Black History Month

Black History Month, like many other attempts to affirm African Americans, will soon fall to the wayside of non‑necessity. Not because it’s no longer relevant or important, but because it served a specific purpose and is now close to becoming stale and divisive. Carter G. Woodson was a great African American historian and author and it was out of his idea of a “Negro History Week” that Black History Month grew. Needless to say, it won’t grow any further; there’ll be no “Black History Year” on the American calendar.

Yet black history is every second, minute, hour, day, month and year of our lives. I believe that is what Dr. Woodson understood at a time when too many of us didn’t know our history extended beyond a plantation.  So he planted a seed.  Not only did that seed germinate to shed light on a glorious and wondrous people of antiquity and modern times, it inspired thousands more to reach for greatness in their own lives and contribute to the continuum of black excellence and achievement.

We should not be convinced that Dr. Woodson envisioned his idea to be a forever proposition, but rather a permanent integration of the truth of history into the lifelong learning experiences of us all. This is not done in a week or a month and certainly not once a year. To continue to approach black history in that manner is to condition the society to give black history only token recognition and mechanical, if not obligatory, observance. Even worse, it sends a psychologically crippling message to our children that we are perennially less than and that black excellence and black achievement is so abnormal and rare that it requires special notification each year apart from everybody else. Finally, the backlash and resentment will rise to the levels seen in the opposition to affirmative action and quotas, thus undermining decades of serious and sincere embracing of an idea whose time had come.

We, not others, need to recognize when an idea has run its course, especially our ideas. As the song says, we gotta “know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em ….” It seems black leadership knows only how to hold ’em.  The NAACP won’t update even though there’s no more “colored” people to be found; nor will the UNCF even though there’s no more “Negroes” to educate. Our energies are expended acquiring institutions, bringing them to their heights and then just holding onto them forever. The only thing that should be a “forever” for African Americans is our birthright of wealth.

When Black History Month is laid to rest it is we who must do it and do it with the proper honor and respect to Dr. Woodson. When we arrive at that crossroad it’ll feel like laying to rest a loved one that loved and nurtured us through the best and worst of times; a friend, a mentor and a griot that reminded us that we always were and always will be. At the same time the world will be recording every second, minute and hour of this joyous departure, as well as every move we make in the days, weeks, months and years to come.