What Is Black History?
We know about Coretta Scott King and Shirley Chisholm. We remember Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. annually but what is Black history….
Good morning my fellow brothers and sisters let me take a moment of your time to share with you a definition of Black history that the powers that be will never want you to know. Welcome to Black history month in 2019. 400 years ago the first slaves sailed from the point of no return to a place they can never truly call home. 400 years later this “place” we inhabit called the United States of America have partitioned a month in which we are mandated to reflect on our history. Are you ready?
Black history is….
YOU! You! Yes it may seem cliche and cheesy to express, but understand the power in that statement of what I hold to be unequivocally true. You are Black history. You are a continuation of excellence, of royalty, of beauty, and of culture that has shaped the world we inhabit today.
It’s always a great time to take a moment and reflect on what we have contributed to the world. Just reflect on some names with me for a moment – Shirley Chisholm, Angela Davis, Frederick Douglass; Sojourner Truth; Harriet Tubman; Martin Luther King Jr; Malcom X; Nikki Giovanni; W.E.B. Dubois; Rosa Parks, Louis Armstrong; Aretha Franklin; Michael Jackson; Whitney Houston; Tupac Shakur; Beyonce, Maya Angelou and Ralph Ellison. Science – George Washington Carver and Neil Degrasse Tyson. Entrepreneurship – Madame C.J. Walker and Dr Dre. Sports – Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali, Nelson Mandela, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and like I said, you.
Why I keep harping on us ALL being Black history is because we truly walk for those yet to come. We look at the past and applaud those who came before for doing great things. It’s easy to look back to the past and see who was on the right side of history, separated as we are by years and years. Hindsight is always 20/20.
I want to challenge you today to take this Black history month and think of our place in history today. Which side of history will you stand on? You only have to open Twitter to see that the injustices still affect the Black community today . Don’t be neutral. Make a commitment that you won’t look the other way when the elephant stands on the mouse’s tail. We owe those that came in ships long before us much more. I implore you this Black history month to think like a revolutionary. To believe in the essence of who you are. Black history is you and you are a revolution waiting to happen.
