While it’s important to remember those we’ve lost to racist attacks, Black History Month isn’t just a monthlong BLM movement - it’s also about celebrating Black achievements in history. How about we talk about some Black accomplishments instead?
We can start with some of the ones we learn about in US history. Martin Luther King Jr. is lauded as a figurehead of the Civil Rights Movement (though he was definitely only one of the many that made a change) through his use of peaceful protest and civil disobedience; it was difficult for white people to paint him as an unruly or violent Black protestor when he wouldn’t fight back. Rosa Parks was one of many who fought back against segregation - in her case, she refused to get up from a “whites only” section of a bus (though she wasn’t the first: her action was preceded by Claudette Colvin). Oliver Brown fought against the school district that wanted him to enroll his daughter in a segregated school, which spurred Brown v. Board of Education
and overturned the segregation laws permitted by Plessy v. Ferguson
. Harriet Tubman worked for years to help slaves escape the South and join the North (where slavery was illegal), and helped them to find work. Frederick Douglass escaped slavery and proved to many that Black people were just as intelligent as white people, and when Victoria Woodhull ran for president in 1872, she nominated him as her Vice Presidential running mate. W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells both helped found the NAACP, and both were impressive writers (though Du Bois largely wrote nonfiction literature with some ventures into other fields, and Wells was primarily a journalist). Not to mention Carter G. Woodson, who extensively studied and worked to preserve Black history, and created what was then called Negro History Week. Without his contributions, we might not have even had Black History Month at all.
There’s far more than just these historical figures, too, and this is just from the US.
And what about those who help shape culture, even if they weren’t figureheads of social movements? The Jazz Age of the 1920s was spearheaded by Black musicians, like Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, and the France-based Josephine Baker; the creation of rock and roll stems from Black musicians like Chuck Berry; and even today, much of our music has influences from Black creators. Madam CJ Walker is one of the first documented Black self-made millionaires, having earned her wealth through creating hair products specifically for Black women. And how about Mae Jemison, who was the first Black woman to go into space, or Bessie Coleman, the first Black woman to hold both a pilot’s license and an international pilot’s license? A slave known by Onesimus shared the process of variolation (i.e., exposing someone to a slight amount of smallpox to give them a less deadly version of it) with his slaveowner, which led his slaveowner to suggest the process when there was a smallpox outbreak, and protected many people from contracting smallpox (and variolation led to the development of modern-day vaccines). And of course there’s modern-day Black people who have made history or are popular cultural icons, like Prince, Simone Biles, Amanda Gorman, Whitney Houston, Serena Williams, LeBron James, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, and so many more.
By all means we should talk about racism; there’s no getting around the fact that it’s shaped many cultures in detrimental ways and still causes a lot of damage. But there’s more to Black history than just racism and suffering, and we should also celebrate the intelligence, accomplishments, and positive life events of Black people, not just focus on the bad. Working towards racial justice and equality is more than condemning racism; it’s also promoting and encouraging Black voices and viewpoints, learning about Black roles in history and culture, and showing that Black achievements are worth celebrating too.
