conditions in the black community. Without a Black History Month, 21st century blacks would have no idea how these two protests are inter-connected. A newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, DC provides a more permanent and accessible archive for everyone to study black history and its place in the history of America. If Black History Month has anything to teach America about its racially troubled past, it is this— the struggle against racial inequality and for social justice is one that we, as a nation, must win together.

I don't feel no ways tired, I've come too far from where I started from. Nobody told me that the road would be easy, I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me.— Curtis Burrell

Why "Black Lives Matter" is a win-win for us all

The colonial history, the legacy of enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism, and racial inequality in the US remains a serious challenge as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent.—Statement by the United Nations on Racism in the U.S. 


Recently, I had a conversation with a Jewish man in which I compared the enslavement of Jews in Egypt to the ordeal of Africans in America whose ancestors were brought to this country in chains and sold into slavery. I asked him how Jews have been able to transcend their own enslavement. He admitted that slavery for Africans in America was 10 times worse than for Jews in Egypt. He went on to say that one thing that helped Jews move beyond their past was the fact that the old slave generation died out in the wilderness, and was replaced by a new generation that knew no slavery. They got a new start, so to speak.

Africans in America a.k.a blacks are not there yet. A legacy of slavery still mars generations of blacks who continue to be marginalized by American society despite the anomaly of electing a black president in 2008. The United Nations recently took note that black people in the U.S. still face daily reminders of their slave past, even generations later, in the form of subtle and sometimes not so subtle societal discrimination, inequality, injustice and racism that is exclusively based on their skin color. Unlike Jews, blacks can't hide who they are, not that they should have to. It's America's image of black people, and blacks own self-image that must change. For that to happen, hearts must also change.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. —Ezekiel 36:26

The growing controversy over the Black Lives Matter movement sends a clear signal that hearts need to be transformed on both sides. Some have chosen to view Black Lives Matter as negative, divisive and racist, even though the movement's founders have stated otherwise:

#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean your life isn’t important–it means that black lives, which are seen as without value within a white supremacy [structure in America], are important to your liberation. Given the disproportionate impact state violence has on black lives, we understand that when black people in this country get free, the benefits will be wide reaching and transformative for society as a whole...   

This is why we call on black people and our allies to take up the call that black lives matter. We’re not saying black lives are more important than other lives, or that other lives are not criminalized and oppressed in various ways.  We remain in active solidarity with all oppressed people who are fighting for their liberation and we know that our destinies are intertwined.—Black Lives Matter statement of purpose

In times past, when blacks in the U.S. organized to achieve parity within the bounds of the majority white society, such groups were targeted for destruction by the government, and their leaders neutralized—i.e. Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Whitney Young, Martin Luther King Jr., George Jackson, Fred Hampton, Angela Davis and Huey Newton, And so it is with the new Black Lives Matters movement, purposely labelled a terrorist group by some to set the stage for its eventual demise like all the others before it. And that could happen unless America changes course and is convinced of the positives that could come from embracing its racially divided past, righting the many wrongs it's done to blacks, and opening the door to economic opportunities for this oppressed group. Telling blacks they should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps while you still have your boot on their necks holding them down is disingenuous. When Black Lives Matter, we all benefit, and we all matter.

Undoubtedly, blacks must also be accountable for their own actions. For Black Lives Matter to really matter, the black community has to come together and police itself. Black futures are being decimated by self inflicted wounds from black-on-black crime, drug addiction and trafficking, illiteracy, joblessness, juvenile delinquency and a broken family structure of single parent households. Not that these things aren't occurring in other communities, but the numbers for blacks are out of proportion to their percentage in the population. Destructive forces, counter-productive attitudes and behaviors within the black community need to be called out and stopped no matter who's doing it. No longer should those persons committing crimes against black people be ignored and given safe haven to do more harm. If Black Lives Matter they must matter first within the black community, and to their own people.

if they pray to me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing, then I will hear them in heaven, forgive their sins, and make their land prosperous again.—2 Chronicles 7:14

But it doesn't stop there. Likewise, good-hearted whites must not keep silent when racism continues rear its ugly head in private or public conversations, within institutions, media reporting, commercial images, jokes, comments and so on. To do so only serves to perpetuate and pass down the vestiges of prejudice that divide this country. For America to be made whole, blacks and whites must coalesce to expose and root out the bad apples among us.  No doubt it will take a committed village to do it, but it's not an impossible task. In the end, it will be worth it, and a win-win for the generations to come.