02/02/11: Recognizing our shared heritage

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

FEBRUARY is designated as Black History Month. It is not uniquely an American event. Other countries around the world — including Canada, also in February, and the United Kingdom in October — celebrate it. The purpose is a remembrance of people and events in the history of Africans who were moved to places throughout the world, known as the African diaspora.

In the United States, Black History Month originated in 1926 as Negro History Week. Carter G. Woodson, a historian, chose the second week in February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. His goal was to educate blacks about our cultural background and to instill a sense of pride. When it was expanded to the month in 1976, as a part of our bicentennial commemoration, it was to feature the racial aspects of our nation’s history.

Some question the need for such recognition; after all, the likes of Harriet Tubman and Booker T. Washington are included in the history books now, and we celebrate the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with a national holiday.

But do the names Daniel Hale Williams, Matthew Henson, Charles Drew or Jean Baptiste DuSable ring any bells?

When I was growing up, it fell to community leaders to teach black history. My godmother, a 1929 graduate of Howard Normal and Theological School for the Education of Teachers and Preachers, now Howard University, the nation’s oldest black college, used to school me and others on it, making us memorize and recite the poems of Langston Hughes, listen to the music of Duke Ellington and read the works of W.E.B. DuBois. It was helpful that we had Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, the nation’s second-oldest black college, nearby.

None of what we learned was in our history books.

One thing we rarely discussed was slavery. I recall asking my father about his grandfather, who had been a slave, and my father had almost nothing to tell me — because his grandfather had told him little. Instead, he spoke of how my great-grandfather amassed land, buying his first six acres in 1874.

Our informal black history education was true to the vision of Woodson: cultural awareness and pride. But it wasn’t without its faults.

In addition to it being our nation’s bicentennial, 1976 saw the release of the award-winning double album “Songs in the Key of Life” by Stevie Wonder. The album featured a song entitled “Black Man.” Like many, I learned every word to the song, which, despite its title, wasn’t just about the achievements of black men.

Only later did I discover that some of the “truths” in the song were inaccurate.

For example, Benjamin Banneker is identified as having “helped design the nation’s capital, made the first clock to give time in America and wrote the first almanac,” none of which is true. This is a problem, of course, with oral history. Had black history been integrated into our American history, such embellishments would not have been allowed to stand.

The need for a full and accurate accounting of the contributions of black Americans to our common history is the reason Black History Month remains important. Such a celebration need not focus only on the first black doctor, engineer or president but on their accomplishments. Banneker may have been the first black to create an almanac, but he wasn’t the first person to do so. There are plenty of examples of blacks who contributed significantly to our country.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a physician, made history when he performed the first successful open heart surgery in 1893. Matthew Henson was an explorer and was the first man known to have set foot on the North Pole, in 1909. Dr. Charles Drew, a surgeon and medical researcher, was considered a pioneer in blood collection and plasma processing for his work in the World War II Plasma for Britain Project in 1940. Jean Baptiste DuSable, a frontierman born in Haiti, founded the city of Chicago in 1774.

Stevie Wonder’s “Black Man” may have gotten Banneker wrong, but his message continues to resonate: “This world was made for all men — all people, all babies, all children, all colors, all races.” Recognizing and highlighting the contributions of blacks to our shared history is a step toward that. The day will come when it will no longer be necessary, but I don’t believe we are there yet.