Black History Month provides a unique period in which Black Americans are told how integral Black American contributions have been to the success of the United States. Black history, as presented through the mainstream, retains a strong focus on the “first.” The first Black person to achieve this or the first Black person to accomplish that, highlighting the challenges Black Americans have overcome rather than how the Black American collective has challenged the United States.
From the trove of documentaries, historical fiction and media advertised during February, one would assume the American public is receiving adequate instruction concerning the Black experience in the United States.
However, as Franquiz & Salinas (2011)[1] found, the problem is from whose perspective history is told rather than the frequency of recognition. Essentially, it is more palatable for America to remember choice phrases from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, I Have a Dream, rather than his critique of White Christians and moderate complacency in the Letter from Birmingham Jail[2].
“This Black History month, I argue that we should not view the Black experience in the United States as an uphill battle from slavery to freedom but embrace the Black experience in the United States as an American demonstration of humility, grace, forgiveness and resistance.”
In 1676, 56 years after the first enslaved Africans arrived in the British colonies, enslaved Africans joined forces with White indentured servants and landless White men to rebel against elite planters in Virginia. In 1770, Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave and sailor of African and Indigenous descent, led a group of disgruntled colonists into what is now known as the Boston Massacre. Attucks was the first of five killed in the conflict.
During the American Revolution, thousands of Black men took up arms against the British Empire, seeking camaraderie amongst White soldiers who sought to be free from British tyranny. The colonial history of the United States shows us that even before Patrick Henry demanded that he be given “liberty or death,” Black American soldiers were living the adage even though they did not experience the same post-revolution freedoms as their White brothers in arms.
During the era of Reconstruction, at least 2,000 Black men were elected to southern political positions, and 16 Black men served in the U.S. Congress.
During that short time, these men helped to:
- create and fund public schools that served both Black and White students,
- support land and wealth redistribution,
- develop fair labor contracts for Freedmen,
- protect civil and voting rights, and
- seek to thwart the convict labor system.
Though still surrounded by the remnants of enslavement, these elected officials did not choose vengeance but reconciliation and a unified forward movement.
Even as White supremacy reversed the gains made by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that outlawed racial segregation and codified the doctrine of “separate but equal” in 1896, Black Americans stood firm in their claims to full American citizenship founding civil rights organizations, newspapers and political clubs dedicated to continued resistance.
In the pursuit of full citizenship, Black Americans have not strived for change through violent means nor denied Americans of various racial and ethnic backgrounds the opportunity to join the movement. Under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Black Americans and their non-Black allies used civil disobedience to protest segregation and voter suppression. The aforementioned were willing to forfeit their freedom and lives through peaceful resistance.
Black Americans have continuously sought comradery with various marginalized groups and have welcomed inspiration through the literature of oppressed people globally. For instance, the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, Fred Hampton, created the “Rainbow Coalition” to unite impoverished Black, White, and Latino Americans against capitalist exploitation. The founders of the Black Panther Party, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, regularly consumed the work of American, Eastern European, Latin American, and Asian revolutionaries to better understand and formulate a response to an oppressive system.
The experience of Black people in the United States includes a collective history of constant struggle, rejection, violence, and separation, but it also includes a collective history of resilience, prosperity, and creativity amid astounding odds. It includes compassion toward others who have experienced similar discrimination, many times convicting Black Americans to take up the mantle of causes or groups that are indifferent toward the past and present struggles of Black Americans.
Coiette P. Gaston, Ed.D.
If there is anything that we can surmise from Black History among the inventors, scholars, and entertainers that are highlighted, it is that if the United States is the greatest nation in the world, it is because the Black American belief in the creed that “all men are created equal” has made the United States a more equitable place for all persons, born or naturalized.
Coiette P. Gaston, Ed.D., is a history lecturer in the Division of Social Sciences at Prairie View A&M University.
[1] Franquiz, M. E., & Salinas, C. S. (2011). Newcomers to the U.S.: Developing historical thinking among Latino immigrant students in a central Texas high school. Bilingual Research Journal, 34, 58–75.
[2] https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf