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The month of February reliably brings with it Presidents Day gross sales, chocolate, roses and questions on why we nonetheless have a whole month devoted to Black historical past. The gross sales and the sweets are salutary distractions from the doldrums of midwinter, however the questions go straight to the guts of how we consider ourselves as a nation, how we got here to be and the hole between these two issues.
As somebody who has taught and written about American historical past, particularly African American historical past, for greater than twenty years, I’m heartened to see the general public reckoning with our previous that we undertake every year at the same time as I do know it would invariably be construed, a minimum of in some quarters, as a sort of racial entitlement and spawn the facile query, “Why is there no white historical past month?”
The celebration of Black Historical past Month owes its origins to the historian Carter G. Woodson, who was born in 1875 in Virginia to folks who had been enslaved. He didn't begin highschool till age 20 however went on to earn a bachelor’s diploma at Berea School in Kentucky and a doctorate in historical past from Harvard College.
Scarred by his experiences with racism, Woodson deployed his formidable mind to confronting the lies and historic distortions upon which the edifice of segregation and racial subjugation rested. In 1926 he created “Negro Historical past Week” to assist promote this trigger. He selected February in homage to the abolitionist Frederick Douglass and to Abraham Lincoln, each of whom have been born in that month.
Woodson died in 1950, however his work continued beneath the auspices of the Affiliation for the Examine of Negro Life and Historical past, a corporation he based. In 1976, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Negro Historical past Week, the group expanded the marketing campaign to your entire month.
The trigger to which Woodson devoted his life has not but been achieved. We nonetheless dwell in a society the place race is correlated to disparities in well being care, schooling, wages, residence values and the felony justice system. In Might 2020 these realities turned starkly obvious because the nation watched in horror the excruciatingly lengthy video of George Floyd’s demise. As protests erupted in each state within the union, the query “How did we get right here?” might be heard echoing within the chaotic streets.
The very fact is that, on some stage, we've got at all times been right here. However as a result of we've got tended to deal with historical past as a resume — that's, a recitation of our achievements and virtues — it may be troublesome to acknowledge this reality.
Contemplate two experiences I had that underscore this level.
Some years in the past, I used to be invited to offer a prestigious handle at Bates School in Maine. As if to emphasise the truth that I used to be in New England in January, a storm blew in shortly after my arrival, blanketing the campus in a thick layer of snow. Regardless of the climate, individuals stopped me as I made my method throughout campus and instructed me how a lot they have been trying ahead to my discuss, which was to be held within the faculty’s stunningly appointed chapel. Simply earlier than the occasion started, the varsity’s president launched herself after which took me over to satisfy Sen. Angus King, who had are available regardless of the climate.
My discuss that day was concerning the weight of historical past within the current. Buoyed by the hospitality, I climbed to the pulpit, thanked the president for the invitation, acknowledged King after which appeared out into the pews full of college students, school and visitors and commenced my feedback by bluntly telling my viewers, “This place solely exists due to racism.” There was a second of uncomfortable silence earlier than individuals registered the that means of my assertion.
Maine got here into the union in 1820 as a part of the famed Missouri Compromise. In 1819 the Missouri Territory was on the verge of statehood. On the time the nation consisted of twenty-two states, evenly divided between those who allowed slavery and those who prohibited it. Admitting Missouri as a slave state would have upset this stability, giving slaveholding states two extra seats in the US Senate than free states had and growing the variety of slavery’s defenders within the Home of Representatives. The popularity of this reality led to a yearlong stalemate that continued till Speaker of the Home Henry Clay negotiated a compromise permitting Missouri to enter the union as a slave state whereas establishing the thirty sixth parallel because the northernmost line during which slavery might be permitted. The potential legislative imbalance was addressed by permitting Maine, a brand new free state, to be carved out of the northern portion of Massachusetts. Thus, the absence of slavery in Maine successfully underwrote the cruelty of bondage in Missouri.
I left Maine and spoke at an occasion at Florida State College. I instructed the gang concerning the feedback I’d made in Maine and, as a murmur of commentary unfold amongst them, I stated, “However earlier than you get too comfy, let’s speak about how Florida bought right here.”
The First Seminole Warfare of 1817-18, during which Gen. Andrew Jackson seized and occupied a good portion of the then-Spanish-controlled territory of Florida, have been the fruits of longstanding conflicts with the Indigenous inhabitants there. However Jackson’s invasion additionally got here on the behest of slaveholders in Georgia who complained that the Seminoles refused to return fugitive slaves who made it over the border into the territory. (The Seminole forces included African Individuals who fought in opposition to Jackson’s military quite than be returned to slavery.) Jackson’s occupation of Pensacola finally led to the administration of President James Monroe figuring out a hasty diplomatic answer with Spain, which agreed to cede the territory in 1821.
I flew residence to New York from Florida, however had I needed to proceed the theme I may have flown to California, whose admission to the union as a free state was leveraged in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which obliged the federal authorities to find individuals who had escaped slavery and drag them again into bondage.
Or Texas, which fought a struggle of independence in massive measure to guard slavery from the Mexican authorities, which was largely hostile to the establishment. (Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, 36 years earlier than the US did.) The Texans joined the US in 1845 however seceded once more simply 16 years later and fought a second struggle, the American Civil Warfare, for the safety of slavery.
I may have flown to Philadelphia and talked concerning the clauses of the Structure that protected slavery and stymied Black equality. There are extra examples — lots of them — however the level right here is that not solely is our historical past as a nation certain to the query of slavery, and subsequently race, however our fundamental geography is as properly. We will’t absolutely perceive why the nation appears to be like the best way it does with out confronting these issues.
My feedback in Maine and Florida got within the context of talks about Black historical past, however they have been additionally pertinent to the basic story of how our states got here to be. There isn't any white historical past month as a result of there has by no means been a query on this nation about white individuals belonging. However for Black individuals the battle for full and equal inclusion stays pertinent to our on a regular basis lives.
The irony of Black Historical past Month is that, regardless of the persistent questions on its relevance or whether or not it's divisive, it's simply essentially the most sustained engagement the American public has with any of its historical past through the yr. Given the polarities of our politics, the threats to our democracy and the numerous crises confronting us, we want extra engagement with our historical past, not much less. February simply occurs to be our greatest beginning place.
Jelani Cobb is the director of the Ira A. Lipman Heart for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights at Columbia College and a employees author at The New Yorker.
This story seems within the February .