“Today, we’re starting a new unit,” my third-grade history teacher announced. “Who knows the significance of February?”
A hand shot up from the straw-colored hair girl wearing pigtails in the front row, vying for the role of teacher’s pet. “Valentine’s Day?” she guessed. “No, that’s not it,” the teacher replied in a tone inviting other guesses. Pigtails’ hand sank slowly, dejected.
The class of twenty otherwise rowdy students fell silent. “February,” our teacher concluded, “is Black History Month.”
Every eye in the room turned on me, the only Black student in my grade–one of three in my elementary school in Bossier City, Louisiana. Their withering gaze conveyed depths: curiosity, confusion at my culture being honored, disgust. It was a lousy trade for what ended up being a week-long survey on Abraham Lincoln, George Washington Carver, and Martin Luther King, Jr., especially when all I ever wanted was to fit in.
For as long as I can remember, Black History Month has been an inconvenience for America—a congressional mandate without funding. An annual check-up at the dentist exposing cavities white conservatives prefer to ignore and resent being held accountable for. Never something to be celebrated.
Significant efforts have been taken to bury the historical tragedies and triumphs of Black Americans. When our history could not be buried, it was burned, like in the case of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. This was an event I only learned of in 2017 despite attending high school in Edmond, Oklahoma, for three years, where Oklahoma history was a required course.
When it wasn’t buried or burned, it was drowned. This was the case with Lake Lanier, one of many “drowned Black towns” submerged underwater due to racial violence, systemic oppression and racialized infrastructure projects.
As such, it falls on Black Americans to excavate our systematically obscured heritage and attempt to hold those who interned it to account.
A few years ago, I began using February to research Black history and share it with followers on social media. These efforts led to shocking discoveries, such as the work of Selma Burke, a Black artist whose portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt was the uncredited inspiration for his likeness on the dime.
It called to attention a historical marker in front of First African Baptist Church in Philadelphia, one of the first Black Baptist churches in America, honoring two members of the church who sold themselves into slavery to free a slave who served as pastor.
This research also unveiled the accomplishments of Lt. Madeline Swegle, the Navy’s first Black woman to earn her Wings of Gold as a tactical air pilot in 2020, though the first white woman to earn the same honor did so in 1974.
With these revelations come frustration with the injustice of stumbling upon what I should have been taught. And unearthing the granular details of the atrocities committed against human beings simply for sharing my skin tone is equally disheartening.
For those whose slavery-obscured ancestral lineage already makes us feel like orphans, exhuming Black history reopens unhealed wounds. When coupled with reliably disingenuous critiques like, “Why don’t we have a white history month?”, February starts to feel like the longest month of the year.
But judging the trajectory of American politics, we may not have Black History Month much longer. Like a shipwrecked crew on a deflating raft in shark-infested waters, the space available to publicly dignify the humanity of minorities is rapidly diminishing.
From McCarthy-tinged campaigns against “cultural Marxism,” “Wokeism,” “CRT,” and (most recently) “DEI,” euphemisms for anti-Blackness abound. Lee Atwater would be proud of how well his Southern Strategy has permeated our political and cultural climate.
So, with what dwindling space remains, how should Black Americans commemorate our culture? As we have always done best: in resistance.
As we look beyond February to potentially dark days ahead, we remember the Africans enslaved on Brazilian plantations, disguising their martial arts as dance. Breaking bread, let us not forget those who created cuisine from the crumbs they were given.
In our art, we recall those who made their own instruments and pioneered music. And in our societal efforts, let us share the resolve of those willing to disrupt, to boycott, to sit until served, and to stand and risk everything on principle.
Black history is the story of an ostracized people embodying American ideals despite opposition from American culture. It is the story of exceptionalism without credit. It is triumph to spite trauma. It is an immovable obelisk dedicated to resilience. And it is an account we continue to write–too vast to be chronicled or contained within the month of February.
Black history is our commitment to remembering–not just what we have done, but all we are capable of.
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Accomplished attorney and author, dedicated to fighting for justice in his practice at Callahan & King, PLLC in Waco, Texas. Robert’s book, FIRE IN THE WHOLE: Embracing Our Righteous Anger with White Christianity and Reclaiming Our Wholeness, tackles spiritual abuse via the church’s complicity with racism, patriarchy, and bigotry while encouraging survivors that their anger is justified and the path to healing does exist (Westminster John Knox Press, September 24, 2024).
