Is it time to make Black History Month History?

This February, Black History is being recognized in North America for the 83rd time. This year’s celebration, however, seems to allure a different kind of attention in inciting us to think about the way forward of this historical journey. This interest comes following the historical election of the first man of color as the 44th President of the United States, which is a big breakthrough in American history, particularly black history.

When Dr. Carter G. Woodson started the Negro History Month in 1926, black people were facing atrocious discrimination as a result of racism and the mainstream culture was adamant in recording black people’s contributions in history. The objective of observing black history month was based on recognizing black history, teaching blacks and non-blacks about the contributions made by black people. This culture later on has expanded itself to Canada and UK that celebrate the moment in the months of February and October respectively.

Many things have changed since Woodson proposed the Negro History Week when it comes to race relations. Even though we are far from saying racism is a long gone history, when we witnessed America electing a black President, it lifted the sprit of many and demonstrated that American people have come a long way.

Following this, some people seems to think that Black History Month is no more needed, stressing that black history is no more a marginalized history. Many of us, however, beg to differ. Having Obama at the White House wouldn’t change the contents of the history books we have at our schools over night. This is to mean that as long us we still know that our kids wouldn’t learn about major black people’s contributions in school, we still need black history month. But at our time, we have to take also a new role in taking Woodson’s intentions into the next level. Woodson’s time didn’t grant him the ability to make African-American history part of the mainstream History. But our time is different.

For the past 80 years to have fruits, we should go beyond what Black History Month achieved in recognizing and recording black people’s contribution and history. Now, it is time to challenge the mainstream system in making African American History or African Canadian History part of the American and Canadian History respectively. That calls for rewriting of history. That way, history would be told authentically as a whole, not from the perspective of the majority or the minority group. For Example, black literature should become part of literature courses in Universities and black inventors should be included in our science books. The same goes for all historical contributions in all walks of life. By then,we wouldn’t need Black History Month.

In rewriting History, the other thing black educators and scholars should focus on is telling our History as a whole. Until now, the focus seems to be on post slavery history. However, to have the coming generation understand their full-fledged identities, our history should be told starting from the ancestral roots in Africa. This way, we can have our kids take pride in their legacy that laid the foundation for world civilization. It is a truism to state that if we don’t know where we have come from, we would have difficult in figuring out where to go.

Here at Born Black, we believe that dedicating one month to black history is inadequate considering the richness, the diversity and the scope of the stories to be told.  Dedicated to our quest in having these stories told on a daily basis, in this issue of Born Black, we bring you bits of history that we think are less recognized.